Retiring without retreating

I was interested to read in yesterday’s i Newspaper that more than a quarter of retired over 65s said they gave up their careers too soon – and a fifth were disappointed by their retirement. Very sadly, 33% of respondents said their ‘grand dreams’ for retirement had not come to fruition. (All part of a survey of 1,000 people conducted by the home care provider, Home Instead Senior Care.)

Social care survey

As someone who has ‘retired’ in my early 60s, there are some survey findings with which I can empathise: 25% said their day no longer had a routine – and I had ‘enjoyed’ (and now appreciate more than ever) a very regular school, term-time and holiday routine for 38 years; 45% of those polled said that what they missed most about their work was the time spent with colleagues – and it’s this I miss the most. I would also add to this the loss of opportunity seeing young people flourish, all part of my vocation as a Schoolmaster.

I am, of course, adjusting and there’s much I don’t miss – especially the stress of exam results at this time in the year and the inevitable pressure from those parents of the few pupils who have fallen short in their aspirations. Further pressure to maintain the pupil roll and to answer the angry (and often unrealistic ‘wine o’ clock) email are also features of school life that I don’t harp back to.

Keeping on working as long as you can

Interestingly, in another feature in yesterday’s Press we read of Nicholas Parsons who, aged 95, has missed only his second recording of BBC4’s ‘Just a minute’ in 50 years of broadcasting. If you ever listen to the programme, you can tell that this is someone who never wants to retire from his ‘day job’ – and good for him, too. (I should add that whilst my parents are in their 80s and 90s they still enjoy some regular paid employment – which they also enjoy!)

Doing nothing?

A further article, by Siobhan Norton in the i Newspaper, extolled the virtues of ‘fjaka’ – the Croatian art of doing nothing. This is the perfection of the art of siesta without sleeping – a sort of meditation, even lethargy, as one stares off into the middle distance; ‘look on and make no sound’. This writer realised that when on holiday it might be a blessing to go off-line, at least for a time, and so escape the tyranny of ‘just checking my device’ – again and again. But then, of course, this is not retirement but, perhaps, preparation for it.

A productive retirement

Whilst I find echoes in my own semi-retired situation of some of the traits mentioned above in the survey, I cannot say that I fully concur. As I have just noted, I am only semi-retired: I retired from schoolmastering (and headmastering) full-time last summer but since this April I have taken up a part-time post, using my school experience, to support Christian Heads, Chaplains and Teachers in the independent sector. I was fortunate to be able to plan to retire rather than have it thrust upon me owing to ill-health, dismissal or redundancy. I do still miss my old routines, the camaraderie of the staff room and the excitement of young people learning and gaining fresh insights. However, I have tried to ‘Retire without retreating’ (and can recommend a book of this title by Johnnie Godwin). Taking a sabbatical off paid work has helped and I am trying to ‘age with grace’ by keeping active through sport and gardening, spending time with family (aged from a few months to the mid-90s) and enjoying getting to know my wife all over again. These adjustments are rarely easy and are never fully mastered but I would urge everyone to plan early for a productive retirement – and that’s not just by paying into a pension scheme!

Rubbishing resilience!

Key expressions in school

When I first started out in teaching in 1980, there were several key expressions doing the rounds. ‘The photocopier’s on the blink again’, is a polite form of what I regularly heard on teaching practice. ‘Where’s the banda paper?’ was another refrain as was a line from a Riding Lights Christian sketch about the Prodigal Son – a Social Worker from Camden Town saying (as she dragged on her cigarette), ‘I really care about the kids’!

I certainly did (and do) ‘care about the kids’ and for me a buzz-word in education was ‘holistic’. I wanted to involve pupils outside of the classroom with activities and sport as much as I wanted to inspire them academically inside. (I still do.) As the 1980s moved on into the next decade, a key educational term was ‘cross-curricular studies’. I remember teaching History and English at a rural boarding school in Scotland (Glenalmond): we re-enacted Shakespeare’s Macbeth among the trees and paths of the school drive before returning indoors to research Medieval Scottish monarchs and their wars whilst plotting their campaigns on large-scale maps before going into the wonderful Episcopal Chapel and trying to imagine how they worshiped. It was an incredibly creative time and, I think, great fun for all concerned – but this phase didn’t last the early 1990s.

