Shtick This! Countdown to my Pension

 

"Money, money, money" -- More than one musician has sung about the need for money. Perhaps ABBA's version is the best-known one:

Money, Money, Money

Must be funny

In the rich man's world

Money, money, money

Always sunny

In the rich man's world

Aha

All the things I could do

If I had a little money

It's a rich man's world

It's a rich man's world

In September, I will finally be old enough to receive my pension! Woohoo! All the things I will be able to do with that "little money" . . . 

When I retired from teaching, I was still such a young pup that even though I'd given a full THIRTY YEARS of my life to that profession, in the eyes of the state of Nebraska I wasn't yet old enough to receive the fruits of my hard-earned retirement pension. 

Initially, I saw the time between retirement and being age eligible in years. TWO YEARS to go, I'd tell myself. After the first year passed, I looked at it in months. TWELVE MONTHS to go. Now that 2023, the year in which I will finally be age eligible, is upon me, I am counting down the DAYS. 

I find myself almost salivating at the thought of having a regular income again. Yes, I could have stayed with teaching or I could have got a different job that would have been paying me a regular salary this past year and a half, but the entire point of leaving teaching when I did was to focus on my writing career, so if I'd found a different full-time job, it would have defeated the point.

I've made huge strides with my writing career, as anyone who knows me is aware. Since leaving teaching, I've published three more novels, made progress on others, started two Substack weekly writings that earn me a tiny bit of money, managed to get my column into three more newspapers, and wrote feature articles for a newspaper and a magazine. Additionally, I've made many appearances at literary events and libraries. I wouldn't have been able to do any of those things if I'd stayed with teaching or if I'd found a different job.

However, I'm tired of being dead-ass broke and almost entirely reliant on my boyfriend for financial support. Not that my pension will catapult me into "the rich man's world," but it will pay the bulk of the bills and make me self-reliant once more. I am so looking forward to that, and no matter how wonderful my boyfriend is, I'm pretty sure he's looking forward to it, too.

I'm thankful for the Rule of 85, so I can start drawing my pension at a much earlier age than many people can in other careers with other retirement plans. Rule of 85 says that once your age and your years of teaching equal 85, then you can receive full retirement benefits. However, the state stipulates that you must be at least 55 before you can receive the benefits, so that's why I'm counting down the days until my birthday in September of this year.

Rule of 85 is no more, though. It was replaced by Rule of 90 a few years ago. Yep, your years of experience and your age now have to equal 90 before you can get the retirement pay, and the minimum age is now 60. I sure am glad that I taught under the Rule of 85 era.

When I complain about not having any money, people ask me why I don't substitute teach. Believe me, I have thought about it, but once again, by doing that, I'm negating the entire point of why I left teaching. Also, I'd be taking a day away from myself and my goals and dreams. I already gave away 30 years -- even one more day is too much to give up. Additionally, schools are so desperate for subs that once I let down my guard and subbed once, I know I'd cave over and over to help the teachers who need subs. I remember how difficult it was to find subs when I had to be gone, so I would want to help and would feel bad every time I said "no." Thus, it's best that I not even go down that road. 

I do make money with my writing. I just don't make enough to live off; however, what I make will be a great addition to a regular monthly pension paycheck. With luck and continued perseverance, too, I will surely earn more and more as a writer, but in order to do that, I must stay the course and not give up on my dream just to get some silly job that adds nothing of value to my life beyond a little bit of money.

Value. 

That's what matters to me at this stage in my life. I have no desire to do anything that doesn't add value to my life. Writing adds value far beyond any dollar amount you could put on it. Painting adds value. Spending time with people I love adds value. Travel adds value. Reading adds value. 

Life is far too short to do anything at all that isn't of value to me, to my internal self and my soul. After losing Kim's son, Trever; my best friend, Amy; my amazing friend and coworker, Nate; and my beloved uncle, Paul; all within two years, and then watching my dear friend, Silvia, who is like family to me, suffer through kidney failure and almost lose her, I decided that I couldn't waste one more day not going after my dream. So, that's what I'm doing. 

Every aspect of my life is better since I left teaching to focus on my writing career and dream. Every aspect except the financial one. 

Maybe someday I will get financially rich off a book. Maybe not. My books have made me rich, though, in other ways. I don't need to be financially rich, but I do need to get by, so that's why I am now counting down those days until I turn 55. 

I'm not a singer, but there's another song about money called "For the Love of Money" by The O'Jays that keeps going through my mind. It's really just that initial part where they sing "Money, money, money . . . money" over and over again. I find myself singing that as I think about that day in September that's only a little over 200 DAYS away. 

Here is a link to my author website if you've never visited it and would like to poke around a little to see the things I write: Tammy Marshall - Author

 

Shtick This! Or . . . Take This Job and Shove It!

