I will turn 66 in May. I am already on Social Security. I will find out in next week or so if I am being offered a buyout of around $16,000 should decide to accept retirement. I have calculated that the buying power of my pension and social security (even without the one-time buyout) is more than 70% of what I currently earn (although we may get a nominal increase next year for the first time in more than 3). I could retire and do something else.
I know that if I win a one-year fellowship to help underwrite my doing a book on teacher voice in education policy, I will take it and retire.
What if I don't?
I can stay where I am, with an increased income due to Social Security.
I can retire and teach elsewhere in a public school.
I can retire and teach in a charter or private school.
I can retire and do something else related to education.
I can retire and do something unrelated to education.
So I have to ask myself, do I still want to teach?
In theory, the answer is yes. I still enjoy when I am able to connect with young people, to stretch their minds, to explore the world with them. It keeps me alive, young. It makes me feel useful.
I look at the school at which I arrived in 1998, where i have been since with the exception of one year teaching in Virginia. It has changed, the student body has changed, I have changed.
Change is inevitable. As society changes, the children who arrive in my classroom will be shaped by those changes, sometimes in ways not all that conducive to how I think I should teach.
At the high school level we are increasingly seeing the negative effects of what is now the 10th year of No Child Left Behind. That is surely part of it. And teaching in a charter school or in a public school elsewhere would not avoid those effects.
As I consider the future of public education, I wonder if NCLB is just the tip of the iceberg of the impact of ill-conceived and destructive policies. I look at Common Core Standards and I wonder. I see increasing emphasis on testing and I do not have to wonder, I know the negative impact that will have. I already experience the way some not completely thought out changes in teacher evaluation are taking valuable time away from the real task of teaching and feel frustrated and demeaned.
Yesterday My Advanced Placement students took a test on which too many of them did not do well. In part that is because this was Spirit Week, when the classes are competing with one another in a variety of ways. But it is also because I tried to let them take more responsibility for their learning on this unit, and some either will not step up, or too easily give up. I can suppose part of their lack of success falls on my shoulders - I could see some were struggling, but chose to let this play out, because it is the only way I can have them truly understand what they need to do. The impact upon their grades of one exam will not be devastating, and better for them to learn as sophomores - which most of them are - than to have a failure as juniors, the academic year that means the most in terms of college applications.
Ah, college applications. Acceptances have started to come in, with more forthcoming in the next two weeks. One of my favorite students, someone who is a real leaders as well as a solid student, got into Wellesley and she is totally excited. She wanted to be in the all-girls environment. I am happy for her, as I am for some other students who have gotten into their first choice schools. There will be others I will have to comfort when the envelope from the school of their choice is thin, but I can empathize - after all, I did not get into the doctoral program to which I had applied at Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Many of them will receive their notifications while we are on Spring break. By the time we return, I will have heard on the fellowship, which is also likely to be a rejection.
Part of why I enjoy teaching is being able to be a part of life changes for young people, being able to see them grow, develop, their minds expand.
Which is also why I did something else yesterday, and not just with my AP students. Because yesterday was the anniversary of My Lai (and I wrote about it here), I spent some time on that and related events. Only a few of my AP students and none of my regular students had even heard the words "My Lai." Most were unaware of related incidents, such as No Gun Ri, or Sand Creek. An acquaintance who had served in Bob Kerrey's Navy Seal unit in Vietnam had sent me an email thanking me for remembering My Lai, and remarking on how it important even if it brought back his own actions in Vietnam, actions that are surely painful to recall.
I made clear I am not hostile to the military, remaining proud of my own Marine Corps service even as I am now a Quaker. Instead, I explored the internal conflict one can face in some situations. My key point was on acknowledging responsibility, a lesson which is important in my classes, and which I model by acknowledging when I have made a mistake, even if the students don't know it. I explored the doctrine of Command Responsibility. Some of this was material totally new to my students, and challenged them. At first i was not sure how it was going over, but on the way out of class a larger than usual number of students took the time to wish me an enjoyable weekend. So who knows.
It is moments like that, seemingly small, that make me wonder if I should remain in a classroom someplace.
On the advice of a friend, I explored some private school opportunities in the area. There are two positions at a private school i know well, having done SAT prep courses there that included a number of their students. It is a fine school, but I wonder how much out of the box I could be, given the number of children from VERY PROMINENT conservative families (not a majority by any means): could I in that environment be as open about my own political leanings and interpretations of history? Neither would be teaching government, so it might be less of a problem. One would be humanities, infusing literature and the arts, which very much suits me. The other is straight history, to which I bring the other things as a part of how I teach.
It seems appealing, and I am tempted to send off a cover letter and a resume.
And yet - I have been committed to making public education work. How could I justify that in my own mind?
The answer is, i think, that if i cannot teach with integrity, in a fashion that makes sense to me, i wonder if i should be in the classroom. And if I can still make a difference in a classroom, does not that outweigh my concerns about public education, which I still support at least in theory? While I might be teaching children of the elite, does not that give me an opportunity to broaden their perspectives in a way that can have a positive impact upon the larger society?
The students who attend this particular school have access to some of the best public schools in the nation, yet their parents choose to pay the taxes for those schools yet send their children elsewhere. Some of the students I have known from that school were very thoughtful. And the burden on me would be far less: I would not have 175 students and classes in the mid 30s. I would have time to work on the individual needs of each student. And I would not be constricted by what is happening to public education policy.
Then again, maybe it is time for me to move on, to do something not directly school-related, to make a difference in other ways.
Or maybe I just find something that provide the additional income I need - which is not that much - and give myself more time for reflecting, and even writing.
I do not know.
It is a Saturday morning.
It is the time of week at which I am often at my most reflective.
I consider possibilities, some of which I will probably never pursue, in part because doing so provides me with a different perspective, a way of looking at what I do now with different eyes.
I have no idea how this will play out.
I only know that it is time to at least explore alternatives.
Even as I continue to try to teach to the best of my ability with the students I have.
Which is why I have let go of other responsibilities, such as my union work and my work with Save Our Schools. I need the time and energy to try to teach, so that I can fairly evaluate whether I should continue.
After all, the dissatisfaction I am now experiencing may be less what is happening externally than it is a sign of my inner self telling me it is time to move on.
As of yet I do not know.
I am committed to the end of this year, at which time i will go again to grade AP exams.
But in fairness, I have to let my school know by mid-April. If I do win the fellowship, that will make the decision for me, and I will know what I am doing for the next year. That is unlikely, but possible.
By mid-April, I am unlikely to have any other definite possibility, unless I wanted to commit to teaching in DC Public school, which given their governance is not something i am sure I would want to take on. At a time of great economic insecurity, I wrestle with whether I should place myself, and thus also my spouse, into a position of economic uncertainty by retiring without having a firm commitment for something else.
In other words, one way or another I will probably have to make up my mind in the next month.
Which means i will have to continue to be reflective.
Even while I am recommitted to being the best teacher I can in the situation in which I now find myself.
Should be an interesting few weeks . . .
Peace.