Webbing V

Retirement survey (teachers)

I used Survey Monkey, a free online survey tool to create my survey.  I then sent the survey out using Outlook, an e-mail application. I had 16 responses to my survey and the participants have been retired from 1 – 8 years.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MSMQKDK

How do you fill your time?

Has retirement impacted your self-image or feelings of self-worth?

• My self-esteem is up because I don’t have parents judging me or students smarting off to me!
• There was some adjustment required to go from an in charge classroom teacher to being an ordinary citizen.
• I do miss some aspects of teaching/working, and I guess my self-image has changed because I’m no longer a teacher. 

General thoughts about retirement

• Good health is important
• Important to be financially secure
• A more relaxing time of life

I found many retirement quizzes on the Internet by googling “retirement quizzes.”  Many of the quizzes dealt with financial issues.  However I found an interesting one Ladies Home Journal, “Quiz:  Are  You Really Ready to Think About Retirment?”

http://www.lhj.com/lhj/quiz.jsp?catref=lcat77&quizId=/templatedata/lhj/quiz/data/AreYouReadyToRetireQuiz_04222003.xml

My Results

Don't Quit Your Job Just Yet

You've thought about retirement, but you should do some serious planning before you take the plunge. Though you have some ideas about what you might want to do with your time, and other thoughts about what it will mean to leave your career behind, you need to come up with a stronger plan before you retire. “The American way of retirement has been sold to us as one of continual leisure and recreation," says Joanne Fritz, creator of NotYetRetired.com, based in Phoenix, Ariz. "A lot of people coming into retirement now -- the baby boomers -- have a whole different take on things. Fritz says today's retirees are planning on doing instead of simply resting. They're planning for more structured activities, including volunteering and even starting new businesses and learning new skills -- activities they couldn't do when they were working. As exciting as the prospect of doing something new may sound, you can't get started without good planning. Of course, no amount of planning will guarantee your retirement will be all that you hope, but you can take steps so that you're well prepared for anything that comes your way.

This led me to another great website, http://ww2.notyetretired.com/, which I will explore later.

I may have spent too much time on the “webbing” stage.  I still need more “structure” when working on a project – in other words, deadlines.  I work with students in K-5 and they also need that structure.  That is one reason; I plan on using the Big6 model with them.

http://www.crlsresearchguide.org/Big_Six_Steps.asp