(If you'd like to view/hear this, it is available on my YouTube channel. https://youtu.be/UYfoVWUARrM )

As Johnny Paycheck so, uh, eloquently sang when he created the anthem of all disgruntled workers, sometimes there comes a point when you simply must say, "Take this job and shove it," and move on with your life and the pursuit of your own dreams.

I once loved teaching. I really did, and I know I would enjoy teaching adults in small spurts if the opportunity would present itself, but I'm done teaching full-time. I poured my heart and soul into for the first 15 to 20 years, but, eventually, it sucked all the joy from my heart and soul. When I look at the mass exodus of young teachers leaving their careers going on right now in the U.S., I don't feel so bad about leaving a career that I'd given 30 years of my life to. Like those teachers, I left the field because of so many things I see that are wrong with it, but I mostly left teaching because my heart wasn't in it. I just wanted to be a writer and to be able to do that every single day, all day long. After teaching for 30 years, I think I was due.

A few years ago, I and all the other teachers in my school attended a conference in a nearby town put on by the educational service unit. I'd been to countless similar conferences over the years, but this one has stayed with me because of the man who delivered the opening address to us. It was supposed to be a motivational speech, but I think it accomplished the complete opposite, at least with me.

He was pontificating about the importance of teaching -- to an auditorium of teachers! We already knew the importance of our jobs. He was spouting off about the importance of the children in our charge and the impact we had on them -- again, things we were all well aware of.

Then, he began to harp at us that if we didn't completely and unequivocally LOVE our jobs with every fiber of our beings that we should QUIT. He said it over and over again. "If you don't love your job, then quit! If you don't love your job, then quit!" I don't exaggerate in the least to say that he was yelling at us -- thus my usage of those exclamation points.

I know that his words had special impact with me because I did want to quit. I was tired of teaching and already looking ahead and forward to an early retirement, but I wasn't there yet. I'd come to the conference actually hoping to be inspired a little bit, to have a bit of fire lit back in me. Instead, I was being yelled at by a guy telling me to quit my job since I, clearly, was one of the people there who didn't love it with every fiber of my being. 

I sat there thinking -- if every single person here who doesn't love her job with her whole heart were to stand up and walk out and quit right now, there would only be a handful of teachers left sitting here.

Maybe I'm wrong about that. Maybe I was the only teacher out of the thousand in that room who didn't love teaching with my whole entire heart, but I doubt it. 

I understand the point he was trying to make, but I think he could have made it in a more encouraging fashion.

I taught for a few more years, and then I retired from it last May after 30 full years of teaching. I've never been happier because I'm now writing every single day just as I'd always wanted to do. I'm not making very much money at it, but my children are grown and my financial needs aren't so staggering anymore.

The financial need is what kept me from standing up and walking out of that auditorium while that obnoxious man yelled at us. At that point in my life, I still NEEDED the financial stability of my teaching career. 

I couldn't afford to quit. At least, that's what I thought. 

If I could back in time, though, I would tell myself to get up, walk out, and quit. Then, I believed that I could continue to find joy in teaching like I had for so many years in the past, but I was wrong. The last four or five years of teaching were miserable for me. Sure, there were great days in there, and I loved most of my students, but my heart wasn't in it -- at all. I was very sad.

I was sad because I had a dream, and it didn't involve teaching. It involved writing.

So, the truth is that I really couldn't afford to stay, but I did.

If I could do it over, I would, and I would have left teaching earlier, just as I would have divorced my ex earlier. Not leaving unhappy situations sooner -- that is my biggest regret.

So, I write this to encourage others who may be staying with something that makes them unhappy simply out of fear -- of failure, of the unknown, of financial instability, etc.

I'm not going to rail at you to quit your job because that may not be the answer, and quitting has a very negative connotation to it. I think that's also why his comments didn't sit well with me. I say that I quit teaching, but really I left it to pursue another venture. I don't see myself as a quitter, and if you move on to something that really matters to you, then you are not a quitter either.

That fear of the giant void before us is something that paralyzes so many of us who want to strike out and go after our dreams. But, I say -- Do It. Go for it.

Give it a year, at the very least, and commit to doing something in pursuit of it every single day. Think about it. In one year, you will have achieved a minimum of 365 things for your dream.

I figure that in one year, you'll be in one of five possible positions.

1. You will have utterly failed, but you will have at least tried, so when you are old and on your deathbed, it will not be that agonizing regret that you hear of so often about people who had dreams but never ever tried to go after them. You will have won simply for trying -- even if it didn't work out. But I think even if you think you've failed, you probably just need to find a new way to approach it and give it another go. 

