…and What I’m Still Learning
I was chatting with a past student/teacher/friend the other evening over a scotch (me) and beer (him) about life problems, and he said something that triggered some thoughts. He said, “I don’t know how to let go”, and I realized that “letting go” is a theme that may run through life.
There’s a paradox at the heart of teaching that I didn’t recognize early on: you spend years learning how to lead, guide, manage, and plan — only to discover that the real growth often begins the moment you let go.
At the beginning of my career, I clung tightly to lesson plans, grading rubrics, and outcomes. I measured my success by how well I could anticipate student needs and direct the learning process. Control felt like competence. And for a while, it worked.
But somewhere along the way, something began to shift. A student would go in a completely unexpected direction with a project — and it would turn out better than what I’d envisioned. A carefully planned lecture would get sidetracked by an off-topic question — and suddenly, we’d be in the middle of a deeply engaged discussion. I started to realize that the moments I hadn’t scripted were often the ones students remembered most. Many times they have come to me as adults, reminding me that they were deeply impacted and thankful, for these moments.
Letting Go of Outcomes
Teaching taught me to loosen my grip. I began to see that my role wasn’t to shape students into something, but to meet them where they were and trust them to grow. Some learned quickly, others slowly. Some resisted at first, then surprised me with insight months, or years, later. Over time, I came to understand: I can plant the seed, but I don’t get to decide when it blooms.
That truth, both humbling and freeing, became one of the most enduring lessons of my career. Letting go didn’t mean disengaging. It meant investing fully — and then releasing the outcome.
From Control to Curiosity
As I aged — and with it, softened — I began to teach less from a place of performance and more from a place of presence. My classroom slowed down. I asked more open-ended questions. I made more space for silence. I stopped trying to fill every moment with content and started inviting students to think for themselves, reflect aloud, and follow their curiosities.
Letting go became less about stepping back and more about stepping aside — allowing students to step forward.
The Spiritual Practice of Letting Go
This shift wasn’t just pedagogical — it was spiritual.
There’s a passage in Psalm 46 that I’ve returned to often:
“Be still and know that I am God.”
Teaching — and now, retirement — has become a spiritual practice in being still. In trusting. In recognizing that I am not the architect of every outcome, and that’s not a failure — it’s grace.
Letting go is not weakness. It’s trust. Trust that something larger than me is at work. Trust that students carry more wisdom than we often give them credit for. Trust that the real transformation, whether in education or life, doesn’t happen on a schedule.
Retirement and the Gentle Release
Now, in retirement, this lesson has deepened. Letting go isn’t just about a classroom anymore — it’s about identity. I’m not “Professor Bradley” this semester. I’m not grading papers or preparing lectures. And still, I feel the pull to be useful, to produce, to prove.
But what if this is the next invitation to let go?
To move from doing to being.
To trade certainty for openness.
To trust that who I am is enough, even without the title, the structure, the schedule.
What I Hold Now
I still teach — just differently. In conversations, in writing, in moments of quiet encouragement. The same lessons are present: curiosity, humility, wonder. But now I teach with more open hands.
And I’ve come to see that the hands we open in release are the same hands that are free to receive.
