Hello and thank you for visiting. Yes, I really am John Smith, a retired mathematics and statistics professor, and recovering academic. If you are aware of a 12-step program for this condition, please let me know. My current position is that of unpaid sherpa spouse for my wonderful wife and partner in mischief, Sherry Smith. Sherry paints and I carry painting gear. Sherry, also a retired educator, taught kindergarten and first grade for 28 years before leaving the classroom to pursue her love of painting and exploring our natural world. This has provided us the opportunity to travel much of the United States, Canada, Ireland and Scotland. I am near completion of the Facilitator Preparation Program with the Center for Courage and Renewal, which will allow me to serve as a Circle of Trust designing and facilitating retreats with a focus on aging and elderhood, while trying to kick-start a third act as a writer and storyteller.
An Unlikely Academic
Prior to my reentry into the academic world as a non-traditional student at the age of 48, my 1970s academic experience was that of a soccer player masquerading as a college student. This led to being a three-time college dropout, a national championship, and a three-day professional soccer career. I am still waiting for the check for those three days. Following the end of the “pretending I was a student” period, the door to the academy was slammed firmly shut. It was time to enroll in the school of life, or if you prefer, the school of hard knocks. A not exhaustive list of life experiences included stints as a soccer player, soccer coach, construction worker, warehouse dock worker, forklift driver, dishwasher, cook, waiter, barback, bartender, bouncer, bar manager, bar owner, real estate agent, real estate appraiser, mortgage loan officer, and who knows what else. These experiences have left me with many, mostly true stories. The most important of my many jobs during these seasons of life was that of a single parent raising a young son. This was an interesting time where along with my job as the owner and general manager of a neighborhood pub, I found time to serve as the “room mom (representative)” for my son’s first grade class.
Decades later, after my son moved halfway across the country to play college football, I found myself an empty nester. It was soccer that gave me the chance to return to college as an assistant men’s and women’s’ coach. The job was only part time, but with tuition remission. my foot was back in the door of the Academy. I was a couple of months shy of my 50th birthday and the light bulb of the love of learning finally switched on. My fourth attempt at higher education would eventually yield four degrees. I was admitted to the Theory and Practice of Teacher Education (TPTE) doctoral program at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville doctoral program at the age of 55. At age of 62, my title changed from Coach Smith to Doc Smith.
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
– T. S. Eliot
Over the course of my academic career, I made multiple conference presentations and facilitated workshops at the institutional, state, regional, national, and international levels, also serving as an officer of state and national professional organizations. Within my home institution I designed and facilitated professional development programs employing the principles and practices I discovered in the work of Parker Palmer. My academic writing career included publication of a few snore-inducing mathematics education equity themed research papers, a dissertation telling the stories of students who had overcome economic obstacles and academic failure to become successful, as a co-author of The Phenomenological Heart of Teaching and Learning: Theory, Research, and Practice in Higher Education.
Crann seanathair (maybe Grandfather Tree in Irish)
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