By: Myles Chu, Riley Figueroa Staff Writer
After a wild teaching journey, math teacher Mr. Tong has decided it’s time to say goodbye to Galileo and retire. After more than 22 years at the school, starting when he was in his 40’s, he’s ready to say his final goodbyes to the school and continue on with his own personal pursuits.
Before becoming a teacher, Mr. Tong was a dentist for 15 years, and then worked as a dentist for the military for a few years. But after almost 20 years as a dentist, he decided that he wanted to switch careers, so he took a psychology test that gave him potential careers based on his personality. Mr. Tong felt that the psychology test was very accurate, and decided to pursue teaching, which was the suggestion from the test.
Now, after having gone through multiple careers, Mr. Tong feels that he is getting old and it’s the right time to retire. In addition to feeling like he’s “getting old”, he also has his retirement savings, which also helped convince him to retire. His savings will give him 35% of what he normally makes, so he will be financially stable for his post-retirement.
As for Mr. Tong’s personal pursuits after his retirement, he wants to attend City College because of the fact that it is free, and because he wants to learn more about one of his favorite hobbies, building. Some of the different types of building he wants to do is constructing with a 3-D printer, welding and woodshop.
As he gets ready to depart from Galileo, Mr. Tong has some advice for upcoming teachers; “make a friend. Find a colleague you can talk to and feel comfortable around.”
He adds,”Be mindful and help the kids ease their way through learning, and make it so that they understand everything that they are being taught.”
His favorite memory is seeing the transformation of kids and how they reach their adulthoods. They no longer need everything to be done for them and they can ask for things themselves.
In addition to his favorite memories at Galileo, one thing he is going to especially miss is the math department, as he feels that Galileo has the best math department in San Francisco.
