If you’re curious why I haven’t been posting recently, here’ s why.  I’m back in the classroom teaching to teens, something that I haven’t done in 2,350 days since March 13, 2020.

The itch to teach returned to me when I recently digitized home videos from 20 years ago.  Among the hours of recordings were complete lessons that I had recorded   At the time, I was pursuing National Board Certification (the highest honor available for teachers) which required submitting tapes of me teaching.

Watching myself interact with the kids, making them laugh, reminded me of the delightful times I had as an educator.

It also gave me pause on my six years of retirement.  After the initial excitement of not working and doing what I pleased, soon I became acclimated to a more leisurely pace. And while I remained employed part-time at the university observing and evaluating student teachers, the number one goal of mine was to write another book, which I did, and get it published, which didn’t happen.

I knew that when I left teaching whatever I did would not match the demanding yet rewarding work that kept my mind humming on all cylinders.

Flashed in my head was the notion of reaching out to a handful of schools requesting to teach one or two classes of advanced 9^th or 10^th grade English.  I figured that I could handle one class every day.

In July I snail mailed the letters and waited.  And waited.

A couple of weeks later I got a call from the one principal that I personally knew.

“I got excited to get your letter,” he said.  “Unfortunately, I can’t give you what you want, but I do have a long-term sub assignment for nine weeks at the start of school.”

This would mean I would be back working a full day, six years older, though only for 40 days (how Biblical).  It would provide me an opportunity to have a proper sendoff to my teaching career, something that was derailed when I retired in June 2020 due to the Pandemic.

Could I do it?

I took the position.

That was the easy part.  Now I had to jump over hurdles and through hoops in completing the mountain of forms for the district.

The day when I finally received confirmation that my credential was renewed was like a renewal of my life’s purpose.  The world was wonderful.  I listened to the Sirius radio station playing hits from the 1970s and every song was a good one.  

Suddenly, the circuit breaker that had been off for six years returned to the “ON” position. Everything I experienced—a story, a song, a video—was possible material for my students 

I race to my laptop, type the idea, and while I’m typing that, another one overrides the earlier one, so I have to type faster to keep up with my brain.

When I’m on the elliptical machine at the gym, I come up with more and pause the music to record on my phone to memorialize the spark before it flames out.

At a signal stop I noticed a plumber’s white van with the inscription “serving customers since . . .” and quickly produced my own slogan to hang in my classroom:  serving students since 1989.

I had so much anticipation there was no way the reality would match it.  And it didn’t.

I crashed back to earth when I found out that the air conditioning unit for my classroom was broken right in the middle of a scorching hot and humid August.  This forced me to move to other rooms in the afternoon (during the third week, a new unit was installed).

Technical glitches interfacing my computer with the classroom projectors, monitors and printers were another matter that did not get fully resolved for a while.

A small number of students, namely the seniors, tested me even though they knew I was a veteran teacher.

In the ensuing five weeks thus far, I’ve learned much about myself and today’s students. When I finish next month, I’ll let you know how it went.

As Michael Richards’ Kramer often exclaimed, “Giddyap!”