NORTH’S LOSS
When I first started thinking about official steps
towards retirement from full-time teaching at
North’s loss? No, Parkway’s loss, no,
For some time it has been predicted that
nationwide, a large percentage of
There is no substitute for experience.
There will be a loss, alright. But it’s not
just North’s loss, or Parkway’s loss—or our nation’s loss. It will be the nation’s
kids who will lose most when and if upwards of 56% of the nation’s master
teachers retire within the same time-frame. These kids, today’s kids, need
stability, a code of conduct, a model to emulate, someone to look up to—NOW
more than any other generation has ever needed these qualities in its teachers.
With society’s established institutions: workplace, church, neighborhood, home,
family, imploding around them, they look to their teachers. Even the most
pseudo-sophisticated (usually girls), and the most macho-facade-ed (usually
boys) are silently crying out, “Help me. Advise me. Give me some part of your
old fashioned naďve optimism that’s still linked to the American Dream. I am
drowning here. I can’t numb myself with M.T.V., the mall, or inhalants any
longer.”
The need, and in spite of the surface façade, want:
—Kindness-from the grey hairs.
—Understanding-from those wrinkled faces.
—Advice from those “been-there”-substitute
grandparents.
—And patient mentoring all along the way.
There is no substitute for experience—and today’s
kids sense it.
EPILOGUE
“What did you do in the Depression—teacher?”
We prayed daddy found day work and then looked forward to the 5-cent ice cream cone on Friday night.