Work?

It seems, when you retire, one of the things that you think about is work. Issues involving work  have come up a lot recently among family and friends.  My wife's bosses are bullies, my former boss has lost it, and my sister in law thinks her boss is Satan.  I had a long chat last week with my friend who was forced to resign from his teaching position last week in order to keep from being fired.  He was instructed to tell no one of the reason for quitting and to simply say that he thought it was time to move on. That way he would be given a good recommendation. I had taught with him for two years and found him to be a very good teacher. I have some suspicions about why he was forced to resign, but it doesn't really matter.  As a non-tenured teacher, he has no rights and needs to move on; it would be my hope that he ends up in a job with a boss worth working for. I guess a good boss is just hard to find. Two other teachers in the department (one with 13 years experience) left on their own in the last six months because they couldn't tolerate the boss.  I was privileged for 21 of my years teaching to have a great boss. I started working for him at just the right time.  I was developing my own teaching style and he was  a major force behind the teacher I turned out to be.  I remember when he interviewed prospective teachers, he would draw a grid with the terms "the book", "students", and "math" around the outside and ask you to fill in where you fell in the grid. What was more important to you? Did you put your X closer to students or to math. At my retirement recognition, he was an invited guest and mentioned that I was his first hire and the woman who spoke on my behalf was his last hire. There is a marked difference in the philosophy of those teachers hired by the current boss and the department has a very different feel to it now.  We have a number of good teachers now, but fewer exceptional teachers. When I started, a lot of the teachers were real characters with a lot of personality. You never knew what they would do next or where they were headed, but it was exciting and thought provoking for the students. And they wanted to talk to you about math or english or history or teaching, Now the teachers mostly talk about special ed issues or rti  or the cool diagram they drew on the smart board. When teachers were first given websites linked to the district website to use, each person was asked to put up a saying or motto on their own site that reflected their attitude.  Mine was "This is math; what could be more exciting?" When the vast majority of the department disagreed with that statement, I knew it was time to retire.