Regina del Rosario: The Final Bell

Regina del Rosario reflects on her teaching career and retirement.

The last day of school is never a kumbaya moment of circle time then give hugs all around. Kids await the digital clock to turn 2:50 and dash out the door as they launching into their summer. My endless summer starts now.

After 35 years of teaching, I have no more bells to race against, no more personal stories to listen to nor incessant questions to answer. We could use the metaphor of a string for each connection we make at work. A single strand represents each relation that we nurtured and chose to keep.

These connections then at some workplaces would be just a piece of thread, a cotton string, or even a segment of twine. But for an elementary school teacher, retirement means cutting off a whole steel cable of connections—imagine all the faces that I won’t see again and the voices that echoed my name a hundred times. Will the silence at home be deafening?

I thought I was only going to teach for five years; then one summer led to the next back-to-school night, and so on, and so on. And now the journey is over. Will I constantly try to find replacements for the laughter, the ahas, and wholesome innocence of children? Kids asked me why am I retiring?

Well, I didn’t tell them the full truth — that I’m preserving my health for myself, my family, and friends; because teaching, with all its wonder, really shaves off years. I guess, now I’m racing against a bigger bell that no one has control over.

I need to continuously make sure that my brain stays stimulated, and that I weave other strands of connections to give my identity a new dimension. I won’t have any more stories to tell at the dinner table. But retirement now gives me the gift of time — to be able to braid a new string of connections one strand at a time. With a Perspective, I’m Regina del Rosario.

Regina del Rosario is a recently retired Alameda Unified School District teacher.