When George Washington left office after his second term, he delivered a speech filled with advice for the country.
During my retirement speech on Saturday night, I did the same. Here is the advice I offered as part of my speech at my retirement party.
- Curriculum is a useful suggestion for what should be taught in a classroom, but a teacher’s passion and expertise should play an enormous role. Plato Karafelis taught me this. He encouraged us to bring our passions into the classroom at the expense of the curriculum when necessary. I taught Shakespeare and chess. My wife taught Photoshop and created a student-led design studio. We had teachers who carved classrooms out of the forest and taught science above all else. We had teachers educating their students in web design, filmmaking, and more. This was a grand and glorious time in our school’s history.
________________________________ - If your gifted and talented program does not accept unmotivated or behaviorally challenging students, you are engaged in elitist nonsense and utter stupidity. Cancel your program immediately. Invest that money in more equitable programs that recognize that not all gifted and talented children are excited to learn or little saints.
________________________________ - The best, and almost always the only people who should be delivering professional development to teachers, are teachers. People who don’t work in schools with children on a daily basis rarely have anything useful to say to those in the classroom.
________________________________ - Break rules when it benefits kids and is a reasonable response to needless expectations and bureaucracy. Teach children to break rules, too. Children who are bracketed by rigid adherence to rules are at a great disadvantage in life. Many rules are simply toothless suggestions that limit creativity, ingenuity, and freedom.
________________________________ - If the majority of students in your audition-based musical group or program are taking private music lessons, you have created a program that systematically hurts children without means while elevating those who do not need to be elevated. Fix the program to make it equitable to all children or end it.
________________________________ - When in doubt, make things more challenging for kids. Do this relentlessly. Force them to solve their own problems. Leave them alone whenever you can. Build their capacity by allowing them to experience the satisfaction of solving a problem, even without adult involvement. Treat 2026 like it’s 1986 whenever you can.
________________________________ - The “I’m not going to do that thing and see what happens” works well. Try it. I avoided so many stupid tasks and expectations in my career by simply not doing a thing and discovering that no one cared or even noticed.
________________________________ - Parents, students, and your colleagues will be your greatest allies if you allow them into your life. Two superintendents tried to fire me over the course of my career. I remained in my position as a teacher because teachers, students, and parents who supported me relentlessly and unwaveringly.
________________________________ - When something joyous is taken away from students, it’s never because of budget, the pandemic, or any other excuse. It’s always taken away to make adults’ lives easier.
________________________________ - Read to children every day.
________________________________ - If you want to teach writing, you’d better be writing. There is no better way to become a better teacher of writing.
________________________________ - Fight for what has been lost in your students’ lives, if only to remind those in power of how much they have degraded the joy of children. In the case of Wolcott School, this would include:
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- Overnight camping at Camp Jewel
- My classroom stage
- Morning recess
- Our trip to Boston’s Freedom Trail
- My annual Thanksgiving feast
- Dodgeball
- Snowball fights
- Musicals
- Sledding at recess
- Competitive field day
- Every student playing a musical instrument
None of these things were lost because of the teacher, but because doing so made adults’ lives easier.
I ached for these things. Yearned for them. I remembered the joy, excitement, learning, and growth they brought to our school.
They should all return. If not, speak of them often as I often did and still do. Remind people of what we once had that we could one day have again. Don’t let the memories die. That is what people in power want. Never let them have it.
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13. The single greatest thing you can teach a child is to believe in themself. Confidence is a superpower. It makes everything easier. Make this your primary goal above all else.
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14. If the word fun isn’t in your school’s mission statement and isn’t in your daily lesson plans, you have forgotten what it is like to be a child. You have forgotten what it takes to educate children. When learning is fun, everything is easier for both students and teachers.
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15. At our final Town Meeting, a student named Emir said of me:
“Mr. Dicks really remembers what it is like to be a kid, and he actually has a life outside of school.”
This meant a great deal to me. I agree with Emir. These two qualities make for a much better teacher:
Remember what it’s like to be a kid.
Build an interesting and expanding life outside of school.
