perspectives
Teaching Your Way to Eternal Youth
At 72, an engineer and Holocaust survivor earns a teaching credential and a master’s degree, and sets out on a new career.
By Robert Geminder M.A. ’08
For more than four decades, I worked as an engineer. In recent years, I have reflected on what I would like to do after leaving my profession. The idea of retiring did not appeal to me and was not part of my personal vocabulary. Rather, I began to consider how to transition to another career, and I quickly focused on teaching.
My decision was influenced by the fact that I survived the Holocaust as a young boy in Poland. I realized that young children were growing up in a world where the news and memories of the Holocaust were slowly disappearing. I was determined to make certain that they would know there was a Holocaust.
Over the years, I have spoken frequently about the Holocaust to thousands of middle and high school children. I thoroughly enjoyed the interaction with them and learned that many had never met a survivor before. I knew that teaching was my new calling.
In 2004, I started a program at Loyola Marymount University to obtain my teaching credential and a master’s degree in education. While studying, I also taught full time.
I love teaching. My wife, Judy, my children, Mindy, Ellen and Shia, and many of my friends are puzzled about why I would devote myself to such a difficult and time-consuming profession at this stage of my life. I admit that the work is hard, much harder than my work as an engineer. But I never measure my activity by the difficulty in doing it, but by the purpose and satisfaction I gain and in what I’m able to give others. It’s difficult to describe how much pleasure I derive from knowing that I’m an important part in guiding children to prepare for their adulthood.
I obtained my credential and master’s degree and graduated on May 11, 2008. Presently, I teach at Saint Mary’s Academy High School in Inglewood. I am planning to be there for a long time. High school students are approaching that period of their lives when proper guidance is very important. I feel I can make my greatest impact with them.
There is no doubt that I love and am stimulated by teaching. Young students absorb new ideas, and I am drawn to them. An example of the “wonderment of teaching” occurred in my classes in May. I was showing articles and photos of the devastation caused by the cyclone in Myanmar to my science students. In each class, one of the students asked, “What can we do to help?” I responded by asking them the same question. They all agreed to donate money and have me send it to the UNICEF fund for Myanmar relief. Every student donated something. As a teacher, I found it a gratifying experience.
I value activity and purposeful living. Even now, I’m beginning to wonder what I might want to do if my career in teaching were to end. Although nothing yet has taken the place of teaching, I know that another transition will await me. Retiring is not for me. My advice to readers who are entering what is usually considered retirement is “Don’t retire, rewire!”
Robert Geminder M.A. ’08 writes and lectures frequently about the Holocaust. He also maintains a Web site that can be found at www.geminder.us.