How This Teacher Built Her Perfect Retirement Working With Sylvan Learning

In 2019, while teaching high school English for the Waterloo Region District School Board outside of Toronto, Ontario, she went on a four-month hiatus with a medical issue. She was excited to return to the classroom. She loved being with her students. After all, that’s why she decided to pursue teaching 28 years earlier, leaving behind a career in broadcasting.

“I know it sounds corny,” she said, “but I just felt that I wasn't making a difference. At first I wasn't sure if teaching was the right profession for me. The first year was really, really tough. But after that, I began to realize that it’s what I was meant to do.”

Layfield eased her way back into the classroom, teaching part-time. Somewhere in that process — she still doesn’t quite remember how or where — she discovered that she was eligible for retirement. She hadn’t been paying attention to her retirement date.

It was the farthest thing from her mind. But once she found out she was eligible, her nearly three decades in the classroom suddenly began to take their toll. She still loved being with her students, but everything else — marking papers, lesson-planning, delivering curriculum — began to weigh on her, and she decided to retire.

She taught her last class the same month that she made her final car payment.

But for Layfield, retirement was not what she had expected.

“In my parents' generation, it was different,” she said. “If you were 60 years old and retired, people expected you to sit around at home. I can't do that. As far as I'm concerned, 60 is the new 50.”

Like a writer intimidated by the blank page, Layfield struggled to fill her empty calendar. She tried spreading her errands throughout the week so she had something to do each day, which helped. She spent her days reading, gardening and going for walks and spent her evenings cooking — all hobbies she thought would be enough to keep her busy in retirement. But just a few weeks in, she felt a nagging void.

“It was nice to be without a schedule,” she said, “But at the same time, I really, really wanted a part-time job because I needed that sense of purpose — something to give my days shape.”

She started by picking up a job at a local deli, slicing sandwich meat.

“There I was, slicing meat behind a counter, but I've got a master's degree in English,” said Layfield. “I was proud of myself for doing that because it was outside my comfort zone, but I learned pretty quickly that people are very picky about their deli meat. I remember one man who was absolutely furious that his prosciutto wasn't thin enough, and I thought, ‘I don't need this.’”

After working with teenagers for 28 years, it was dealing with adults that proved to be too much, and Layfield quit the deli after just three months.

She decided that the best way to fill the void caused by leaving the classroom was to return to the classroom itself — part-time, as a supply teacher (which we call a “substitute” in the States). But even then, she was only spot-teaching, spending a day or two at a time in each classroom. So she was still missing the one thing that drew her most to teaching — the part that gave her a sense of purpose: connecting with students in a meaningful way.

That’s when she discovered Sylvan Learning, the leading provider of personalized education for K–12 students. As an educator, she had heard about Sylvan before. But when she stumbled upon it while browsing job boards, she learned what Sylvan is really about.

Sylvan is a supplemental education platform that believes that education should not be “one-size-fits-all.” The brand uses proprietary assessments that help build a 360-degree picture of a student’s abilities, which allows it to create a personalized plan to fit each student’s unique needs. Sylvan provides its own curriculum, designed in-house, along with all the necessary course materials. There’s no lesson planning. No grading papers. Sylvan is designed for teachers to focus on making personal connections with students to help meet their individual needs.

To Layfield, Sylvan seemed too good to be true. She sent in a resume and cover letter, and within a matter of weeks, she was training to be a Sylvan tutor.

“I get a great sense of satisfaction from working with Sylvan because I'm able to build relationships with kids again, which is what you miss when you leave the classroom,” said Layfield. “Sylvan has given me the opportunity to make a connection with kids again and to be invested in their education. It’s wonderfully, wonderfully satisfying.”

Sylvan has also given Layfield some variety in who she teaches. While she still works with high school students, she has also taken on young readers, something she admits was a challenge at first.

“I wasn't sure if I could do it because I'd been with teenagers my entire career,” she said. “And suddenly I had little five-year-olds who were learning how to read. And now that I know I can teach them, it's just fantastic. To see a kid start to learn how to read and be with them through that whole process — it's just so exciting.”

Today, Layfield still supply teaches at her old school on occasion, but most of her “working” time is spent with Sylvan. She works three evenings a week — Monday, Tuesday and Thursday — along with the occasional Wednesday for three to four hours at a time. She also picks up extra sessions during the week or on Saturdays with some of her high school students if they’re working on an essay or a specific project. Sylvan offers both in-center and online options for students, so matching them with a teacher who is also choosing in-center or online is part of what makes Sylvan so personalized.

“For me, the greatest things about Sylvan are the flexibility and the sense of accomplishment I get with working with the kids,” said Layfield. “Working online is really, really important to me. Sylvan gives me the flexibility to do that and still teach, which is what I love to do. So I really have the best of both worlds. I can relax and enjoy my retirement — I can do my reading, my gardening, my cooking or whatever — but also build relationships with kids and have that sense of purpose. It just works out so well for me. It's absolutely perfect.”