Differentiation – for all

Next we were on to ‘differentiation’ and this seemed much more challenging. The core subjects of Maths, English and Science – as well as Modern Foreign Languages and the Classics – were safe from interference as they stuck rigidly to their setting. Humanities’ teachers, however, had a challenging time devising ‘hands on’ lessons which allowed pupils of all abilities to access the curriculum and be stretched accordingly. This emphasis definitely had the advantage of ensuring teaching material and approaches were always being re-examined. I remember one priceless lesson with a mixed-ability Year 9 Religious Studies class. We were considering the run-up to Easter and I happened to point to a picture on the wall which was a reproduction of Leonardo’s ‘The Last Supper’. Quick as a flash, one boy blurted out: ‘Ah, sir, that’s the one with Jesus’ wife in it’. The Da Vinci Code has a lot to answer for!

Resilience and relationships

In more recent years much has been said about ‘resilience’ as part of the character-building we pride ourselves with in schools (and that’s not just for the pupils). Many school ‘Mission Statements’ now contain this word and in my last school (Ballard in New Milton, Hampshire) we put it into our list of pupil expectations. I happen to like the word and the grit and determination it tends to inspire. Recently, however, I read an article by Andy Wolfe (Deputy Chief Education Officer for the C of E @mrawolfe) in the TES, in which he calls on us to re-think the concept of resilience – and I warm to his reasoning.

Resilience as a word has Latin roots and from there to an old English word, ‘to resile’, which means variously ‘to return to the same place’, ‘to spring back’ and ‘to return to normal’. Considering these definitions, the word is much less inspiring than we would wish. Andy Wolfe quotes from a recent conversation with a Headteacher which rather sadly sums this up: ‘Resilience for me means coping until I retire’.

In the New Testament (and the book of Romans), St Paul (who knew a thing or two about opposition, heartache and struggle) wrote this: ‘We know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; character, hope’. Andy Wolfe argues: ‘Re-thinking resilience offers a different lens to re-imagine our present situation. It can help us move beyond the idea of just getting through or coping. In the most difficult situations we face at school, it is primarily the formation of character (as opposed to technical competencies) that defines our response and shapes our relationships’. Andy quotes another Headteacher who uses a telling phrase which I like a lot: ‘I need the courage to tell a more realistic story’.

The courage to tell a more realistic story

Staff, pupils and parents need to see that we, too, have struggles and don’t have all the answers. If we endeavour to let times of difficulty shape and mould us positively so we emerge all the stronger; then our pupils (and others) will see that the teacher is also learning and not simply doing and repeating. Learning and Teaching rather than Teaching and Learning – I feel a new expression emerging!

FYI -ELI5 is not a postcode

Acronyms are everywhere!

I am currently in Liverpool visiting family. The other day I had my four-year-old grandson in the car on our way to football club. We passed street signs telling us that ‘dream’ should now be ‘believe’ and ‘stadium’ was now to be called ‘home’ when my grandson suddenly exclaimed, “Look Bubba (his name for his granddad), we are now in L5”. What on earth has happened to our language? I think I am in need of ELI5…’Explain it Like I’m Five’.

AMA…Ask Me Anything

I am in the City of the so-called ‘friendly derby’ (apparently the Blues and the Reds in this City of Belief and Home really like each other except when playing footy) and I am here to help out in a family which has a new baby and so I am AMA…’Ask Me Anything’ (which translates further as ‘I’m ready, waiting and willing’).

I am all for KISS (‘keep it simple, stupid’), not least in the home of a new born and when the headlines this week about baby research are all about DNA: did you know this stands for ‘deoxyribonucleic acid’? Clearly another case for ELI5. Still, now I am retired I am no longer afflicted by YAM. (In my younger days in Africa this was the name for sweet potato but apparently now means ‘Yet Another Meeting’.)

Things move fast, however, and my children now tell me that I should take care when putting LOL at the end of a text or WhatsApp message. I thought it meant ‘Laugh Out Loud’ (or ‘lots of love’) but apparently this has long since been replaced by LUZL which is a corruption of LOLs and denotes fun, excitement, kicks and laughs (and not always of the straight forward kind).

TIL…Today I Learned

My head is already reeling and so I’ll conclude by telling you this: TIL (‘Today I Learned’) that the most useful acronym of our time is ‘TL;DR’. I wish I’d known this when dealing with 80+ emails a day as a HM / HT (Headmaster/Head Teacher), not to mention the YAMs. I expect that President Trump uses ‘TL;DR’ rather a lot. Worked it out yet? It stands for ‘Too Long; Didn’t Read’.

JSYK (‘Just So You Know’) I am indebted to Gyles Brandreth in a recent edition of the I newspaper for his stimulus here. OAO (‘Over And Out’).

Retirement – rough or smooth?

