Last week I received a Certificate proclaiming me to be a Proficient Teacher.
There it is above in all its magnificent colour.
At first I thought it was a joke, someone taking a lend of me.
Then I felt insulted as I am in my fifth year of retirement.
Then I saw the fine print. To maintain my standing as a Proficient Teacher the accompanying booklet outlined the steps I would have to undertake to maintain this elevated position within the teaching fraternity.
There was a detailed program put together by some office clerk somewhere with little to no idea of what a teacher’s day is actually like, but rather responding to some bureaucrat’s whim to make teacher’s lives all the more arduous.
In the five years of retirement so far I have done one day’s casual teaching and that was to help out a teacher who had been a former student and intern. I don’t feel the urge or compunction to go back into school, for me its a case of been there done that and I have no longing to play teacher again.
I’m not sure as to what to do with the certificate, to frame it or use it as a place mat.
Morpethroad 
Frame it and hang it sideways.
lol….thanks Linda, sound advice…
You could laminate it and use as a place mat.
Thanks Jan, your suggestion is being considered…
Lovely!🤓
Congrats, I guess. But maybe they should’ve given that to you a lot earlier in your career? You taught for many years and shouldn’t need a certificate to help out, if that was you wanted to do. My Dad has been a teacher/principal and is 4 yrs from retirement, but wants to work a few days a week if he can (2 to 3) afterwards. I think he’d be really insulted at this too. You have how many years experience, that’s so much more than some program!
Thanks Mandi, I think part of their motivation is to entice those of us in retirement to stay in teaching as there is a growing shortage of teachers. Though I didn’t find it enticing in any way.
Certificate ?? Where is the medal for 25+ years teaching😡😡😡
I shouldn’t complain too much, I did receive a retirement medal four years after the event.
Michael, you stated “for me its a case of been there done that,” maybe if you bought a T-shirt, with the certificate embossed on the front, it would satisfy them. Of course, you could always help the local kids with their homework – that’s punishment enough for any retired teacher 🙂
I could Lyn but that would be a dumb idea. I say that as I had enough of that punishment when I was working. Though I like the t-shirt idea.
lol hung it in the dunny!
Trouble with that idea is I’d be the one looking at it…but thanks anyway Kate.
doesn’t have to be high or up the right way, the colours make a nice pattern …
Something to read in the loo Michael………………. ?
Thanks Di but I don’t need any help in there. There’s plenty of other things to give me the sh..s.
ha! TMI my friend!
Now, that’s interesting. I’m still not sure what it is, apart from an effort to rob you of money and time. It looks nice though. Make origami with it?
Good suggestion. I think its meant to be a piece of paper telling me that after all my years of teaching I’ve reached the status of being proficient, which in lay-man’s terms means I had some idea of what I was doing.
You sum it up very nicely. That’s basically what my doctoral diploma says too.