100 Teachers, Staff To Retire From Elgin School District
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Wednesday is the last day of work for more than 100 teachers, bus drivers, administrators, and others who are retiring from Illinois' second largest school district, U-46 in Elgin.
Among those retiring is 60-year old Gordy Whiting, an economics and sociology teacher at Elgin High School. He said he's wanted to teach at the school since he was a student there, and on his last day on Wendesday, he's going to do something very memorable.
"I was a product of U-46 as well, so on my last day, I've made arrangements with my old elementary school (Garfield Elementary), and I'm going back, and I'm going to exit through the kindergarten door, because that's the one I walked in back in September of 1961; so I will have made a 55-year round trip," Whiting said.
Even Whiting's 91-year-old mother will be with him.
One thing sprang right to mind when asked about the differences between the students of today and those 33 years ago, when he started teaching
"The attention span is way less than it was back in the day, as these kids say," Whiting said.
He blamed that on cell phones.
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Whiting figured he's had about 10,000 students over the years. He said he's loved the sense of humor they brought to class.
"Once they leave, they're never going to remember the formulas of economics, and they'll never remember all the vocabulary of sociology, but if they walk out on that last day and they think, 'That was interesting,' then I win," he said.
Whiting said he plans to get a dog, take some classes, do some woodworking, and golf.
Among others retiring is Elgin High School production woods teacher Brian Braun. Over the years, his architectural students designed homes which were built by Habitat for Humanity.