The retirement letter

‘Dear Mr James’, a civil service department chief wrote to a recently retired tax inspector, ‘Thank you for your 46 years’ service for the Department. In this time, you have had 12 days’ sick leave. As you retire, please make sure you return your leather case and pens. Yours sincerely…’

I am not making this up! This was indeed the retirement letter the father of a close family member received (admittedly a few years ago now). He had had a good farewell party but now his life time employer wanted back his monogrammed leather case (he’d had two in his working life) together with the biros that remained. He was not permitted back inside the office and was thus, effectively, cut off from his former colleagues and workplace.

I am sure that some who retire will be happy being as far away as possible from where they had previously worked and may even appreciate no longer seeing some, if not all, of their former work mates. I can’t answer for Mr James above (not his real name), but after 46 years in one place I am sure that the type of severance he experienced was not only sudden and severe but also distressing, disturbing and needlessly harsh.

The importance of community

I retired as a Headmaster at the end of August this year. I still live within ten minutes’ walk of my former school and continue to bump into colleagues, governors, pupils and parents as I shop locally, play sport and attend church. Like Mr James I had a super ‘send-off’ (several, in fact, from a wonderful spread of people within my school family) but, thankfully unlike Mr James, I did not receive a letter requesting the return of my school leather case (aka mobile ‘phone and laptop – already handed back). I did experience, however, the pain of being separated from a community I had been part of for nine years – and I still feel the separation keenly. (My ‘leather case’ moment was having my request for the birth dates of colleagues, so that I could continue to send cards to each annually, turned down owing to GDPR regulations!)

Don’t misunderstand me: my former school has been very tolerant of me continuing to maintain some contact via the weekly parent and staff hockey team (I’m the ‘Aged Al’ who trots up and down the wing receiving the occasional friendly pass) and they have been very kind with invitations to key events. My successor and other senior staff have also been more than approachable and friendly. The ‘problem’ is partly me (and my sensitivities) and partly the inevitable process involved in leaving an institution after many years at the helm and my determination to steer clear and thus not ‘queer the pitch’ for the new Head and management that have replaced my regime.

Schools can be families, too

An organisation such as a school is indeed a family – and where I worked we regularly referred to it as such. I genuinely miss the pupils and having an insight into their progress (hence the delight last weekend when I met a senior pupil on a train. I had to restrain myself from being too intrusive). I wonder, with a professional interest, how certain appointments are faring – former colleagues in new positions of responsibility and pupils who are now leading the school as prefects. I also miss taking a caring and prayerful interest in the lives of the teachers and other staff, many of whom I appointed and some who allowed me to play a small part in their lives – and not only at school.

There is no easy answer to this loss of a collegiate community, except to encourage other employers to ensure that the occasionally painful part of transition from work to retirement (no matter the position held) is remembered and thought through sensitively. As I have said, I have been fortunate in my former employer and community. No doubt time and distance will bring some more balm: I’m moving to another part of the country once the solicitors in the property chain get their act together – no doubt the substance of another blog! I continue to feel a part of the school communities in which I have served, and especially the two where I have been Head, and so I hope each will also continue to indulge me with occasional news and invitations – and remember other staff who have ‘moved on’ and still feel a part of the wider school family.

Rhythm, routines and refreshment

Retirement – continued

I wrote recently (‘Retiring but not retreating) about what a strange experience it was when I found myself taking my grandson to school for the first time and what it was like ‘on the other side of the fence’ as a carer rather than a teacher. As we have reached my first half-term break from the unfamiliar perspective of outside of the school gates, I have experienced other sensations, no doubt common to other retirees.

Pool and pints

I met three former colleagues socially for a game of pool and a glass of beer on the first evening of the break. I enjoyed their company and the competitiveness of the game but I felt strangely ‘out of it’. I wasn’t especially weary – they commented on how fresh and relaxed I was looking – and in an odd way I envied them their tiredness. I felt they had earned their pints and pool whilst I had not. No doubt this is my usual warped Calvinist work ethic coming out, but therein lies a message. I have given up one very tiring, stressful but fulfilling job – schoolmastering – and have yet to take up another cause. It’s good to rest, to be reflective and to feel refreshed, of course, but I am experiencing some restlessness and need to take on board the advice in Adam Mabry’s book, The Art of Rest.

