Thoughts on Retiring (at 82) by Sister Rita Yeasted

My answer to Mary Oliver’s “Tell me what you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” was easy: Teach. Beginning at La Roche University (then College) in 1980, I rose through the ranks to Distinguished Professor, but now I have once again become an adjunct, like so many others that I hired when I chaired the English Department for 33 years.

The first thing people ask teachers upon retiring is “What will you do now?” and I honestly responded, “Teach, I hope.” And that is what I have done. I just completed a short summer class on August Wilson and took 30 people to see “Two Trains Running” at the Public Theater. Life doesn’t get better than that. 

I have wanted to teach since I was 5 years old, coming home from school and trying to share with my younger sister all that I had learned. I entered the convent at 20 in 1959 and began teaching 5th grade at 23. I started teaching high school at 28. Beginning work on a doctorate in 1974, I continued to teach as an adjunct at Duquesne and St. Vincent College.

In 1980, I was hired at my alma mater as Assistant Professor and the Department Chairperson. Through all those years, I always taught at least one class, mostly working full time. And now I hope to continue to be in front of a class each term if my eyes hold out. Teaching has always brought me deep joy.

WPCTE recently lost another teacher, whose life in many ways resembled my own, my friend and colleague, our former Executive Director, John Manear. John loved teaching with the same passion I did. We “talked shop” for decades, and in the early years together kept the Western Pennsylvania Council (and PCTELA) alive when it seemed doomed to extinction. John was also active in NCTE, and brought the national conference to Pittsburgh twice, chairing it once. We often traveled together to NCTE conferences, and in the later years I looked out for him, making sure his motorized wheelchair was at the hotel and conference center. He inspired me with his determination to keep going when almost anyone else I know would have said, “Enough.” John never did.

John never wanted to retire. As his obituary reminded us, he wanted to die in his classroom and be carried out feet first. He died on the last day of school, two weeks after submitting his resignation letter.

John began the English Festival in Pittsburgh, having heard that Youngstown State had one. Excited at the prospect of getting students to read books and compete for prizes, he, Dr. Al Labriola of Duquesne, and then president, Mike Benedicta, went to Youngstown, and the rest is more than a quarter century of success. The last time I saw him alive was May 11 when we held the Festival at La Roche for grades 7-12.

John began his teaching career as a Christian Brother, who taught at what was then South Catholic High School, now Seton-La Salle. When he left the community, he continued to teach, always in Catholic schools (or the State Penitentiary) because teaching was his life. I understand that feeling. Motivated by a deep faith, John continued to teach when he could no longer walk. Teaching was a life force for him, as I think it is for me. 

One of my favorite poems is “To Be of Use,” by Marge Percy. The whole poem is attached below, but the words have always been a vision for me of what I wanted to be. I know it spoke to John as well. Percy captures the truth of classroom teaching in this stanza:

    I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,

who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,

who do what has to be done, again and again.

 

And that wonderful last stanza that always reminds me of teaching, “work that is real.”

 

The work of the world is common as mud.

Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

But the thing worth doing well done

has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,

Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.

The pitcher cries for water to carry

and a person for work that is real.

   The past two years have been tough for classroom teachers—and our students. The profession I chose 60 years ago evokes less respect now from students, parents, and the public. Morale is low, and too many of our colleagues search for other jobs that pay more and are, seemingly, more prestigious. But I hope we look forward to the fall semester with a renewed spirit, with the words of Marge Percy somewhere on our desk.

To be of use… To be a teacher… What a noble vocation. Never forget what inspired you to become one.

Sister Rita M. Yeasted, SFCC, Ph.D.

Teacher

 

 

To be of use

BY MARGE PIERCY

The people I love the best

jump into work head first

without dallying in the shallows

and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.

They seem to become natives of that element,

the black sleek heads of seals

bouncing like half-submerged balls.

 

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,

who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,

who do what has to be done, again and again.

 

I want to be with people who submerge

in the task, who go into the fields to harvest

and work in a row and pass the bags along,

who are not parlor generals and field deserters

but move in a common rhythm

when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

 

The work of the world is common as mud.

Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

But the thing worth doing well done

has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,

Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.

The pitcher cries for water to carry

and a person for work that is real.