I’m 30 and this is my third year of teaching. I began to hit some of those realizations in year 2 and even interviewed for a much higher paying corporate job which would have kept me peripherally involved in education (supporting teachers) but away from the classroom. I got turned down for the job and am thrilled it happened. The money was good, the purpose was bad.

So where do I go from here, admin or doctorate?

I chose doctorate for two reasons, and the next question has to be do you go EdD style or PhD style. Not to mention EdS degrees hanging around.

I started my PhD this semester because I want to spend some real time researching to see the effect of all this technology we keep talking about in the edublogosphere. We’ve got a lot of ideas but not a lot of research to back them up. We’re banking a lot on intuition.

As for admin, do you know why I chose against it? I would miss the kids way too much. Being in a school and not being in a classroom developing that intense teacher-student relationship would be torture. I couldn’t handle it. Now I teach a totally different crowd, 6th grade, so the entertainment slice is a bit more marked, but we have such a good time. Maybe even with a PhD I’ll hang out here.

For what it’s worth, I don’t dress like them, talk like them, and have no idea about their TV habits (recall our lengthy discussion?) but I do know what’s in their hearts, and that surpasses that boundary. Just because you get older doesn’t mean you’ll lose your connection with them, it just changes and evolves into something even better.

Chris

There was a similar conversation floating around the office this morning, about how one of our new administrators is totally awesome because she’d been a teacher for YEARS before starting to administer this year. She’s standing up for us, standing against the stupid stuff coming down the aqueduct from HQ. This is good.

But, I wonder, how long will that last? Can you maintain your purity as an admin for more than a couple of years? Or do you begin to forget what it’s like for those of us who are still in the classroom, the ones who have to implement your silly decisions?

I’ve had the same questions as you, Dan, for four of the six years I’ve been teaching. And as one who is about to hit my 30+ twilight years (I’m only 29 until November), I feel you. But I’ve decided I can be most effective in the classroom, with the kids. I don’t have the patience for a PhD program, and I found most of the people in my Master’s program insufferable, so I definitely don’t want to do a Teacher Ed thing.

Looks like I’m where I am, metaphysically if not geographically, for the long haul.

This may sound a bit odd, Dan, but I was thinking about your “dilemma” — and my current situation — quite a bit last night as I sat up at 1am rocking my 7-month-old daughter back to sleep…

I’m not sure it’s an either/or — I know it wasn’t that way for me. Though my premature baldness belies my actual age, I earned my admin credential and became an administrator at the age of 29 finding that I could parlay much of what made me an effective teacher into being an effective administrator. Much of what you’ve said here are the ideals I had in mind when I made the move to “the dark side” as some will call it.

One thing that’s unfortunate is that whenever an effective classroom teacher ponders leaving the teaching ranks for one of these nice, plush administrative offices, they invariably hear, “You’re such a great teacher! Why leave the classroom?”

For me, it was as the good Dr. McLeod pointed out — the ability to affect many more students by working through and with teachers. So you’re removed a level, and sometimes you miss that teacher/student interaction, but I can assure you that there are things you can do to make sure you don’t lose touch with Joe Average high school kid when you become an administrator.

So now I’m 32. I’m in my 4th year as an administrator and still not feeling 100% like I’m where I want to be long-term. I started my doctorate this semester at CSU and hope to eventually — some day — teach at the college level. Maybe there’ll be a couple years of being a principal in between here and there, maybe not. But I like to have options.

Hope this helps. I’d love to chat or email with you as I think we’re probably pretty similar idealistically. Best of luck to you whatever you decide!

— Scott

Aww, shoot. I had held out great hope for you staying in the classroom. Maybe writing a book (available for download, certainly) after another couple of years, and spending your summers and the like lecturing.

My opinions are all from the parental/teacher training currently/doctoral program (in another field) I left after getting my master’s viewpoint, so you can discount them greatly!
Do you really think that’s going to cut your workload? I also think that you will have a hard time dealing with the frustration of dealing with the %age of bad and mediocre and not wanting to change that teachers out there. You might be able to drive them crazy enough to at least move to another school, but there’s the chance they’ll drive you crazy first.

I’m trying to think of the way to move your break it down into concepts and test each of those concepts alone format into administration and gosh, it gets a lot harder than it is for math.

