A speech is supposed to be made from the heart. And a retirement party, with the speech, is made only once in a lifetime by anyone. Being a teacher, it will be difficult letting go of your daily routine and the regime to instill some knowledge in the kids. This makes a teacher’s retirement speech very difficult.
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” ~ Elizabeth Wharton

To help you out, here’s a few ideas on how to write the perfect retirement speech for your retirement as a teacher with a few examples. But know that in the end, you will have to write your own if you want the listeners’ to relate. You may not have been the funniest person around, but be yourself when you step in front of the microphone and let the audience see who you truly are.
“All learning has an emotional base.” ~ Plato
- Get something from your memories and try to put them on paper. Something like: “I remember a time when young Ben used to get into a lot of trouble, always sticking his head into the lion’s mouth. That’s what they used to call Principal Leon back then; the lion. Anybody who went into his ‘cave’ and got out alive was pretty much a hero, even us teachers sometimes! Well, little Ben is sitting right there, with his wife Trudy and his girl Jenna, who’s got her own lion to tame now that she’s starting school next year!” A point to remember is, whenever you single out someone, make sure you do it lightly and for the shortest time possible. You may inadvertently embarrass someone or leave someone else out of the picture.
- Humor always plays an important part in any speech, and it can come from anywhere, be it an anecdote, an old memory of you with someone, a funny quote or the best kind of humor; impromptu. You can also talk about your experience as a student when you were in college, this will relate you to any of your students listening to the speech.
- You can lightly explain when and how you started contemplating about your retirement and how you started to plan the retirement ahead of you. Something like: “Anyone who wishes to contact me, I’ll be on my private island in Hawaii…. Just kidding, I’ll be on a hammock in my backyard. Any other teachers here, the kind of money we get paid to make doctors and engineers, you’d be thinking, ‘man, he has his own backyard!’ Well, yes I do!”