Sometime within next two weeks I will find out if I made it to the interview stage for a free doctorate at Harvard. In early April I will find out if I will be offered a fellowship at Columbia that would enable me to write a book. Both of these are quite unlikely, but the fact I applied to both indicates my willingness to leave classroom teaching. It was something I had to consider before putting in the effort (substantial) to put together both applications.
It is also something that is now rarely far from my mind.
Had I known at the start of the school year that this might well be my last year, i would have been writing with that in mind (there is a publisher who would be very interested in "Teaching, the final year"). While it is in my mind, it has rarely been my main focus.
Let me explain why it has been becoming increasingly more likely.
I still love teaching the kids, being with them, trying to make a difference.
It becomes ever more difficult to teach with integrity, as increasing numbers of anal retentive mandates get imposed upon what we do.
The real reason, one that influenced my exploring alternatives outside the classroom, is that I see schools very much in crisis, and cannot really address that while I remain rooted in the classroom.
But, as I began to realize this week, that cuts several different ways.
A major reason for applying for the two Ivy League opportunities was the desire to make a difference in education beyond what I can do while in my classroom. Teaching 170+ adolescents at any given moment is very consuming of time and of energy. Yes, I can write, I can present at the occasional conference, I can take advantage of my closeness to Washington DC and my connections in DC and Richmond to lobby.
But I cannot hope to stay current on all that is going on, not when from when I leave my house at 6:30 until sometime in the evening my hours are largely consumed with my responsibilities as a teacher.
I have tried to carve out some room. I have stepped down as lead union rep in building, in part because of the time commitments, but also because I wanted to create a space in which the younger teachers active for the union began to step up and learn how to do the job while I was still around to help them if necessary. That is beginning to work out. Now they feel more free to initiative, to use me as a sounding board, rather than depending upon my judgment. In the long term that will benefit the teachers and the students.
But I still have insufficient time. In part it is because I have interests beyond education: about human rights and civil liberties, on the environment and economic justice. I have justified the time I give to these as modeling for my students being an active and committed citizen. I also care deeply, and find it difficult not to pay attention.
Yesterday was the first of 15 days in which Harvard will notify 50+ of the more than 500 applicants for 25 slots in the next cohort. I did not expect to hear yesterday, even were I to be invited: people traveling from greater distance probably need more time to work out travel arrangements to Cambridge MA for a full day of interviews. The odds are against my being invited for an interview, although I have a very strong application. I am much older, and as is not unusual for me something of an oddball compared to their normal pool. Still, I found myself regularly glancing at what had come in via email, just in case, an action that caused some additional reflection.
I do see public education as very much at risk right now. Were I to get accepted at Harvard and attend, it is a 3 year doctorate. During the first two I would largely be consumed with studies, during the third I would be in a residency. I wrestle with how much of a difference i could make during that time. Similarly with the fellowship, during that year my focus would be on my book, which at best might be published by the Fall of 2013. I wonder if we have that much time left to save schools.
A part of me feel as if we have already lost the war, even though i have kept fighting. Recently I exchanged emails about this with a nationally noted figure on education who informed me that s/he intended to go down fighting.
What I do with my time and my work matters to me. I wonder if perhaps I can make a bigger difference by not working on education directly, which seems almost futile, but by doing other things.
I do not have complete freedom of action. Were I to retire, I would still need almost 30K/year beyond pension and Social Security to keep our current life style, perhaps a bit less were we to drop down to one car and to cut back on some of our expenditures. I will still need to make some money.
But money has never been my motivation. Had it been so not only would I never have become a teacher as I approached by 50th birthday, I would have remained in the private sector instead of working for local government for around 8 years before leaving to get trained as a teacher.
All choices exclude some things by choosing others. I realize this. For example, is my voice of such importance that I need to ensure complete freedom of expression in whatever work I do, or might it make sense to give up some of my voice to take a position where without visibility I could make a major difference: in education, politics, government, etc.?
I am still a very good teacher. I feel as if I am not as effective as I used to be. Perhaps some of that is the difference of the kids arriving in our school. Some is clearly the changing environment in school governance, nationally, statewide, in our district, in our school. Have I reached a point where I am less willing and/or able to adjust to those changes?
My students and my teaching remain my primary focus even as I do other things now, even as I explore alternatives for next year.
I have this luxury: my school and my school system want me to stay. My current students have lobbied me not to retire. There are no external pressures moving me towards retiring. In less than two weeks I will receive my 1st Social Security check, which would mean should I remain in teaching the buying power of around a 27-28K raise.
What if, nevertheless, I chose to leave the classroom?
Let me be direct: I will be very surprised, and honored, should I be selected for either of the graduate school opportunities to which I applied. Even were I to be selected for both, that does not necessarily mean I would accept either.
Nor does it mean that acceptance means i would leave the classroom, or non-acceptance that i won 't.
I have begun to explore other options.
That includes teaching in other settings.
That includes politics and government.
That includes working for a non-profit or a professional organization.
That includes none of the above - doing something for money and leaving enough time and money to write on a variety of topics, including education, without having to worry whether I got paid for my writing (although making an income from my writing would be very nice).
This weekend I have about 40 homework papers to go through to see if my non-Ap students are doing what I ask of them.
My planning for this next week is done, and for most of the following week. Monday is a 1/2 day for students, to make up for the day lost to the earthquake. Thursday and Friday I am out for an important educational conference near Chicago, where I will remain until early afternoon Sunday. The following Monday is a holiday. The four-day school week which follows ends on the last day by which if I am invited for an interview Harvard will inform me.
Still, I will not know perhaps until early April whether I am retiring from my current classroom.
As uncertain as i may be, I know this: the process of exploring has made me more inclined to retire, to see what comes next.
I began teaching midyear 1995-96. I have now been teaching 16 full years, as of June 16.5
I have been in my current school for 13 of the past 14 years, for 10 years consecutively. That last is the longest I have ever worked anywhere.
We have lived in our house since 1984, longer than anywhere either of us has lived elsewhere.
Perhaps I am ready for something else, even if i do not know what it is.
I have not YET decided for sure, but I am ever more inclined to leave my current classroom, for what I do not yet know.
Meanwhile, I will try to be the best teacher i can be for the students I have.
They give me so much, I owe them nothing less.
Peace.