2. You will be making progress, and you will have arrived at a place where you can decide whether or not to continue pursuing your dream. Things change, and in your pursuit of your dream, it may have changed, so at this point you will be in a position to actively make a decision to change your course or continue onward. You will have learned enough to know whether you can go the distance, and you will know whether you want to or not. You may have decided by now that this dream isn't for you -- not now, or maybe not ever, but you'll make that decision after trying for a year. Again, you will have at least tried even if you decide to change course or abandon your dream for something else that you now find meaningful. You won't regret changing your mind, if that's what you do, because you will know you gave it your best shot and found that it wasn't for you after all. 

3. You will know you made the right decision, but you will not be in a financially stable place yet. However, you will know that this is something you are willing to go the distance on no matter how long it takes you. Since you are now committed fully to accomplishing your dream but you aren't able yet to support yourself from it, you will need either a second part-time job that brings in enough money to pay your basic living bills and/or you will need a supportive partner who is willing to take on the bulk of the bills until such a time as you are able to pay your share. A third option is that you may have waited a long time, like I did, to actively pursue your dreams, so you might have a pension or even social security benefits you can rely on to cover the most pressing bills while you continue to go after your goals. Whatever you have to do, don't let financial concerns prevent you from continuing to work your dreams. You now know you've made the right decision, so find a way to get by financially until your dream starts paying the way for you.

4. You may have had enough success that you are already paying your way from your new business/dream venture. Just think of that. Start now, and in one year, or maybe even less time, you could be supporting yourself off the thing that you are passionate about. Then, it's no longer work at all -- it's simply fun. You'll also have gained so much experience and learned what works and what doesn't, so from this point forward, the sky's the limit.

5. You may have risen so far by now that you are a total financial success and a star in your field. You will be in such awe of how far you've come in one year that you'll be shaking your head in disgust that you didn't start earlier.

Here's the thing: you won't be in any of those five positions unless you start. Right now. Today. Make a list of goals. Write down your dream. Come up with a plan that starts small and ends big. Go for it. Seriously, go for it.

I'm currently in the #3 spot, and I suspect I'll be there for a while, and I'm okay with that. I know that I must simply keep working on my writing and keep putting it out there for others to read and keep trying to find ways to reach the right audience and/or agent. Someday, I'll make the right connection or decision that will propel me into the #4 spot. If I never get there, I'm still going to be okay with it because I'll have my pension in another year and a half which will pay all the necessary bills for the rest of my life. Until then, I have a supportive partner who believes in me and my writing dream as much as I do. 

While I should have quit, or left, teaching long before I did to go after my dream, I treasure the co-workers I taught with and so many of the students who passed through my room over all those years. I do miss them, but I hope the final lesson I left them with has more impact on them than any Spanish or English lesson I attempted to impart -- It's never too late to go after your dream and don't give up on it or on yourself.

Shtick This! Putting Me First.

(You can view me sharing this blog post on my YouTube channel here: Putting me first.)

I've written in this blog a few times about my life after my divorce, and some people mistakenly think I'm dwelling on it as if I either regret it or that I can't get beyond it. Neither could be farther from the truth. I "dwell" on it, or talk about it, because it was a momentous decision and a huge turning point in my life -- one that took me from deep, dark shadow to bright, illuminating light. I "dwell" upon it because it was the very best thing I've ever done for myself.

As a woman, and more specifically as a mother, many people assume that the two best things I've ever done in my life are my two children, and while they are correct to a certain extent, they are also incorrect. I love my children dearly, but children grow up, leave, and get on with their own lives. The one and only constant in your life is yourself. The one and only constant in my life is myself. I am the only person I can count on, trust, believe in, and live with for the extent of my life, so the things I do that will impact me on a daily basis for the rest of my life are the things that matter.

Thus, the two very best decisions I've ever made in my entire life were to get divorced and to leave teaching. Now, both of these seem negative; after all, they involved me leaving things that I'd invested a lot of time and energy into. I was married for over twenty years, and I taught for thirty. Walking away from either was not an easy decision -- in fact, I stewed about both for years before I ever acted upon them.

But I knew my life away from my husband and away from teaching would be so much better because I was utterly miserable in my marriage and unhappy as a teacher, especially in the later years of it. 

Since leaving teaching last May to focus solely on writing, I've spoken to a number of book groups at libraries and other places. Primarily, my audience members have been women, and those women have primarily been middle-aged or older. Even though I go to the events to talk about the books I've written, I also share my writing journey, which includes my divorce and then my decision to quit teaching.

Inevitably, at least one woman will come up to me afterwards and tell me how much she admires what I'm doing, and she doesn't mean that I'm writing books. No, she means that she admires that I've stepped away from an unhappy and unfulfilling conventional life to go after my dream and that I had the nerve to do it, even if it took me a long time to gather up that nerve.

While the divorce was the pivotal point of my life, leaving teaching has allowed me to truly pursue my writing dreams. When I was trying to decide whether or not to leave teaching a little over a year ago, I happened to be listening to the radio while driving, and I heard a woman share a story of her mother encouraging her to go after her dreams. I wish I could remember more specifics about the woman and her dreams, but I don't. What I do remember very vividly, though, was that her mother used the motivational expression of "If Not You, Then Who?" with her. 

