Apparently the “html powers that be” didn’t like the strike-through tags on “One last question”. Sorry.

Hello, Dan,

This post is great on so many levels, and I hear you on so many levels about the pay scales in teaching.

Jackie’s response raises some great points, but also points out the standard response given when teachers talk about issues of compensation: the work you are doing as a teacher is so important that the inner rewards transcend what can be rewarded with silly money.

There is truth in this argument. Teaching brings rewards that you don’t get in other professions, and the ability to wake up every morning, look at your face in the mirror and respect yourself for how you earn your keep is priceless. However, teaching shouldn’t have to be a noble profession. Among other things, teachers should be able to afford to own homes in the communities where they work.

While it’s probably good you didn’t send the letter, your sentiments are dead on, and consistent with my experience.

I’m also glad to see the TSA taking an interest in you. We need to keep the wrong elements out of our airspace :)

Cheers,

Bill

Funnily enough, I spent my flight this Thanksgiving from the Midwest to the San Jose Municipal airport thinking about why I wanted to become a teacher.

As a 24 year old looking to enter the teaching profession, one of my biggest fears lies in my own ability to buck the all too easy road to mediocrity. My current profession-librarian-is even worse than teaching in that respect. I have found it difficult to maintain the enthusiasm and drive necessary to be truly great at my job when the expectations and rewards for good work are so meager. And boy, if you want to drown in a sea of impassioned crusaders touting the supposedly panacean qualities of web 2.0, take a gander at the biblioblogosphere, as we call it. I find my energy sapped even thinking about it.

Honestly Dan, you and some of your blogger compatriots have played a prominent role in my own move towards the classroom. Knowing that there are other young people out there with the audacity to move far beyond the (depressingly low) minimum needed to move up the pay scale, makes me believe that I can do the same. Better yet, it makes me eager to do the same.

If nothing else, I hope you find some solace in knowing that you are inspiring at least one of your generational peers to take up the gauntlet with you.

Dan – :) I’ve been reading your blog for a bit and didn’t think that you’d post it nor did I expect you to. This doesn’t change the fact that I’d still love to see it because I know that it would be insightful and done with sharp wit. I applaud you for staying posi. The kids from 7Seconds and Good Clean Fun would approve.

Dan —

Perhaps — and forgive me for even seeking a ‘solution’ knowing that it hasn’t been called for by you — there is too much pressure to define ‘teaching’ (and ‘job’) based on the current school (and state system) that you call home today.

Perhaps one’s current classroom (or system) isn’t the only type of classroom (or system) by which to gauge the entire ‘educator’ market by as you stare over the 4-year-teacher cliff. You know this. Perhaps the focus should be on qualities you seek as forward-thinking vision first, the formal roles as tactics second. For what it’s worth.

While there are an infinite range of reasons to head on to seemingly greener pastures as a professional, perhaps it may be worth re-visiting the core terms that you want to be defined by over time and ‘right this moment’ first and foremost.

For SnG’s:

1. Teacher?
2. Math teacher?
3. Designer?
4. Film maker?
5. Writer?
6. Camp counselor?
8. Midway ride operator?
9. CEO?
10. A hundred ‘other’s?

If #1 & #2 don’t end up honestly (when you’re all alone) ranking in the must-do list based on what you’re seeking — forget the myriad of ‘outside’ reasons such as the issues of unions or standards or pay — then ignore the guilt-train that tends to invade our peaceful sleep late at night.

Instead, look at teaching as one of the best training grounds for every conceivable career extension possible…and proudly be able to nod knowingly when someone says, “Hey, I’m a teacher” at some future cocktail party or simply ask the ‘right’ questions when you visit your kids’ teachers during parent night.

Assuming #1 or #2 are even still in the hunt after additional soul searching, the obvious come to mind for any left-over SnG’s you might have left:

1. Public?
2. Urban?
3. International?
4. Non-Traditional?
5. Private?
6. Charter?
7. Adults?
8. Start-up?
9. Travel?
10. Community College?
11. Adult Ed?
12. Virtual?
13. Suburban?
14. Infinite more?

Your readership, colleagues, friends, and family — oh, those kids, too — will certainly rebound no matter what choice you make if it falls outside of the current educational Venn Diagram that defines your current pay structure, blogosphere reputation, notch in the school/district pecking order, and real/artificial curriculum boundaries. Since ‘noble bitching’ has long since been well trodden territory by the vast majority of educators at some point in time — whether via blog posts or in the teachers lounge — it seems unnecessary to value-judge your need to explore that ‘dark’ space to the left/right of the ‘maybe I should quit’ for ‘reason x, y or z’ cave calling your name.

Bitch and wonder-away without apology. Respect that need or calling. Put it to a bass beat on the mixing board for good measure. But don’t limit the problem-solving boundaries and design-solution parameters by what ‘lacks’. While temporarily satisfying, it’s ultimately reactionary and played. Instead, focus on what is a ‘must do’ for your long-term career/personal development…and trust its voice as options become clear and intriguing.

No matter what, ‘teach’ — however you choose to define that — wherever you go (or stay) and whatever you formally call yourself. But get over the constant headlock of a battle with regards to the very intellectually transitory nature of one systemic battle vs. any other which can more than rope-a-dope even the most passionate young (and experienced) educator in the mix.

