Tag: PMEA

Are You Ready? Thoughts on Retirement for Music Teachers

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Life and retirement are truly journeys… which means getting there is more meaningful than being there.

Now beginning my third year of retirement from the public schools, I can honestly make the statement… I LOVE IT! For me, I cry out HURRAY for the FREEDOM, and enthusiastically take on exploring raising puppies, home improvement, more personal music making, conducting, writing, photography, community service, and volunteer work. And, as you can imagine, my calendar is as full as it has ever been!

However, not all of our newly retired colleagues feel the same way… at least, not at first. It should be said that not everyone may be ready to retire. Often heard employment complaints aside, “be careful for what you wish!” In general, few are ambivalent about this transition… leaving the day-to-day highly pressured, detailed, “rat-race” most music teachers embrace to jumping into the wide-open horizons of new vision, focus, and directions. Recent retirees either love or hate this “passage.”

Examine your motives and your inner thoughts. Are you ready to retire?

Retirement should not be about “escaping from” something but “journeying to” something else. The type-A-ness in most of us, strong connections and identity to our work, music classes, ensembles, and programs, has to relinquish control over our 24-7 lives… allowing time to rest, reflect, re-energize, and make new goals. This means you rarely look back or live in the past; you look forward and plan new challenges!

Just as I made the decision to retire from teaching full-time strings/orchestras, serving as Performing Arts curriculum leader, and managing a hectic schedule of music and theater extracurricular activities, I wrote an article for PMEA News (the state journal of the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association), citing the wisdom of many others on this topic. (See “Retirement! Now What? Tips for Retirees and Soon To Be Retirees” below from the Fall 2013 PMEA News.) You are invited to examine these areas of help and inspiration before you consider when and how to make this life-changing (but glorious) “metamorphosis!”

Also, for more resources, I encourage you to peruse the retired members’ section under “focus areas” of the PMEA website: http://www.pmea.net/retired-members/

CLICK HERE for Retirement Article in PMEA News

PKF

© 2015 Paul K. Fox

Welcome to Fox’s Fireside

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Greetings from a happily retired public school music educator who has time to burn learning how to “WordPress.”

Here’s to sharing our thoughts about creativity, music and music education, and retirement. Ironically, my pulpit of “random observations” spans both ends of the career spectrum… ranging from marketing strategies and interview techniques for new/recently transferred professionals trying to find a school music teaching job to our “seniors” transitioning that formidable “life changing” passage of stepping down from full-time directing/teaching.

This blog will also serve as a vault of my personal essays and articles (many published in the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association state journal PMEA News or workshop handouts at in-service conferences).

In my final days as a teacher/administrator, I was inspired to research and write a series of articles on “Creativity for Teachers” in PMEA News. For access, please see “Creativity in Education – Are We Ready for A New Paradigm Shift?” title link at the top of this site.

For a complete listing of all of my blogs, click on the “Inside…” tab above or go to https://paulkfoxusc.wordpress.com/why/.

Warning! The views expressed here are the sole responsibility of that “crazy as a fox” former music teacher and Performing Arts Curriculum Leader of the Upper St. Clair School District. These are offered as food-for-thought, a “pause in reflection” (for foxes, isn’t it “paws?”). Hopefully, all of us can collaborate, explore some insight, and generate meaningful discussion as we possibly solve a few problems along the way.

I welcome your input… so check back here often for future blog posts as I learn the (for me) “new technology!”

PKF

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