It's a commonly used motivational expression, but one I hadn't heard before (or hadn't heard at a time in my life when I needed to hear it). Hearing that expression at that moment in my life solidified my decision in that moment. It resonated so deeply with me because I was almost there -- I just needed that final shove to push me over the edge where I then made the decision to leave teaching and the stability of income and benefits it provided. After all, if I didn't do it, if I didn't go after my dream, if I didn't write the books I wanted to write, who was going to do it? I went home and wrote that expression on my first daily record journal, which is now filled with all the writing progress I accomplished in 2021. 

That journal was a product of the second major epiphany I had thanks to the perfect rerun of a "Friends" episode airing at just the right time in my life. I wrote about Chandlerizing my life in another blog post, and you can read it if you want, but basically I decided to model my daily writing life after the way in which Ross gets Chandler to accomplish the major (and daunting) task of getting married -- one little thing at a time. I record, every single day, at least one thing I do to move my writing life forward. At first, it usually was just one small thing, but now I generally record five or more things every day, and the slow buildup of all those "one small things" has led to me publishing two more novels, getting my column in another newspaper, starting two newsletters, and doing many other things every single day that involve writing in some capacity as well as marketing what I write -- all since last May.

In the days before everyone had GPS on their smartphones or in their vehicles, people would often turn down the wrong road and head down it a ways before realizing they were on the wrong path. Depending on the circumstances, it might take a while before you were able to get yourself back onto the right path, but you might see and learn some interesting things while you were traveling down the wrong road. I think at about the age of twenty, I headed down the wrong paths, and since I didn't have the clarity of an overseeing GPS to guide me back where I should have been, I stayed on those paths far too long until I found my way off them. I definitely saw and learned a lot of interesting and useful things while I was traveling down the wrong paths, but I'm profoundly grateful to myself for finally steering my life onto better roads.

I'm happily divorced, but I prefer to think of myself as single and self-sufficient even though I'm also involved in a committed relationship. I'm writing full-time, something I was never able to do as a teacher, and even though I do not have the financial stability I had as a teacher, I do have emotional and mental stability now, which is worth far more to me at this age. 

Ten years ago, I chose to divorce. One year ago, I chose to leave teaching. In both, I chose to put me first. That isn't something that comes easy for a woman, especially a mom and a teacher who has long been conditioned to think of others first and to feel guilty when she thinks of herself first. But that takes me back to that question of "If Not You, Then Who?" I spent years of my life supporting my ex, my children, and my students. 

It was my turn to support me and to go after my dreams, so that's what I'm doing now. If you're not doing that for yourself yet, I hope you will someday. I'm not advocating divorce and/or career change -- I'm advocating that you do what you need to do to go after your dreams, before it's too late.

My author website -- Click this link to go to my author website.

Shtick This! Ten Years of Joyous Freedom

Ten years ago, I filed for divorce -- the absolute best decision I ever made in my entire life. The only thing that would have made it an even better decision would be if I had filed about ten years earlier than I did! My bad.

Ten years, though. Wow. As they say, time really does fly when you're having fun. In recognition of those ten years, I thought I'd compile ten of my favorite accomplishments from these past ten years.

Number 10: I finally had a one-act team qualify for state, and it happened when my daughter was a part of the team and had a major role. 

Number 9: I took up water color painting and found out that I have a bit of a knack for it. I really enjoy painting, especially landscapes that involve beachy or mountainous scenes as well as sunsets and sunrises.

Number 8: I acquired a complete collection of all the Pulitzer Prize winners of fiction and have now read most of them. I also added extensively to my home library of books and organized it.

Number 7: I completed thirty years of teaching high school Spanish and English as well as coaching a variety of non-sport activities over those years.

Number 6: I bought myself a motorcycle -- and a Harley this time -- after a twenty-some year hiatus from riding. It was my gift to myself when my divorce was finally final (after a year and a half -- ugh!). Riding the motorcycle has added so much to my life. I became an American Legion Rider and met Kim all because I had that bike. Additionally, I've met some good friends, and riding is a great stress reliever.

Number 5: I traveled to Holbox Island (for a second time and where I again swam with whale sharks, and that should probably count as its own accomplishment because it was amazing!) and other places in the Yucatan of Mexico, New York City, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Nashville, Asheville, many other places in Tennessee, Tybee Island, Niagara Falls, Boston, Dallas, Branson, the Black Hills of South Dakota, Minnesota and the Mall of America, Kansas City, Jefferson City, Harvard, Yale, Notre Dame, and many other places. I can't wait to revisit some of them as well as get to new places in the coming years.