Teacher education needs good teachers, sure. I think you might actually be more valuable in research as someone else pointed out. Your posters and presentations would certainly be the hit of conferences. If I thought you could reform the whole of teacher training in this country, admitting only people with enormously varied interests, a love of learning, the desire to work hard, etc etc, right there you’d have accomplished a lot.

I haven’t even read the comments from yesterday, because I was depressed at the thought that this blog, as we know it, will end. Also that yet another great classroom teacher will be gone, not just from your current school, but from the classroom. I really wish that being a teacher was the pinnacle, in prestige and $ and that you had to work your way up through academia or administration (at the beck and call of the powerful teachers) to get there. But we all know that’s not happening any time soon.

I’m finishing up my Ed.S. degree this year, and am already looking ahead to doctoral work. I promised my long-suffering wife I’d wait til our oldest starts K or 1st grade to do that (he’s 2 now), but I’m seriously weighing my online options.

I’d be interested in hearing what you and others have to say about online doctoral programs. I’m all about distance learning, personally, but I fear (irrationally, I hope) that there’s a bit of a stigma there, and that too many people associate distance learning with diploma mills. I’ve looked into them, but am more concerned with how they’re perceived in the working world (i.e., will anyone hire me with a PhD or PsyD from Capella, or will I be shown the door in favor of a “real” doctor?).

I’m begging someone to prove me wrong, as I really don’t want to have to drive over an hour each way to Philly twice a week for the nearest doctoral program in my discipline.

Here’s a few questions (in case you haven’t already been hit with plenty more to mull over):

If you do a doctoral program, what would be your emphasis? Math Ed? I may not have caught it in anyone’s earlier comments yesterday or today, but would one possible route be an Ed.D. in Ed Leadership (sort of a hybrid of the administrator/doctorate options)? Here in Florida, following the Ed Leadership doctoral program is clearly a path directly into school leadership at the school level or beyond. That’s what my current boss did (moved his way up to assistant superintendent before coming to our school).

If you commit next year to either the doctoral program or the admin. certification route, would you continue teaching while pursuing them, or would you go full-time?

Finally, have you notified that coffee shop where you hang out so much? They may need to modify their future orders accordingly if you’re not there every night working on the next day’s slides…

I’m halfway through my principal certification and plan to start my doctorate in February (mostly because my husband wants to start then, and I’d rather work on it with someone). Here’s my take on your problem: (a little story) I was a cheerleader coach for 10 years at the high school level (thank you; I accept your sympathy). When I was in the middle of a pep rally and thought to myself that I didn’t want to be there, I figured I needed to get out. My last couple years of teaching I got the itch to do something beyond my 4 walls. I was involved in a committee that worked to make campus-wide changes. I started dreading grading and standardized tests (I taught English). I came to the realization that, if I was thinking of moving on, I probably should. (Kind of like, if you are thinking about breaking up with someone, you probably should.) I’m working as a grant coordinator and have had the opportunity to do some admin stuff. What I miss are the kids. Doesn’t it always come down to that? So I’m going back to a campus. While I won’t be in the classroom teaching, I can be still making a difference in the lives of students. And maybe in a much more meaningful way other than: “Do you know the difference between a noun and verb?” I think I was good at connecting with students, especially at-risk ones, but what about all the teachers who aren’t good at that? Who do those kids get? Hopefully they’ll get me. I’ve left the classroom, but I haven’t left kids. I might be idealistic, but I am determined to make time for what’s most important: not discipline, not administrivia, not paperwork, but real life kids with real life needs. I can’t wait to be an administrator! (Then get my doctorate so I can wear the funny velvet hat and people can call me “Doc.”)

I mean, sure, there are lots of materials and resources out there, stowed away in dusty crates in math dep’t storage rooms. What would be nice would be some source of weekly downloadable stuff that is immediately applicable, available for some moderate fee or something. Your blog has a bit of this function already – it triggers ideas like a crate of Big Publisher materials just doesn’t do.

So here is the thing… you’re four years into a job that says you’ll quit by next year (according to the statistics widely reported), if you’re average, and by everything that I have read you are anything but average. Going into admin or a doctoral program with the hope of teaching teachers will fall short for a few reasons that you have already mentioned. You self identify as an over achiever, what about changing focus to admin or a doctoral program will alter that part of you.

