I realized I was no longer young when my phone had trouble recognizing my face.

At the grocery store, I want to “pinch and pull” to enlarge the produce-code numbers when checking out, but that is fruitless. I worry that if I can’t decipher those numbers, how on earth will I read novels aloud to my students?

I turned 47 this summer and I know that the arc of teaching is long, but it bends toward the young… and I’m not young anymore.

This realization brought me back to a chapter of To Kill a Mockingbird. Chapter 10 begins with Scout declaring that “Atticus was feeble: he was nearly fifty.” In her eyes, this was “a reflection on his manliness.” He didn’t play poker, drink, smoke, hunt or fish like the other dads. For Scout, age and weakness are married, with shame as their offspring. The chapter ends, though, with Atticus shooting a rabid dog. Scout is left confused, wondering why her father never mentioned or displayed his marksmanship. Jem, slightly older and more mature, is in awe and admiration of his father. He sees his quiet strength and modeled dignity, two qualities not defined by age, but placed in the broader scope of manhood.

I’ve written a lot about forming thesis statements, writing the college essay, the power of great poems, and engaging students over the years. But right now I want to place teaching in the broader scope of a career and confess some of the deeper truths I am experiencing:

1 — There was a time when I was the young guy in the room. I relished that identity because it carried a weight of precociousness. I was the youngest AP teacher in my building, the youngest basketball coach in the league and the county. I arrived early to the party. People saw something in me and put me on the fast track. Then suddenly – and it is sudden – I wasn’t the youngest. I wasn’t even in the young crowd anymore. Everyone thinks the only fast track remaining is retirement. It can close you in if you let it. But it can also liberate you. Once I freed myself from the expectations of others, the burden of being something for someone else disappeared. I was free to define myself. There was no pressure to coach, advise, or volunteer. My awesome power was that I did these things because I want to, not because they were expected of me.

2–New-teacher orientation is tailored to the young. All professional development thereafter has a homogenized eye toward experience. It sees a fifth year teacher the same as one with two decades of experience. Why don’t we develop PD in a way that empowers, strengthens, and honors the dignity of all stages, not just the young?

3–Once I married and started a family, my identity shifted. My priorities shifted. Now, I wanted the world for my own children. I saw what happened when my boys were praised, supported, and protected by their teachers. I began to pay it forward. I started to see every student as someone else’s child. I began to want more than good grades from my students; I wanted the world for them, too. I did things that expanded my understanding of who they were beyond the classroom. I began a Chess Club. I became involved in an athlete-leadership program. The shift was that I didn’t scale back. I did more, and it was more meaningful than ever before.

4–I often repeat, “the kids keep you young. The kids keep you young.” And it is true. Classrooms keep you fixed in time. As years have turned into decades, I have stayed in a revolving door of 16, 17, and 18-year olds. Their energy has fed my energy. Their youthful optimism has rekindled my own. The kids have kept me young… that is, until I drop an index card on the floor and I have to squat down to get it. Then my knees remind me I’m not so young anymore.

5–My twenties were spent second guessing everything — was I teaching the right books the right way? Were the worksheets actually making a difference? Was I pushing kids too hard, not hard enough? Then, in the second half of my teaching life, a quiet confidence set in because I didn’t rinse, wash, and repeat. I revisited and revised, making my units better and better until the insecurity faded away.

6–The window of cultural relevancy closes quickly. It forced me to rethink my humor and make a shift to poignancy. 90s rap lyrics and Will Ferrell movie quotes were replaced by mini sermons. I built a house not out of cheap laughs, but one with many rooms of deep introspection. As Lonesome Dove reminds us, “the older the violin, the sweeter the music.”

7–Let’s be honest: – growing older is physically punishing, but my all-time favorite poem never fails for inspiration. It has reminded my that:

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.