The art of rest

The subtitle of Mabry’s book is ‘faith to hit pause in a world that never stops’ – and he is primarily writing for those still in regular, paid, work. Whatever your faith position (the author is a Pastor), Mabry’s advice is universal. He cites one of Mother Teresa’s pearls of wisdom: ‘Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin’. And so I am learning ‘to begin’: to sleep for a decent stretch of time by going to bed not too late and rising not so late either – routines for retirees are important, too, and perhaps more so when there isn’t the urgency of staff briefing, registration and lessons. I’m learning to read more and not to feel guilty about reading a book when it isn’t part of a bedtime routine or a holiday luxury. I am trying to be more reflective. I wrote blogs weekly as a Head and these, I hope, carried some thought and reflection. The motivation then, however, was partly marketing and partly highlighting events in school whereas now, I hope, I can be more objective in my blogging.

As a Christian pastor, Mabry is also advocating more time for a proper Sabbath rest (and not simply on a Sunday) as well as less hurried times of prayer and Scripture reading. I’m trying to be more proactive in this area, too, but I am also taken with his emphasis on taking on an avocation. I wasn’t familiar with this word until I read it in his book – essentially something one does which isn’t your principle vocation – but I am enjoying the concept and the practice. I have played more golf (as mentioned in an earlier blog) but I am also enjoying doing things with my hands: gardening and, recently, re-painting a sad looking and elderly garden gnome (acquired at some point in my university days)! He now looks happier, more colourful and refreshed – as I aspire to be.

There is more for me to ‘do’ as I take this sabbatical and learn how to establish positive rhythms and routines, but I hope that I shall actually learn that ‘doing’ is not always the same as ‘being’. My worth does not lie in what I do but in who I am and so the next time I play pool with former colleagues I hope I will be more gracious in accepting their comments about my rejuvenated state and prepared to accept that ‘yesterday’ has indeed gone (but valuable times for all that). And as for ‘tomorrow’…that depends on how I learn to rest and reflect ‘today’!

Lost for words?

Earlier this week it was ‘International Stammering Awareness Day’ and suddenly I was back in my elocution lessons. A feature on the BBC news focused on a school teacher called Abed Ahmed – or rather MISTER Abed Ahmed as he can’t say his first name without a prefix – and again I was reminded of my own occasional struggles to pronounce certain words and sounds. Mr Ahmed was helping the pupils in his school with this speech disability and once more my elocution teacher was there in front of me.

Heartwarming help

This piece of news reminded me of a similar heart-warming article in the Press in January this year about author Chris Young, who was trying to get in touch with his English teacher, a Miss Ward, from the late 1970s. Mr Young, who commended his teacher for supporting him after his mother died and his alcoholic father could not cope, tweeted: ‘I’d dropped into the bottom quarter for English at school. My #English Teacher Miss Ward pulled me out of that ditch’. At the age of 13 years, Miss Ward ‘treated me like a rock star, loved what I wrote and got me to talk in front of the class’. He is now about to launch his first book!

I imagine (and I hope) that we all have memories of someone who has stood by us, encouraged us and ‘been there for us’ when the going got tough. Whilst my early life was very different from that of the gentleman above, I can also remember a teacher who impacted me positively and immeasurably – and who also gave me confidence to speak in front of others. Her name was Miss Margaret Maclaurin and she was my elocution teacher at Prep School in Scotland in the 1960s.

Stuttering and stammering

My parents lived and worked in West Africa and were in a remote area of Ghana when the time came for me to go to school aged five. There was nowhere suitable for me locally and so I came to board, aged five, at Drumley House Prep School near Ayr, Scotland. Whilst I have only fond memories of my eight years at Drumley, at some point in my early years there I developed a stammer. This was probably a result of the separation from my parents (perceived wisdom then was for me to be a whole school year away from my parents to enable me to settle as a boarder). Miss Maclaurin came to my rescue! She saw me once a week for elocution lessons and during this time not only did I learn a few ‘tricks’ (such as how to avoid using words beginning with ‘p’ when feeling tired and stressed and also, like Mr Ahmed, about prefixing troublesome sounds with easier words), I also learnt about speaking in public. Where this was once the most disarming place for me as a stutterer, it came to be a challenge which I relished. Miss M taught me to learn poetry off by heart so that when I declaimed I could concentrate on expression, modulation and emphasis and not have to worry about the words themselves.

As a Head I had to speak in public almost daily and owe a huge debt of gratitude towards Miss Maclaurin. It was a delight to visit her in her home when recently married and to introduce her to my wife. So engrossed were we in conversation that we quite forgot that my wife had gone off to the bathroom (and somehow locked herself in) – but that’s another story!

