~and one of those is me~

The Christmas break from school came Friday afternoon.  For the next two weeks all of us, teachers and students alike, will enjoy a much needed and very well deserved respite from the first half of the school year.  The days will fly by and before you know it, everyone will be back again in the early part of January.  

You know, I kind of miss those young people when I'm not with them.

The past 40 years in education have gone by without slowing down.  The older I have become, the more fleeting and temporary they have seemed.  Once I was 21 years old and just starting out as a beginning teacher.  Then I was 61 and looking at 4 decades of service in the education of children.

It's overwhelming at times to think of it and sobering beyond belief.

Every once in a while I get a message from someone asking me how I'm doing and how long I intend to teach.  They want to know if I ever am going to retire and if I do, what will I find to keep myself occupied from then on.  I really have no answer to any of that. 

At this point in time I just don't know, but as they say down here~

"In the near future ahead, I will be fixing to find out."

Although I have no real plans to retire after this school year, a person just doesn't know what lies ahead.  Keeping that in mind, I have determined to teach every single day this year as if it were the last one I would have.  I have kept to that promise.  

Sometimes as we are talking about things during the day, I remember my life as a third grader when I was their age.  It seems so strange to write the year "1963" on the whiteboard and to realize that over a half of a century has passed by since I too was one of them.  It's funny to see the looks on their faces when I write that number down.  I guess 1963 must really seem like the year 1850 or something to their innocent spirits.  They never come right out to say it, and they really don't need to.  The way that their mouths drop when they see that number tells it all.  

Kids, you have to love them.
And I do.

I'm trying to enjoy each and every day that I have off from school.  I've a plenty to do around here and a long list of things that are demanding my attention.  I'll probably get to most of them and for those that I don't, well they will to have wait for another time.  Once in a while I plan to practice up on that fine art of napping as well as just sit down and do absolutely nothing.  Both are beneficial to any of us,  and especially to school teachers who have been around the block several times.

And one of those is me.

This picture is so priceless.  January 28, 1983 seems like long ago and at the same time, only yesterday.  It was a day that we were celebrating the birthday of the great state of Kansas. I was teaching first grade back home in Haven, Kansas.  We celebrated the day as the pioneer children would have and everyone came dressed in period clothing.  The classroom lights were turned off and we ate our sack lunches around our desks.  There were no computers or technology to turn off because back then, who would have even thought of them? I have absolutely loved my life as a teacher and when it is over, I will have zero regrets about anything that I have done.  

I could sleep at night in 1983 and I can still sleep at night in 2016.