Number 4: I got to see both of my children graduate from college and go after careers they love. While this isn't necessarily my accomplishment, I consider it at least partly so because I helped them so much along the way. Sam, my daughter, is currently completing a master's degree in paleontology, so she's not fully invested in her career yet, but she is working at a dig site affiliated with her college. Trevor is a coach and educator.

Number 3: For two years, Silvia, my dear friend -- and original foreign-exchange student -- lived with me. She and her daughter, Constanza, stayed here while Silvia pursued a belated business degree at the community college in Norfolk. Unfortunately, Silvia got very ill before she could thoroughly complete what she'd set out to do, but she did manage to finish her associate's degree in business, and the college mailed her diploma to her in Mexico. For the past year and a half, she's been on dialysis awaiting a kidney transplant which she's now on the cusp of getting. I pray that all goes well for her, so she can continue chasing her dreams, one of which involves the two of us running a part-time writers' retreat in Mexico.

Number 2: I met Kim, the most generous man in the world. He's been great to me and to my family and friends. Since we both suffered through long, agonizing marriages, we understand the trauma those leave on a person's soul and we've been able to build each other up. We've had almost eight years together now, and I hope for many more.

Number 1: I began a full-time career as a writer. In doing that, within a short span of time, I've published two more novels, got my column placed in a second newspaper, made a number of in-person appearances at libraries and book festivals, started a word newsletter and a YouTube channel, and added Instagram and Facebook author pages. Leaving teaching to invest in my dream of being a writer is, by far, my greatest accomplishment, and I hope to be doing it even longer than I taught.

I know that I can safely say that most of these things would NOT have happened if I hadn't gotten a divorce. It freed my soul which, in turn, freed me to do and be the things I was meant to do and be. 

I look forward to seeing what I'll accomplish with the next ten years. 

Shtick This! Common Things Now Uncommon

Nostalgia has hit me hard recently. Probably because I'm in my 50s and not exactly sure how that happened or because my children went so damn fast from being children to being adults who don't really need me anymore or because our world sure seems to be sliding fast into a big, ugly hole of politically "woke" hypocritical nonsense lately that I just want to go back to a time when things were (or seemed) simpler. 

Here are some things that I wish were common again. These are listed in no particular order but rather as they pop into my middle-aged and tired brain.

1. How I miss good late-night comedy. If Johnny Carson could come back from the dead and see what his world has turned into, he'd immediately turn around and jump back into his grave. That man was funny. His skits were funny. His commentary was funny. He had style and class. I haven't been able to sit through more than two minutes of late-night comedy shows for years now. They simply suck. When they are capable of thinking for themselves again, then maybe, just maybe, comedy will return to the late-night stage. I hope it does. I miss it greatly. I love to laugh, and I wish late-night comedy was even remotely funny.

2. I miss riding in the back of pickup trucks. There was nothing better than piling into the back of a pickup truck with your friends or cousins or all the neighborhood kids and going for a ride around town. My grandfather would always be sure to hit every bump especially hard and then laugh as he watched us nearly bounce out of the truck bed. Dangerous? I suppose so, sometimes, but he would have stopped and picked us up off the road if we'd actually fallen out. Fun? Hell, yes. Now, if you try to throw a dozen kids in the back of your pickup truck to take them for a ride through town, you'll be pulled over and given a hefty fine. Heck, you might even be arrested for child endangerment and who knows what else. I'm so glad I was a kid when riding in the bed of a pickup truck was legal.

3. As long as I'm writing about the back of vehicles, I really miss riding in the rear-facing back seat of my parents' brown station wagon. I don't really miss fighting with my obnoxious little brother back there, but he and I also had great times riding back there during the long drives of our family vacations. We'd wave at truckers and get them to honk their loud horns, we'd wave at other drivers and get them to wave back at us, and we'd just sit and watch the road spool out behind us. When we'd tire of facing backwards, we'd hop over the seat and sit in the forward-facing backseat, and if my brother would leave me alone in the back seat, I'd stretch out and take a nap. Naturally, we weren't buckled in, and that added to the joy of long car trips because we were free to roam as needed while being cooped up in the car. I realize that seatbelts are a wonderful safety feature, but I will always be glad that I grew up in a time when they weren't mandated. 

4. I really miss the days of fewer (and perhaps no) mandates. I was a kid, so I'm sure there were mandates that I didn't even know existed, but that's my point. Kids nowadays are surrounded by mandates. Their lives are mandated to death. All our lives are mandated to death anymore. What happened to the freedoms of childhood, let alone the freedoms we're supposed to enjoy as citizens of the U.S.A.? 

5. Instead of having an overreaching government making all my decisions, I'd like to go back to letting either the Magic 8 Ball or those little paper fortune tellers rule my life. At least I could trust what came out of them. I wonder if I remember how to fold one of those paper ones? Will I be rich? Famous? Living in a castle? Only it can tell me.

