Martin in Germany has done some of the most courageous work in the past year that I know of. He shared with us his decision to retire from the profession for mental health reasons, and did so this year, one year away from his scheduled retirement in 2018. Here is an update on the situation from Martin for those of us may have followed it on the blog here over the past year.
Martin is going in on Tuesday which means real soon, a few hours, in Germany. So if anybody reads this tonite send some energy over there. Only one class to start, but Martin know that we are thinking of you. My word of advice is relax. You are doing it right. I know that.
Dear Ben, dear colleagues,
I just would like to tell you that I have been slowly recovering during the past five or six months. When going to the Netherlands in January to give a presentation on TPRS in Waldorf schools I discovered that I still take much joy in teaching and helping other people to learn about Comprehensible Input methods. And I realised I had the strength to make the trip without feeling exhausted.
I had a lot of fun going to Groningen with my wife and visiting Maika – one of the many Dutch language teachers we met in Agen in 2016. She established the contact to the Waldorf school and made them invite me for the presentation.
So Tuesday I will return to my school and start teaching again, first one class only, then gradually taking more classes. I just have to try if it will really be okay to continue for another one and a half years. But for mental health reasons I won’t teach full time anymore.
Thank you once more for all your good wishes when my „Letter from a colleague“ was published by Ben in November. They certainly helped me to cope with my breakdown in a constructive way.
Yours Martin
Related: https://benslavic.com/blog/germany-in-the-house/