How Retired Senior Citizens can add meaning to their life by teaching students at home

Many retired citizens feel that life has very little to offer them after a few years of leaving their job. While it’s fun not having a boss, not being forced to go to work daily, and having a lot of spare time, the novelty of being able to do what you want wears off quickly because it’s hard to find a good reason to get up daily because life doesn’t seem to have much purpose and the days seem empty. After 2–3 years, when you have finished catching up with family and friends and taking the holidays you dreamt of, you start wondering what you want to do with the rest of your life. And it’s hard to come up with meaningful answers.
Here’s a suggestion. Sit back and think about how you can contribute value to the next generation. You have had your day in the sun, but what can you do to improve what’s next for the kids of today? Who will be the citizens of tomorrow? Because of your years of experience, you can see what is wrong with today’s society and how broken the education system is.

Most parents and kids are focused on exam marks and cramming, which means while the “bright kids” (those with good memories) may be able to score very well, but they often don’t understand the underlying principles or basic concepts. And this can be very frustrating because you have learned the hard way that when you graduated and started work, you first needed to unlearn everything which was taught to you in school before you could learn something valuable. You would now like to be able to transmit everything you’ve learned over a lifetime to the next generation, but you’re not sure how to do this because you’re retired and you’re not a school teacher. Here’s a great opportunity for you to add value—not just to your life but to the lives of your community and the next generation. You can do this easily by setting up a community-based digital learning centre in your own home or in partnership with your friends who have retired and would like to do their bit for the next generation. This is a great way of providing invaluable community service, but it’s not just a question of being philanthropic or charitable; please feel free to charge for your services.

What’s important is that you can help kids think for themselves by helping them learn for themselves and by showing them how much more there is to learn than what’s in their textbooks and curriculum! You can show them how exciting learning new stuff can be and what a great place the world is! There is more to learn every single day once they master the skill of learning. All you really require to do this is a safe space (even a single room in your house is fine) and a PC, and you’ll be up and running. Not only will kids enjoy this because they will come to you for mental nourishment, but you too will have fun because you will end up learning a lot from them! As you get older, you tend to get fossilised. You start thinking of yourself as a dinosaur, but once you start engaging with young kids who have their whole lives ahead of them, you start seeing the world with new eyes, and you start trusting and respecting them. And when they start trusting and respecting you in turn, you will find there is so much more meaning to life than just sitting in an armchair, watching Netflix movies, or scrolling mindlessly through what your WhatsApp feeds are telling you about what your friends are doing. Life can be fun, and there’s no reason to mentally retire just because you’ve retired from your job. And because you will be doing this as a labour of love, you will enjoy it far more than anything you could possibly do just for the sake of a salary. So why don’t you try this out? Why just sit idle when you can provide a world class education to the kids of your community by just buying some affordable PCs and a small space.

For more information or to learn more about our programme, WhatsApp us or Email at contact.teachtoearn@gmail.com