6. Perhaps the thing I miss most about the "good old days" is actual privacy. Big Brother is alive and well and hanging out with us every single day in the form of our "smart" phones, our "smart" TVs, our "smart" cars, etc. The only things that aren't "smart" anymore are us. Databases know more about me than I know about myself. Social media and social sites allow kids nowadays to invade each other's privacy in ways I never could have imagined when I was young. Then, if you wanted to know something about someone else, you had to resort to learning it from good old-fashioned gossip, and if you wanted to be mean to someone, you had to put time, effort, and thought into it. You couldn't just write a nasty text or comment or meme or any other damn technological invention that would be delivered seconds after you created it. No, if you felt the need to trash someone else, you either had to be brave and do it to that person's face or you had to craft a note that you'd then have to try to sneak to that person. Perhaps along the way, you'd actually grow a conscience and have second thoughts and not actually be mean, or perhaps an adult such as a teacher would see your sneakiness and take the nasty note from you before you could deliver it to your target. Not the case these days. Any bully or mean kid can just go online and learn things about you and then twist those things to his or her self-serving intentions and then immediately send you a horrible and harmful message. If only this meanness stopped at childhood, but it doesn't. Adults on social sites are even worse, and things get shared and blown out of proportion so quickly that it makes your head spin. Having true privacy not only cushioned us from evil intentions, it also slowed the process, so that things didn't boil up at the speed in which they do now. George Orwell knew what he was talking about. Too bad nobody really listened.

7. I really miss the days when the news actually reported the news. Reported. Not spewed on and on with opinions that other "reporters" are saying on every other news program. Reporting the facts and letting viewers form their own opinions. I miss that. Walter Cronkite, you are missed, sir. By me at least. I stopped watching the evening news years ago. Occasionally, I turn it on to see if things have improved. They haven't. I prefer to read the newspaper because then I can take my time and formulate my own opinion about what I read, but I'd like to watch the news again, if it ever returns to the days of truly reporting the news. 

That's enough nostalgia for today.

I miss all these things that once were so common, but the common things that I miss the most are COMMON SENSE, COMMON DECENCY, and the COMMON COLD.

Shtick This! A bell-free life at last.

In Edgar Allan Poe's famous poem called The Bells, he writes of four types of bells: the merry jingle of sleigh bells, the mellow wedding bells, the screaming alarum bells, and the solemn and somber death tolling of the church bells. He did not write of the bells that I heard every day for the 30 years I was a teacher and the 13 years I was an elementary, junior high, and high school student.

For 43 years of my life, my days were controlled and regulated by bells -- school bells. In actuality, they weren't really bells, but rather shrill peals that echoed down the hallways or loud tones that came from loudspeakers or intercoms. Just as we continue to use terminology that was better suited for rotary phones, we still tend to refer to those annoying sounds that dictate the lives of students and teachers nowadays as if they were the clanging of a bell being rung outside a one-room schoolhouse.

The bell pictured above has been used for years as a "victory bell" at the school where I taught for 29 of my 30 years. Its peals were cause for celebration. The other bells I'd hear at school, however, were not -- unless it was the final bell at the end of a very challenging day. That bell, I admit, was a welcome sound.

Now that I am my own boss working the hours I set each day, doing what I want with my life, my body has settled into a calm rhythm. I left teaching in May. It is now the beginning of January, and it suddenly hit me today how freeing it is to not be dictated by tones. Only a few times have I needed to set an alarm since I retired from teaching, but on each of those occasions I woke a few minutes before my alarm and simply dismissed it before it rang. This was not the case when I taught -- most likely it was due to sheer exhaustion from teaching and coaching, so I needed that alarm to wake me in the mornings.

However, even then, I chose to not hear an actual alarm tone; I woke to the radio turning on because it was a much less jarring way to wake from a dead sleep. When I found myself no longer needing to wake early every day, I retired my alarm clock/radio, too. The few times I do need to set an alarm now, I use my phone, but as I mentioned above, I tend to wake without it even if I've set it.

I'm certain this is because I get enough sleep nowadays, and my body has attuned itself to a healthy circadian rhythm. In fact, I normally and naturally wake at about 6:30 each morning to care for the pets. Then, I typically go back to bed for an hour or so because I'm still tired. I enjoy reading late at night in bed, so I don't usually go to sleep until midnight or even later; thus, by 6:30 I haven't had those lovely eight hours of sleep yet. I know some people who don't get enough sleep at night will then take a nap in the afternoon to refuel them for the evening, but I've never been much of a napper. When I'm up for the day, I prefer to stay up until bedtime. Afternoon naps typically make me feel worse instead of better, too, so I prefer to get a bit more sleep in the morning.

