About Those Greener Pastures

It has been a year for changing jobs among some of the best teacher bloggers: Kilian Betlach (Teaching in the 408); Dan Meyer.

Anyway, these high profile moves have spurred some discussion in the education blogosphere. Chris Lehmann thinks we need to treat early career teachers with more care. Corey Bower (now suffering through the Ph.D. program at Vanderbilt, I feel for you) is sad to see them go and thinks these are the type of teacher we need to keep. Finally, Scott Elias, who moved himself last year into administration, writes at LeaderTalk that the Grass Might Not Always Be Greener (and makes good points - and is worth the read for teachers considering leaving).

Well, I am writing because I guess you can count me amongst the group that has left the teacher ranks myself to enter academia. I taught high school for a year in Southern Illinois. Then I went to law school with every intention of never teaching again - and earning that six figure salary at 27 years old they talk about on the TV (it's not real, believe me). At the time I was sad about it, but resolute that it was the right decision for me and my young family.

So some reflections 6 years past leaving the K-12 Classroom.

1. I miss it. There is a white board that I have put in every office I have had which has all my former student's signatures on the outside of it (I asked them all to sign it after I made the decision to leave). I look at that board and I see a name of a kid I had a relationship with ... and there is something missing. I miss those close relationships. I had a personal stake in those kids lives. I miss those relationships where I knew the kids habits and parents and ambitions and teenage quirks. I don't get that much at all with my college students.
   
2. The teaching bug doesn't go away. Ever. You can't lock it up. You can't hide it. You know what I found myself doing a lot of in law school? Teaching. My friends ... first year students ... pretty much whoever was willing to listen.
   
3. I miss the hours. The steady schedule and summers off and home to watch the evening news or play in the yard or whatever.
   
4. People in the business (and legal) world can be just as cold, and in most cases more so, than the veteran teachers that were in my building. Teaching is somewhat isolated from the cold realities of the business world and your attitude must necessarily be a little more competitive to thrive in worlds outside teaching. I didn't take well to this increasingly competitive atmosphere and I still don't.
   
5. I don't miss the politics of teaching. There were a lot of politics in law school, but the politics of the K-12 school, at least the school I taught at, were very personal and uncomfortable. There were a lot of unwritten "rules" amongst the teachers I taught with that really annoyed me. These rules exist in other places, but in other places it is about the people themselves, not the kids. It is one thing to negotiate these politics when you are trying to help yourself, it is quite another and more frustrating situation when those politics get in the way of helping a kid.
   
6. There is life after leaving the classroom. I was scared to leave, really. I knew how to teach and I was good at it. I didn't know the first thing about being a lawyer (perhaps I still don't). But, I survived the jump.
7. You can still teach, even outside the K-12 classroom. Found out, much to my surprise, that these places called universities are willing to pay me to teach (and research and write and be creative).
8. That said, there is no way to have as much impact on kids as to actually be in the classroom with them. I can't write a policy or interpret a law that is going to make nearly as much difference for kids as if I was in the classroom with them. That's just the reality and truth of it and I have come to terms with that.
   
9. Even though I was a good teacher ... I am a better scholar. I have found that I am much more creative and innovative and excited about the work I am doing now.
   
10. It was absolutely the right decision for me to leave the classroom and wind up where I did in academia. You have to do what you love and while I loved the kids and teaching, there were other things about the work that bothered me. Now, I really love all parts of my job, even if I tend to complain about some of them from time to time. I like writing, I like teaching, I like working with state officials, I like to blog ... I have found my niche and it turned out it was not in the K-12 classroom.
    

As Scott Elias rightfully said, it is all about doing what you love. I also hate to see us lose good teachers, but these individuals will fill other niches and many of them will still seek to contribute to education.

Photocredit: Karen cb