When is it time to hang up your IT satchel?

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Yantantether
Posts: 168
Joined: Tue Apr 10, 2012 12:41 am

When is it time to hang up your IT satchel?

Post by Yantantether »

When does the time come that realistically, regardless of qualifications and experience, you've just become too grey to be considered on the payroll? 50? 60? Can you keep yourself competitive till retirement (pushing 70 now!). Is it a situation of lowering your expectations and therefore destinations at a certain age or can you remain in control of your professional destiny? I'm talking classroom teaching and not moving into admin.

Thoughts?....Go.......
NewsAdviser
Posts: 14
Joined: Fri Sep 16, 2016 11:55 am

Re: When is it time to hang up your IT satchel?

Post by NewsAdviser »

Good question, Yantantether, and one I don't know the answer to as I am just now, as an "old" lady, trying to figure out if a second career in IT is viable for me post-retirement in DE.

But my intuition is to say it's time to hang up your satchel when YOU feel in your gut it is time to hang up your satchel.

In domestic (public education) I have known many young teachers who hung up their satchel after just a few years. It wasn't for them.

But the opposite is true is well: I have known many stellar teachers who taught into their late 60's and early 70's who were among the most dynamic educators of our faculty.

One beautiful thing about being an "old" teacher is that students, parents, and admins don't try to manipulate you as much as they did in your younger years. Another is that classroom management is easier, too -- well-planned units take less time than they used to because you already know where the confusions will be. Still another is that kids sense a "been there-done that-don't even try" aura about you, resulting in fewer classroom antics, and what antics there are, are done in good humor. (Just gotta laugh and love 'em, ya know?)

Plus I think the most compelling reason for teaching-till-you-drop is that teaching keeps one young-at-heart like no other profession.

Sure, we must embrace annoying and ever-changing technology, standards, and methodologies to stay current and on top of our game. But there, too, I think older teachers have an advantage because we can still chalk and talk without missing a beat when the server goes down or the Smart Board projector goes kaput.

Still, above all else, as Shakespeare advises via Polonius' voice in Hamlet: "To Thine Own Self Be True."

You and you alone will know when it's time to sit back and write your memoirs. And I bet it will be a bestseller.

Best of luck--
N.A.
teller
Posts: 30
Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2011 10:50 am

Re: When is it time to hang up your IT satchel?

Post by teller »

Wonderful post, N.A.--some great insights and food for thought there.
shadowjack
Posts: 2138
Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2012 9:49 am

Re: When is it time to hang up your IT satchel?

Post by shadowjack »

Ageing out refers to entry age, not exit age. If you are in a system at 55 that ages you out after, you are good until 60 or 65, whatever the law says. However, directors are under no legal obligation to extend your contract if they choose not to.

Then there are countries where there is no age limit but they are not great places for saving, traveling or working. But if your objective is to save money, there is no reason why you can't be there until late 60's if you are a good fit.
Overhere
Posts: 497
Joined: Wed Dec 05, 2007 3:29 am

Re: When is it time to hang up your IT satchel?

Post by Overhere »

Excellent question and excellent response from NewsAdvisor. I think you hang up your satchel when you know which one you're going to pick up next.
PsyGuy
Posts: 10789
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:51 am
Location: Northern Europe

Response

Post by PsyGuy »

I generally agree with @SJ, you need to be within a system around 55, in which cases staying past that isnt an issue. The problem is recruiting and entering a system. You need be comfortable wherever you are by 55, one of the reasons that WE becomes more attractive when considering locations to retire out of.

@NewsAdviser

I understand your creating rationalizations for your particular scenario. Data has shown that the turning points in educator proficiency and productivity occur at 1, 2, 4, and 8 years. In your first year your learning how to really manage a classroom of children. Your second year your adjusting content and delivery (many 1st year DTs think teaching is just lecturing). Your 4th year a DT has expanded the range of subjects and grade levels that they are comfortable teaching within their field regardless of grade. By year 8 a DT has likely explored various coordinating and leadership roles congruent with being HOD, and likely has mentored a student DT during field work.
There isnt any evidence that a DT/IT with 20 years experience is twice as good as a DT/IT with 10 years experience.

Most of that lack of manipulation has to do with cultural perceptions of what constitutes an elder. There was a case study of an entering DT who was a first year DT at age 58 as a second career, they experienced similar deference as older veteran DTs. Likewise there are highly competent DTs who are young and no one takes them seriously because they are millennials.

Changes in technology are present in all fields, even archeology and paleontology get periodic new tools. Being a librarian now is more an ICT career than it is maintaining a card catalog and maintaining the stacks. There are ISs that dont have circulating stacks, everything is digital and downloads to a students tablet. I know a librarian that does reading circle with EC students where the book is a PDF on an iPad Pro.

Any DT/IT can direct teach and some of the younger ones dont really know how chalk works (like seasoning a blackboard, or actually washing it).

There is some argument if its "To Thine Own Self Be True" or "To Thine Known Self Be True".
Vernacular
Posts: 33
Joined: Fri Mar 15, 2013 11:49 am

Re: When is it time to hang up your IT satchel?

Post by Vernacular »

@Yantantetether Approaching seventy, it's less a case of what or where you want to be and more about who will take you, keep you and - perhaps more importantly - why?

As for Shakespeare and satchels; look no further than Jaques in Act II Scene VII of 'As you like it'...and as long as you're not in the seventh stage, continue as long as you can.
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