Not having bells dictate my days is such a wonderful way to live and work. While the bell ringing at the end of a class could be a welcome reprieve, it also often was a nuisance because the students and I were in the middle of doing something enjoyable or we were having one of those good days which make teaching so rewarding. Then, when the bell would ring, I would simply be annoyed because it instantly put an end to whatever great progress we were making or to the fun we were having. Occasionally, though, the students would stay a bit, so we could finish, and I'd write them a pass or call their next teachers, but that generally caused more of a hassle than if they'd just leave in the middle of what we were doing.

Now, if I'm enjoying what I'm doing -- writing a long passage in a new book, reading, painting, watching a video about something that interests me, walking the dog, visiting with a friend, covering a news story, etc. -- I, and only I, decide when I will stop doing that activity. I may spend twenty minutes on it, or I may spend three hours on it. There's no bell to make me move on to something else, and there's no watching the clock to make sure I have enough time to finish something before the next bell rings.

No longer am I a Pavlovian dog reacting a certain way each time a bell rings. While I am grateful that we have "alarum bells" in the case of a fire or a tornado, I am so very grateful that I don't have to hear those school bells anymore (and the earsplitting fire drill bell that was right outside my classroom and which I blame for my partial deafness). I estimate that I heard 20 bells every single day as a student and then as a teacher. Multiply that by the standard 185 school days (for a teacher) and you get 3,700 bell noises every school year. Take that number and multiply it by those 43 years of my life and you see that I was conditioned over 159,000 times to do whatever that bell told me to do. Add in all those mornings of being awakened by an alarm, which also included the four years of college in which bells didn't really shape my school hours, and you can probably see how happy I am to no longer have to hear those noises.

Noises, in fact, are not allowed in my house while I work. I prefer silence, so I can think and create. Some people need constant noise and can't stand silence, but I adore silence while I work. Poe can have his bells; I'll keep my peace and quiet. 

Happy New Year 2022.

Shtick This! Survival Tips for First-Year Teachers

Teachers across the country are preparing for a new year of school. For the first time in three decades, I am not one of those teachers because I retired from the profession to focus solely on my writing career; however, during the 30 years in which I taught, I saw many many many first-year teachers enter the profession and then promptly leave it behind after that first year. A few tried a second or even a third year to see if they could gain their stride, and some of them succeeded while others did not and left teaching for a different career. 

For a number of years, I've been working on a book-length survival guide for first-year teachers because too often a new teacher is simply dropped into a classroom and expected to know how to make it. Teaching, though, and all the inane bureaucratic nonsense that comes with it, is incredibly hard. It's mentally and physically exhausting to a level that you just can't imagine until you do it. The demands of the job overwhelm even those of us who have 30 years under our belt and who are so jaded we no longer really care about pleasing parents, administration, school boards, communities, and the world at large.

So, even though I don't teach anymore, I'm going to give any newbies reading this a few pieces of advice to help you survive the trenches of your first year of teaching, so that you will, hopefully, return to teach many more years. There is a shortage of good teachers, that's for sure, so you need to make it.

I taught secondary school, so my advice is primarily geared toward junior high and high school teachers, but it's fairly broad in scope, so elementary teachers can use some of it.

All right, here we go.

First off, remember this very essential thing: after all the extra B.S. that will get shoved onto your plate concerning curriculum updates, standards, school and classroom rules, extra-duty assignments, in-services, continuous school improvement, staff meetings, etc., you are there to teach. So, teach. That incredibly simple, yet incredibly important, thing often gets pushed aside by all the other stuff that is thrown at you. Don't let the other stuff become more important to you than the teaching part. At the end of the day, if you actually taught the kids something useful for their current or future lives, then you did your job. 

Set the tone you want from the very start, but don't go overboard trying to be this tough teacher, demanding respect by demanding too much. Have demands, of course, but keep them manageable. I've seen teachers try to establish consequences for everything from cutting in line to cheating to chewing gum to talking during a lecture, etc. The more you spell out for them, the more they will try you, and you won't have time to constantly be focusing on the discipline part of the job. Eventually, you will tire of it, and you will start easing up on or downright ignoring your own rules, and then you will have lost the battle, my friend. The very first time you don't keep a student after school for some minor infraction that you have posted on your "classroom rules poster," another student will call you out for it. So, follow the K.I.S.S. policy of "Keep It Simple, Stupid." In my classroom, it was simply the Golden Rule with the addendum of "Do the right thing." I also had a no food in class rule. If a student cheated, I could ask him, "Is that doing the right thing?" Clearly, it was not, so a punishment could be given. If a student tripped another kid, I could ask, "Is that doing the right thing or treating another the way you want to be treated?" Of course it isn't. Then, depending on the situation and the kids involved, you can get the tripper to apologize or you can make him stay after or do whatever is fitting in that moment. 