If you are craving a new sort of challenge that is one thing, but that is not what I sensed from the writing you have done in the past few days. Burn out will happen when you allow those things that are meaningful to your life outside the classroom suffer for the classroom. Other people have said it, but it takes balance. I tell every student teacher that rolls through my classroom to identify what it is that makes them sane/happy/fulfilled and schedule it everyday like a meeting that cannot be missed. 5 days out of 7 I am hiking in and around a mountain for that very reason. When I am having a tough week I usually realize that I have neglected that part of my life. After 10 years in the game, I still empty myself out into the job, but it’s okay to have a self outside those four classroom walls and those 180+ days.

If you want something new, want it for the right reasons.. otherwise you will just find yourself having the same conversation with yourself on down the road.

Right there with ya.

1) Ph.D.
2) Admin job
3) Think tank/ non-profit like the one from previous summers or the ones I’ve conferenced for
4) Cowboy up for year seven

A thought to go with the others. You came up for our gig last summer for a workshop. You may want to look into working all summer in that, or a similar programmatic setting. It’s a nice intro to the working with teachers/ working with adults component. It also gets you thinking about things like: “Do I really want to keep explaining the importance of procedures for the next n years?”

(Admin blog? I’ve got an admin blog now? Maybe that’s why you can no longer access my blog through the District server.)

Wrong. We don’t need any more administrators. We are hemorraging good teachers. We have 8 administrators at our school at any one time and usually only 1 who is competent at any given time. The rest are just refugees from the classroom. And yes, most go into it to either:

1) Make more money which you can’t blame them for due to the cost of living
In our district, administrators get about 8 weeks vacation and make anywhere from 80,000 to 120 thousand per year.
2) To get away from the classroom because they were not successful teachers. Many of our administrators just had a couple of years in the classroom which is not enough to even know what good teaching is.

Don’t become a refugee from the classroom.

Ellen,

Some of us went into admin because we saw it as a chance to make a bigger difference. I miss teaching (and coaching) every day, but I was also lucky enough to work in a school for a decade with amazing administrators who created an environment where we could all teach. For me, after eight years of teaching, my mentors told me it was time to think about administration. I went to get my admin cert, and then I got the chance to start SLA. Now, I think my job is to try to create a culture where teaching and learning is deeply valued. I try to repay the gift that my admins gave to me.

If Dan felt that he could create a culture that allowed teachers to make a powerful difference in kids’ lives, then that’d be a great reason to go into administration.

Jeff proffers the awfully cynical suggestion that you can’t maintain your purity, your connection to the classroom grinder, over the long haul, and I think maybe he’s right.

Yeah, that IS awfully cynical, isn’t it? Especially now that I’m in day three of four days off (sometimes it’s good to be a Yid).

I will say this, though–it seems like this thinking things through deal has helped you realized something:

This thing, my totally inability to modulate my off-contract hours, at first glance looks like good teaching. It results in a lot of good lessons, a lot of good seat-hours for my kids

Whatever you wind up doing in ed (and I think that the people who are calling for you to do workshops and hit the lecture trail over the summer are inadvertently adding to this) you need to through in more Dan Time. Because you are damn good, if your blog is to be believed, but you’re going to burn yourself out before long if you keep all this up. Find what you love–and if it’s staying in the classroom, I offer you a transcontinental high-five–and do it, carve out your space, but don’t become it.

“The class management niche I’ve carved out, tucked into, and seen a lot of success with recently, exists at the intersection of peer and teacher.”

I’m 37 and believe that even at this age I still have a similar classroom management style to what you’ve described, Dan.

Maybe I don’t know ALL of the new songs, bands, words, movies like I did in my 20s … but I know a few. (And hey, kids are often into “old school” stuff, too. Classic music, movies, style never really goes away. Think AC/DC or Starwars – old, but still relevant to a lot of kids.)

In addition, as adults, we all have co-workers and peers who can be 10, 20 30+ years older than us. Still peers. Still someone to learn from. High school students will soon be in college classes or work situations with similar adult “peer” relationships – it’s not such a jump to have a similar relationship in high school with an “old” teacher, too.

Either choice is good, and whatever you decide, I hope you keep writing about it.
Thanks!

Amy Hendrickson, Co-director and Teacher*
East Range Academy of Technology & Science
MN Public Charter School #4166
(* Truly, the best of both worlds is always possible, too!)