When her school closed, Aldergrove teacher Maureen Wilson decided to retire. Then, she got a phone call from a principal who needed a maternity leave fill-in.
"This teacher was doing general music with ukulele and when they put the posting out all over the district, nobody applied," Wilson recalled.
"That principal spoke to the head of human resources at the [school] board office who was my former principal."
A music specialist with 35 years of general music experience, 20 of those years teaching ukulele, Wilson had retired sooner than planned, at 58, after Aldergrove Elementary school shut down in 2007.
"If it hadn't closed, I probably would have continued teaching till I was 65," said Wilson.
"We had one year where we were told it was closing. We fought like hell to keep it open.They gave us one more year, and then after that, said, 'oh, I'm sorry, we're closing anyway.' So I decided to retire, and then I was very happily doing my thing and I got this phone call and I said, sure, why not?"
Less than a year after officially retiring, Wilson returned to teach at Langley Meadows from spring break until the end of June.
She followed that in September 2009, sharing a job with another teacher at Alice Brown Elementary – where her grandson was attending – teaching Kindergarten to Grade 7.
"I taught two days a week, music and computers."
After six years of working while retired, Wilson finally fully retired in 2013, wrapping up 42 years of teaching elementary school (both as a classroom teacher and as a computer/music specialist).
She wanted more time to pursue interests like travelling, painting, and line dancing – what she termed "daytime stuff" that she didn't have time to do when she was working.
A lot of teachers have done the same, said Wilson, who went on to become president of the Langley Retired Teachers Association and had seen several friends and colleagues make the same kind of u-turn back to teaching after retirement.
"They're in the same boat as me, retired and then ended up going back part-time."
It's usually not because retired teachers need the money, in her experience.
"They just like to go back, just keep their fingers in the pie, as such."
More information about the Langley Retired Teachers Association can be found online at https://bcrta.ca/langley/.
More Living 60+ Magazine articles can be found online at https://www.langleyadvancetimes.com/e-editions.
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