When you are setting the tone, you also need to be very careful about the line you draw. With high school students and first-year teachers, sometimes there are only a few years separating their ages. In my first year, I had a student who had been held back a year and was nineteen when I taught him. I was only twenty-two. I was only three years older than he was. That makes it very hard to establish yourself as the authority figure, but you must do it. You are NOT their friend, and at no point should you ever act like you are. You can become their friend later on after they've graduated and become adults if they even want to be your friend then, but when they are your students, they are not your friends. Do NOT have them as any sort of contact on social media sites, do NOT text them about anything that isn't 100% sport or activity related if you happen to be a coach or adviser (I'd even go so far as to say do NOT text them, but unfortunately many schools now use texting apps to remind students and parents of things, so it's likely you will text kids, but always always always keep it on topic.), do NOT let them call you by your first name, do NOT allow them to flirt with you as will often happen with first-year teachers who are seen as "hot" or attractive by teenagers, no NOT look at them as anything other than your students. You can be friendly toward them, of course, but you are not their friend. 

And allow me to put this one in all caps: DO NOT HAVE ANY SEXUAL CONTACT WITH YOUR STUDENTS. That should be a no-brainer, right? Yeah, you'd think so, but every year I read stories of teachers who have been caught in sexual relationships with students and who then end up in prison. PRISON. Never to teach again. Life ruined. For what? And if you happen to think that you are too smart to ever get caught and that you just can't resist that cute blonde, then you are an idiot who has no  business being a teacher. You will get caught. You will lose your teaching certificate for life. And if your school board doesn't want to just sweep it all under the rug or if the irate parents find out, you will be prosecuted, and you will go to jail. For a long time. 

All right, let's get back to this teaching thing.

Know your subject well. You will come to know it exceedingly well over the years you teach it (I taught Spanish, and the degree to which I understand the language after 30 years of teaching it is so far beyond what I knew my first year, that I'm almost embarrassed by it; however, I still knew it well enough to know what I was talking about that first year or so.) Know your subject well now, but be always working to know it better. You will actually learn more while teaching it than you ever learned by simply studying it. Be aware of your limitations, and when you don't know an answer, be sure to tell the kids you don't know it but that you'll find out what it is. Then do that. When the kids see you caring enough to learn more yourself, they will trust you, and when they see that learning is a lifelong thing, they will be better for it. If you make a mistake with something you taught them, admit it and correct it. You are human, and you will make mistakes. Also, know the value of your subject to life in general. Why should the kids want or need to learn what you have to teach them? You better know the answer to that question before you let any students into your classroom. And the answer better not just be "because it's on the standardized test." 

Care. Care about the kids. Care about your subject or subjects. Care about the other staff members. Care about yourself. If you care, it will show, and the kids will reciprocate. Rapport is the thing you most need to build -- with students and staff. Again, let me repeat that the students are NOT your friends. They can respect and like you without being your friend. You can care about them without being their friends. Rapport is kind of a professional level of friendship. The kids know they can trust you to have their best interests at heart, but they also know that there is a line that they can't cross and that you absolutely will not cross, either. 

It's okay to say NO. Often, a lot gets dumped on first-year teachers because they are young and energetic and optimistic. Taking on too much is a sure-fired way to burn out fast. However, you also want to take on a few things because it's a good way to build relationships with students and staff outside of the classroom setting. So, find the happy medium if you can. 

Find a mentor teacher. The administration may assign you one, and that's great, but that person may or may not be the best fit for you. Find a teacher who has been there a while and with whom you click, and go to that person often to answer any questions you have. That teacher knows the school well already. Take advantage of that knowledge. Not sure how to find the best mentor teacher on your own? Pay attention to the students those first few days. Listen to who they grumble about the most or make fun of or show very little respect toward; then, avoid those teachers as mentors. If one of them has been assigned to you, that's fine -- just because he was assigned to you doesn't mean you have to take his advice. Instead, find that teacher who the students clearly respect and like, and then latch on as often as you can until you feel really comfortable in your new role.

The first day is very important for any first-year teacher, so set that tone, but if you feel completely overwhelmed that first day, it's okay. Most students are overwhelmed the first day back at school, too, and really only listen to about half of what you say, so set the tone as well as you can the first day, and then hit it firmly on the second day onward. Be consistent. Be in charge. It is your classroom. You set the tone. The kids will follow it. They might grumble and complain, but one thing that I know with total certainty after 30 years of teaching is that kids like being in classrooms where there is a caring, consistent, and competent teacher. Do your best to be all three of those things every day with every class, and you will not only survive the first year, but you'll come back for many more. Maybe you'll end up teaching for 30 years like I did, or maybe you'll stay even longer. Good luck.

Here I am at my desk on one of my final days of teaching.

I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have, so feel free to comment, or you can contact me via email on my website of tammymarshallauthor.wordpress.com on the contact page.