So, a challenge for us all: think of someone who has had a positive impact on our lives in years gone by and why not surprise them with a letter, a card, a call or even a visit – just to show appreciation? It might prove to be a ‘drop of grace’ in their life at this very moment. You’ll never know if you don’t try it – and who knows, someone may do it for you, too! Don’t be ‘lost for words’, no matter what this might mean in your life.

Retiring but not retreating

‘I suppose every day is like a weekend now’, one former colleague remarked recently. ‘Plenty of time for golfing and your garden – and also for your grandchildren’, he continued. ‘I can’t wait!’

Retiring but not retreating

I have to say that whilst I appreciated the sentiments expressed above, I didn’t entirely concur – or at least not yet! I have played more golf than I ever managed as a Schoolmaster (my leaving gift from the Governors was a new golf set), and especially as a Head, and I have pottered in the garden (mostly my children’s). I have also had time for our two grandchildren, one of whom was born just before I formally retired six weeks ago. The days have blurred a little, of course, without the regular term-time rhythm I have been familiar with for the past 38 years of my teaching profession. (If truth be told, it’s more like 57 years of school routines having started boarding aged five, worked my Gap year in a Prep School and then had four university years before continuing on in 1980 with my first teaching post.) However, it hasn’t all been plain sailing.

Received wisdom for teachers at the point of retirement is to ensure that they are doing something completely different whilst their former colleagues get back to the business of INSET, start of school admin and teaching. I followed this advice and went off to the IOW with my wife and mother-in-law (don’t smile, we all get on very well)! Within a very short time, however, I was back into school: my grandson was just starting Reception Class at his C of E primary in a northern city and as his mum needed to be away working for a few days my wife and I were called in to ‘cover’.

Car Park reverie

I know what ‘cover’ normally looks like in school but this was something altogether different and felt extremely odd. For the past 16 years as a Head I have been the one meeting and greeting children, parents and staff daily. The car park routine, beginning and end of the day, has been one of my favourite times. A chance to try and settle in the nervous newcomers with a friendly smile, chat and first names (and that’s just the new staff hurrying in late for Form time), and an opportunity to give out reminders (‘It’s home clothes on Friday for the House charities’) as well as the occasional informal admonition to tuck in a shirt or to pull a skirt lower. (I mustn’t lie: the latter obligations I did find tedious!) Now, just a week into September, it was very different: I was the one bringing a child into school and it was my turn to be nervous and unsure.

My grandson lives all of two minutes’ walk from his school (his father is, after all, the local Vicar), and at 8.40am precisely (any earlier was discouraged) I was waiting in line outside the school gates. The ‘lollipop lady’ was busy ushering youngsters and carers across the road whilst a series of yellow-coated playground assistants waited in line to welcome us. They were professional and polite and were already learning names – but it was clear that we were entering their territory! Even more intimidating was the formidable and aptly named Reception teacher, Mrs Handstrong (not her real name, but close), guarding the entrance to her classroom. She, too, was impressive and already on first name terms with all of her 30 charges as well as with most of the carers. I started to feel even more like a freshwater fish entering the sea as I took my grandson into his base, found his coat hook, deposited a water bottle and bag and then ensured my youngster had a starter activity to be getting on with.

My admiration for Reception Class teachers was already high from my own observation of these highly competent, professional and creative staff I have known as colleagues. They moved on even further in my esteem as I observed Mrs Handstrong, now with several whimpering five year olds hanging on to her arms, deftly usher us adults out of her domain whilst also instructing the TA to move into the first task of the day. I retreated gratefully and did indeed then spend the rest of the morning tending my daughter’s garden and playing some golf. I was back in line at the school gates at 3.10pm. This time I had a particular task to perform: I was to find a suitable moment to ask the Reception teacher about my grandson’s reading book and homework task. (Do they really have homework in Reception? Apparently they do!) My grandson, once I engaged his attention, was eager to be off home (he told me he had enjoyed lunch and play time) and so I had to seize my moment quickly. Mrs Handstrong was guarding the door whilst she selected the right carers to come forward. At the same time she rattled off some feedback on the day (apparently my grandson had been kind to another child – a proud grandfather moment) and still had time to answer my hurried questions. ‘Be sure that he brings in his picture and some comments about his interests by next Monday’. Phew – mission accomplished (for now)!

And so, yes, retirement ten days in was different from ‘normal school’ for me (and three more days such as the first were to follow) but it was not a retreat from the world of education. I had found myself being surprised by observing fresh things whilst I got a small insight into the ‘other side’ of the educational fence. Further insights and some disappointments were to follow – but that’s the focus of another blog!

Alastair Reid (recently retired Headmaster of Ballard School, New Milton, Hampshire)