You know it’s a good gig when someone retires then wants back in a few times. You won’t find that to be a trend in the teaching business. Generally, teachers who sit before the press and make their statements do so with a plane ticket in one hand and a martini in the other. They have agonized over the decision for months; do they sell the house and get an RV with a wet bar and hot tub, or keep the house and build that tatami mat meditation room with plenty of room for the chi to flow through? The same room that will have surround sound, a water feature, lucky bamboo and an indoor home theater built off to the side painted in colors called, Peace or Tranquility.
You could tell from the beginning of the second end of his career that Brett just wasn’t ready. He wasn’t the way all my retiring teacher friends have looked in the past. He was, well…crying. That’s no way to go out. You should go laughing out loud. Now granted, there are some teachers who have done a Favre retirement and gone a few years too early. They keep coming back. They are, for the most part, Hall of Fame teachers but will never be called by a sculptor for their head measurements. Then there are a couple who come back like mothers in law to see if the top of the doorways have been dusted.
All in all, most teachers who retire return only once, just so everyone can see how well rested they look and hear about all the cool stuff they’ve been doing. It’s nice to see them and reaffirm the sometimes hard to believe belief that there is more to life than pre-testing, zipping jackets and convincing kids that we really can see them picking their noses even if they try to hide it with the other hand. These folks are taking cooking classes, traveling, working on projects, volunteering, reading, sleeping, shopping during daylight and going to the dentist without having to take the day off.
So what I would say to Brett is maybe he needs to make his world a little bigger. There has to be more to life than hunting, golf, football and being a kazillionairre. Maybe he should take all that passion and energy and channel it into something new.
Hey, how ‘bout teaching?
