I have officially been retired from teaching or being a school administrator since the end of May in 2011. It’s difficult to believe that fourteen years have passed since I walked the halls of KIPP Houston High School. My former students are now in their thirties, forties and fifties. Many of them have children who are graduating from college or getting married. I find myself wondering where the time goes and how it seems like only yesterday that I was teaching pre-schoolers while I finished my degree and earned my certifications.

I’ve stood in so many classrooms in front of both eager and challenging students. I learned right away that each of them had a story that would tug at my heart. Some were eager to grab the opportunities of education. Others were so burdened with troubles that it was difficult for them to concentrate. Some had exceptional parents who gave them the foundations of a good life. Others were overwhelmed by family and personal situations that few of us would be able to navigate without help. I see their faces to this very day and I even keep in touch with many of them. 

Since retiring I have cultivated a new group of students. Only months after I had seemingly hung up my teaching spurs, I got an itch to be with students again. I felt a void in my life that could not be satisfied by trips or mornings sleeping in when the younger people in the world were scurrying off to work. I missed the challenges and the emotional rewards of helping a young person to master concepts and become a model adult. I searched for new ways to continue the vocation that seemed to be an essential part of my very existence.

I found a tutoring job that was incredible while it lasted but the funding for the program changed and so did the rules for which students I was allowed to help and even the means by which I would do so. I was unwilling to compromise the personalized assistance I had given the students to become a monitor while they worked canned computer programs over which I had no say. It seemed that I was finally retired in every sense of the word.

Life is filled with surprises, unexpected joys that come our way when we are least expecting them. Out of the blue I got a message from two ladies who were looking for someone to teach math to their sons. The boys had been homeschooled but the mothers realized that the math that they needed was slowly but surely becoming more and more difficult for them and for their boys. Thus began a journey that introduced me to a new set of students and kept me doing the thing that I most love. 

Those two boys are now men. I got them all the way through College Algebra and along the way picked up their siblings and a few of their friends. This year three of the younger crew are graduating from high school with dual credit degrees from community colleges. They are excitedly planning to continue their education in the coming school year. One of them has earned a degree from the Bauer School of Business at the University of Houston, earning the distinction as the youngest graduate of 2025 at the age of eighteen. Now I am teaching the siblings in the families and enjoying the experience of working with young people as much as I always have. 

I know for certain that the youngest members of our nation are far better and far more intelligent than many citizens believe them to be. The reality is that one generation after another has looked at the younger set with a suspicion that perhaps they are not as driven or polite as they should be. When I was a teen in the long ago the adults were horrified by our “hippy” ways. We were far too outspoken for their taste. They worried that we would not amount to much but somehow we survived just as today’s generation of adolescents and teens surely will as well. 

Most of us find our way out of the confusing days of growing up and become model citizens who work hard and act nice. So too have I watched the progress and success of the thousands of students whose lives I shared for a brief moment in time. I only know of a couple of them who took a wrong turn and ended up in jail. All the rest have demonstrated their mettle and created extraordinary lives for themselves and their families. Many of them have become teachers who are far better than I ever was which has made me so very proud. 

I still see those faces staring expectantly at me on the first day that we met. I would learn their strengths and attempt to shore up their weaknesses. I would privately cry about their sometimes overwhelming challenges and celebrate their victories. I carry them in my heart and think of them often. I hope with all of my being that they will always know how much I love them.