I think some of it is the "change" and only being on the job a couple weeks. It use to take me 6 months to get use to a new job. I'd just put your fears on "hold" for a bit and see what time does. You aren't being evaluated yet, you have learned a great deal from the other jobs about what students think and have some insights into how you can improve, etc. You're a smarter cookie than you use to be!

It's not your fault your property value has gone done, that's happened pretty much everywhere; it could still go back up. Have you looked into distance education (here's the program I'm in: http://www.umuc.edu/programs/grad/md...training.shtml ) to get credentials that will make you attractive to teach for universities online? Then your age won't really matter. I'm looking at such things as I'm retired and not getting any younger either :-)

Take a little heart that we baby boomers are a huge lot and those coming after us aren't "enough" for all the work there will be to do. I think we older folk are going to be more "useful" than our parents were thought to be at our age.

I don't think we're "flawed" I just think things change awfully fast these days and it's hard to keep up! It's a different world from our grandparents' one.