General News
‘Your influence will always be in-service’
Dec 6, 2007 12:17 PM
New retirees thanked by union at annual send-off
Former chapter leaders pose for a group shot.
“When you wake up to howling wind and two feet of frozen snow and switch on the radio to hear that the chancellor is keeping the schools open anyway and you suddenly realize that you can stay put and relax — then you’ll realize that it’s not still summer vacation but you’re really retired after all!”
That’s what Retired Teachers Chapter Leader Tom Pappas told more than 900 new retirees at the annual New Retiree Luncheon on Nov. 16 at the Hilton Hotel in Manhattan.
Among those listening closely — once again — was former PS 43, Queens, teacher Leslie Hammer, who was his student when Pappas taught history at John Adams HS almost 40 years ago.
Pappas thanked the guests for their many years of service to kids and for helping the union win the battles that made possible their economic freedom to enjoy their retirement.
“Our pension and health benefits are among the best in the country,” he said. “Despite the nationwide assault on these blessings, we are fighting to protect and even improve what we have, including a COLA adjustment. In retirement it is your responsibility to help the union help you maintain your happiness.”
UFT President Randi Weingarten saluted the retirees for “being on the front lines for kids, often taking the hits, storming the beaches, seizing new ground for learning and sharing in the glory of the most rewarding enterprise on earth: teaching a new generation.”
Weingarten said that the educators had inspired kids in ways that “will echo all their lives,” and that their influence “will always be in-service.”
She added, with a wink and a hint, that “the RTC has 52,000 members. That’s more than the margin of Mayor Bloomberg’s first electoral victory. Stay aware and politically active.”
Weingarten then urged support of the Democratic candidate in the presidential election, warning of dire consequences for workers if the alternative were to prevail.
The UFT Teacher Center had some key staffers retire, including (from left) Arlene Harris, Gail Steinberg, Linda Alper, Gerri Herskowitz, Esta Heitner and Gary Newman.
Most of the new retirees expressed bittersweet sentiments. They all missed the children and none had a kind word for “the system.” Many might have postponed their retirement, they said, were it not for the “gotcha-oriented” Department of Education and, in some cases, their “imperial principals.”
“I got tired of playing the kids’ Beowulf to the chancellor’s Grendel,” said one retiree.
“It’s no wonder that so many teachers retired this year,” reflected Marlene Moorehead, formerly of PS 76 in Brooklyn. “They remember when education wasn’t treated like a business,”
Evelyn Pacheco-York, of PS 128 in Manhattan, said she would miss “the positive exhaustion of a hard day’s work well done — but not the negative stress of enduring the soulless bureaucracy.”
Before Jennie Michetti, of PS 59 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, embarks on her next antique hunt during what were formerly business hours, she has some advice for the DOE: “People skills and humanity go a long way!”
UFT President Randi Weingarten salutes the new retirees for their years of “being on the front lines for kids.”
Sherry Friedman, who assisted teachers through the Peer Intervention Program, predicted that “with the current administration the challenges will be greater than ever.”
Roberto Montesinos, formerly of John Bowne HS, identified “two things that haven’t changed since I became a teacher in 1962: my love of teaching students and the union’s support of professionalism.”
Carmen Graciano, who taught at Taft HS, said that “with all the shake-ups in recent years, the union was a rock of stability.”
So what’s next for the new retirees?
Leola Smith, late of IS 390 in Brooklyn, just “can’t wait to take advantage of union-sponsored trips and calligraphy and sculpture classes.” If she gets tired of those there are always more Si Beagle courses, from Tai Chi to Mah Jongg, from “Great Ladies of the Cinema” to “Great Movie Villains,” from Middle Eastern Dance to Jazz Legends, from Dolls to Travelogues.
Teresa Alejandro, of PS 189 in Washington Heights, is about to make good on her long-awaited plans to trek to the archeological ruins of Peru with some side trips down the Amazon. “I’ve earned this and the kids have earned my affection forever,” she said.
Virginia Schwartz, writing teacher at PS 79 in Queens and author of several books for young adults, will expand her literary output using “lessons I learned from bonding with children in the classroom.”
Even in retirement, tender memories linger: “I will miss seeing the light of discovery in the eyes of my autistic students,” said Linda Bravstein, a speech teacher at PS 255 in Flushing, Queens.
And for paraprofessional Shirley Foreman, the memories have a particular poignancy. “When I lost my son Donald, one of 37 Port Authority police officers killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11, the whole community of Hillcrest HS sustained me so I could emotionally survive,” she said. “The school was a part of my cherished family and retirement will not change that.”
Columbus HS colleagues (from left) Gloria Lindenbaum, Pam Buder and Constance Williams are all smiles.
Former co-workers Olivia Hector (left) of IS 59, Queens, and Shirley Hunter of JHS 117, Manhattan, reunite at the luncheon.
Retired Teachers Chapter Leader Tom Pappas has a big smile for former PS 43, Queens, teacher Leslie Hammer, whom Pappas had as a student during his history-teaching days at John Adams HS some 40 years ago.
