I am one of 77 million baby boomers in the United States – among the very first, having been born just a couple of months after World War II ended. According to AARP, 10,000 baby boomers are turning 65 every day. Sixty-five percent plan to work past age 65, as I have. That is, up to now. 

Well, I finally did it. After 46 years and more than 5,000 students taught, I have decided that this will be my last semester teaching. I have submitted my “notice of intent to retire” form, my last day on the job scheduled for Sept. 1.

In recent years, during the first day of each class I teach, I have distributed to students “A Few Words About the Professor Teaching This Course,” in which I note the following: 

“I have taught at UM-St. Louis since 1972, making me a ‘five-decade player’ (like Minnie Minoso). That means, I guess, that I am an old geezer (the bad news), but one who has been a first-hand eyewitness to a lot of history, not to mention one who has had lots of time to become more worldly through deep reading and reflection (the good news). In this course I hope to give you the benefit of whatever knowledge and wisdom I have gained over the years, while being open to the fresh insights and concerns that, at times, only younger people are able to bring to the classroom.”

I still think I can connect to today’s students, although it is becoming more challenging as students seem to arrive with less and less knowledge about the subject matter I teach — world politics — even as they are more willing than ever to state their opinions. 

I like to remind them, as the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., once said, “you are entitled to your opinions but not your facts.” However, this dictum is hard to enforce at a time when, from our president to the “fake news” reported by mainstream media to progressive educationists who urge we “teach the child, not the subject,” facts have been increasingly devalued.

As important as facts are, that is not all there is to education. The best definition of education I ever heard was “getting students to learn to cope with ambiguity,” which means not the absence of truth (an objective reality) but rather its complexity. Reality is rarely black and white but grayish. Yet our political culture today does not allow for nuance and flexible open-mindedness as opposed to rigid, ideologically based argumentation. Young people are as susceptible to simplistic thinking as older people, perhaps more so.

I should add that one must be increasingly sensitive to not offending students, who are ever more attuned to affronts in the form of “microaggressions,” “harassment” and other supposedly hurtful behaviors, the slightest of which can be cause for administrative review. One must be sensitive as well to the need for the contemporary student to walk out of class several times in mid-lecture, as texting and phoning friends takes priority over learning about war and peace.

Of course, I am being too cynical here. Notwithstanding the growing challenges instructors face, I can honestly say that I have truly enjoyed most of my students and found the profession very rewarding.

College teaching remains one of the best gigs imaginable. You get four months of the year off. You essentially get paid to read. The standard workload usually consists of teaching two courses a semester, often amounting to two days a week. Many of us write – I have authored 10 books and dozens of scholarly articles – but that is not necessarily a job requirement at many colleges, particularly once you get tenure, which is lifetime security. 

It is easy to become lazy because, as almost any teacher will tell you, once you have invested the time and effort to carefully develop lecture notes, discussion activities and assessment measures for a course, you can almost deliver that course in your sleep year after year. I am happy to say that I kept myself and my students awake, for the most part.

I had to undertake a major redo of my lecture notes only twice in my career, as international relations has remained a relatively stable area of inquiry. The first time was in 1989 when, after decades of viewing the world primarily through the lens of the Cold War bipolar order of two superpowers engaged in a global geopolitical struggle between communism and noncommunism, suddenly we had to make sense of a new, post-Cold War era of American hegemony. The second was in 2016, when the arrival of Donald Trump coincided with the decline of U.S. dominance and the disappearance of any coherence in American foreign policy.

It does not happen as much as one would like, but there are few greater delights in life than taking advantage of a teachable moment and seeing the light bulbs go on in students’ faces as some important insight has registered and aroused the curiosity of the class. I will miss that.

All in all, it has been a wonderful ride. Still, the retirement decision was a fairly easy one. When virtually all faculty who were at UMSL in 1972 are now gone, it seemed time for the last roundup for me as well.

It is said that “a retired husband is often a wife’s full-time job.” Indeed, my wife, Ruth, insisted I have a plan before committing to retirement lest I drive her crazy along with myself. It is probably good advice, but I have yet to develop a plan, other than probably trying to maintain my office at UMSL and continuing to motor to campus daily, engaging in casual reading and writing without the pressures of preparing for class (non-onerous as they were). I may well try some volunteer work, such as tutoring.

Retirement is not for everyone. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for one, appears uninterested. Moses, for another, never retired. Many readers of this column may also, for financial or other reasons, be resisting such a decision. 

If you are losing lots of sleep over the decision, it probably means you are not really ready for such a profound life change. Speaking for myself, I am looking forward to enjoying the grandkids, travel, the free time and the satisfaction of having paid my dues. 

J. Martin Rochester, Curators’ Teaching Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, is author of 10 books on international and American politics, including his latest: “New Warfare: Rethinking Rules for An Unruly World.”