Tomorrow night I will be teaching my last class – for this semester – at Ryerson University.  It’s been quite a journey getting to this point and I’ve learned a lot.  Hopefully my students have too.  Let me tell you how I happened to be teaching the course CS8904: Theoretical Foundations of Early Childhood and how I’m feeling about it now … and the insight this has all led to.

For the past few years I’ve taught a course on Social Justice in Education in the Early Child Studies Graduate Program at Ryerson.  I started teaching it a couple of years before I retired, thinking it would be a good thing to keep on doing after I left the Ministry.  I developed this course (it hadn’t been taught before) and I absolutely loved teaching it; it brought together a number of my passions … education, teaching and learning, social justice.  My students gave me glowing reports and were all very happy with the course; I’ve actually remained in contact with a few students from each of my  previous courses.  Then last spring, out of the blue, I was told that they’d given this course to a new full-time faculty  member.  This frequently happens; part-time folks aren’t treated so well by most universities in fact and there’s a definite pecking order with sessionals (which is what I am now) at the bottom of the ladder.  This is one of those things that I have to either (a)  just accept as part of  ”the system”, or (b) get involved in changing the policy.  Now you have to understand that my natural first response would have once been to see this as an injustice (as it is) and put my energy into trying to right this wrong.  That’s why this tombstone has always been a favorite of mine:  this guy, even dead, wasn’t finished fighting the system!   But I’m tired now, and I’m aware that the years before me aren’t endless and I have to carefully choose what’s worth my energy today and what isn’t, and trying to change the way that the university system deals with its faculty isn’t something I want to take on at 60.  I do miss teaching that course; it was a wonderful experience.  I also know that letting go is one of the things I’m working on so here’s one more thing to think back on fondly … and let it go.

Then I was told that they’d like me to remain on faculty and I was invited to apply to teach a new course on theory that would be compulsory for all of the students.  And this is where I started to go “off the rails”.  That old worry about money and security kicked in right away.  Sure I’d apply to teach this course; I might need the money and I certainly wanted to maintain the connection with the university; who knows, down the road things could change and perhaps I’d teach social justice courses again (okay, so I’m not quite ready to let this go it seems).  I prepared for the interview as best I could; you need to understand that I am not a theory-driven person.  Yes, I know a lot of theory.  Thing is, I don’t have a passion for theory the way I do for social justice.    This was going to be a job.  I did just fine in the interview, but had mixed feelings when they offered me the job the next day; thing is that from the get-go it wasn’t a course that I really wanted to teach.  I’d put myself right back into a very familiar position: this isn’t what I want to be doing but I don’t have much choice.  But I had a choice; I just seemed to have forgotten that.

That said, I’ve always been one for making lemonade when life hands you lemons.  So I began preparing the course and before long I had  drafted a syllabus that reflected what I believe to be at the heart of education; the students would be given ongoing opportunities to explore their own theoretical perspective and discover their “theoretical home”?  This kind of introspection, based on a sense of mindfulness, is how I think people learn best.  The response I got to this first draft but me into a tailspin.  Clearly what the university wanted (or at least the Acting Program Director I was working with) was the kind of course where I’d lecture each week, students would write major research papers and have an exam.  Now I found myself not only teaching a course whose content doesn’t excite me but also being pushed into teaching it in a way that I’m not comfortable with.  I felt truly cornered; a feeling that isn’t unfamiliar to me.

And then finally the light went on!  I did have a choice.  I didn’t have to teach this course at all.  I knew that when I’d been interviewed I couldn’t have been the only person and so I carefully drafted an e-mail to the Acting Program Director, saying that there seemed to be some tension about the course and if she had anyone else in mind who could teach the course the way she’d like it done then I’d be glad to step aside and let her have someone else teach.  I waited for her response, hoping hoping hoping that I’d be let off the hook.   No such luck.   What had come out of this dialogue, however, was free reign for me to teach the course as I wanted.  I went back to working on the syllabus (when academics develop new courses, in areas that aren’t totally familiar to them, it takes a good few months to prepare).  My thinking at the time was that I’d teach the course once (since that’s what I’d contracted to do)and then let the university know that I wouldn’t be teaching it again.  I could live with that.

The course finally actually began in September.  Did I suddenly develop a passion for theory?  No.  Do I love teaching?  Yes.  Did I find a way “in” to the material?  Yes.  Theoretical perspectives are just another way of saying “this is how I think about things; this is how I look at the world.”  In the end, any exploration that we do about our own beliefs is, I think, important.  If, for example, we accept Piaget’s theory that basically says that all children go through specific stages of development in a specific order then we have to recognize that we’re ignoring cultural – and individual – differences.  Do we really think that research done only with middle-class white children applies to children everywhere in the world?  If we see children merely as “adults in training” then we relegate them to the status of “becoming” rather than “being” and that has an impact on how we respond to them.  Learning about post-colonialist theory helped my students reflect on the impact of oppression – on whole cultures.  We had discussions about our purpose in working with young children; is it to support them in being themselves or is it to mold them into what society dictates?  I have wonderful students; energetic, thoughtful, passionate, caring and smart.  How can you beat that?  It’s truly a joy spending time with them each week.

Tomorrow’s the last class.  I’m really glad because all of the time and energy I’ve put into this course has kept me from doing some other things I really want to be doing.  One of the students has already asked me to supervise an independent study course over the winter, and I’ll likely do that with her.  I am not going to be teaching a course over the winter months.  Once I’ve done the assessment of the final projects the students are giving me tomorrow nigh (and deliver an education workshop Dec 6th)  I will have fulfilled all of the commitments that I’ve made to this kind of teaching.   Would I teach this course again?  Given all of the time I’ve put into developing it I think I mightl teach it again.  Maybe.  I’m going to just leave that door open a crack for now.

I’ve been feeling really excited lately about this feeling I have – a happy one – that I’ve turned a corner.  I think that the coming year (with 2010 only a month away I’m already thinking about New Year Resolutions) is going to be one of real movement from the old to the new.  My timelines have changed.  When once I actually thought that the day I left my work behind I’d emerge into the pleasure of retirement, I now realize that’s like thinking that the caterpillar can turn directly into a butterfly without some transformation time as a chrysallis.  Perhaps that’s what Year 1 of Retirement is:  the gestation period as our new lives are emerging.  I think it’s time (pardon my metaphor switching) to start cracking the shell and preparing to emerge.  When I took this photo a year ago while hiking in Antarctica (sigh …) I didn’t realize how significant it might seem to me one day.  Yup, with just a little help I think I’m coming into my own new world.  Slowly.  Calmly.  One crack in the shell at a time.