For what it’s worth, there’s nothing noble about staying just to stay. There’s nothing noble about leaving just to leave. And you won’t be the first on either side of the coin, and certainly not the first ‘young’ teacher to explore that territory. In fact, you’d undoubtedly find infinite research and anecdotal evidence about the 2-5 year teacher if you decided to see just how much company you have.

The Clash said it best in a goofy little early 80’s track you’re undoubtedly finding yourself humming right now. Should I stay? Or should I go, now? It’s simply a choice you have to make on very solo terms, no matter how many blog comments come in the virtual door. A million times for the rest of your career. By any titles you care to claim over time.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying living vicariously through you as I think back to the many career decision intersections I’ve stood at in my still-young career as an educator. Oh, yeah, and as professional on many fronts.

Cheers,
C

P.S. Being restless is a bitch, Dan. Especially when you are ‘able’ on so many fronts. Good luck with that. Truly.

P.P.S. I say quit. No more bunny-rabbit cuddlin’. Just quit. Instead of raging against the pedagogical machine from inside the hamster wheel, I say you should just swim unapologetically hard towards waters that are more intriguing to you at this point in your career. For any reason you care to share publicly or privately.

Worst case scenario? You’ll see for yourself that the answers are all inside. And you can always ‘come back’ or create your own ideal ‘teaching’ environment based on a marriage of passions and opportunities.

But definitely give ‘quitting’ a more solid consideration in the next few months. It might actually free you up.

For what it’s worth.

I say this having had a teaching career that has been more high-profile than 99% of the teachers out there… and I say this having taught in a school that was nurturing and caring and sustaining. (And hopefully, I’ve started one of those too…)

But I think the problem that so many of us have… that you are tapping into here… is multi-fold. One, as a career choice, we are made to feel that we are “just a teacher,” and even though our experience tells us that we’re more than that, there’s a sense that the businessmen, doctors, brokers, etc… are somehow winning in this equation. Certainly they are financially.

But I also think that we have to recognize that public education is an economic externality in a capitalist system. It is something that has been determined to be a public good, and therefore the pay scale and structure is different. In addition, the kind of upward mobility that is the hallmark of the way we define our career paths in America these days is missing.

However, perhaps we should take a longer view. I am not a particularly religious person, but I’ve long thought that my classroom was my personal cathedral. It was my sacred space. And I think about how the word “rabbi” translated means “teacher / scholar,” and I think that the old rabbis didn’t think about their careers in terms of advancement, they were teachers.

I’d love to make more money. I’d love to work in a system that better understood how to motivate people. I’d love to not deal with the the world of public education the way it exists today. But I also don’t feel the need to place or define my job in the market forces of today. Our job is older than that. And it exists outside of that.

None of this is to say that what you are feeling right now isn’t valid or real or justified. It all is. I can’t argue against a single point you would make, I’m sure. (Though I’m happy to try.)

What I would say is that you have to change the lens by which you look at your job. You are not just a teacher in 2007, but you get to be a part of the thousands year old process of passing down the body of knowledge, the education of a world, the preparation of citizens. That’s good stuff, and it is worth doing well, because in the end, you aren’t judged by administrators or the state or anything else. You are judged by the delta you cause in the lives of your kids. You know that. And you know that matters.

Now… all that being said, Christian makes some amazing points, and finding ways to deal with burnout are important (notice I haven’t been blogging lately? Been battling it a bit myself…) so that we can do the job at the level it demands… and if we can’t, we do have to ask ourselves if we should keep doing it. But don’t look for the current construct of our society for your rewards, because it ain’t there.

And hey, you can call me to commiserate on the wall too.

Everyone else in the bay area with your skillset works at Google. okay, not everyone. But you couldn’t throw a brick without hitting someone with your skillset who DOES work there.

Can you honestly tell me that you wouldn’t help more kids, and yourself, by making some money at google while volunteering on the side or tutoring on the side, and some day, having enough money to start your own charter school? That you wouldn’t help more people by someday starting your own company and hiring promising young people with diligence? That you wouldn’t help more people if you used your math skills and your teaching skills to mentor people in the work world, especially if you convinced your employer (or your own startup) to hire disadvantaged kids that had the brains but needed mentoring?

You could innovate a lot better in a system that SUPPORTED YOUR INNOVATIONS.

there are a lot of ways of helping. Making money, feeling accountable to other people, knowing your work makes a difference, knowing you have the opportunity to improve, and then having the mindset, time, and money to volunteer with your skills is a great way.

Yeah, what Chris said ;-)

I hope to have a couch by then, too.

Are you joking? Seriously, what’s evil about being successful enough that you change people’s outcomes by hiring them?

You want a job that differentiates good and lousy workers. Then get a job in the private sector. Don’t like everything you see there? Then start your own job in the private sector.

If you want to innovate, go somewhere that people value innovation. This isn’t the devil talking. It’s sanity. You’ve been living in the unreality for too long to know the difference.

Help make a difference–stop supporting mediocre schools. Walk away. All you are doing by staying is sending the message that what they do IS good enough after all.

Can’t help but feel that the “Who is John Galt?” question is re-surfacing here, Dan.

Long before it became a state-of-public-education conflict for young educators burning out in this day and age, Ayn Rand long ago toyed with the should-I-stay-or-should-I go question via her own Objectivist lens by ficticiously leading the innovators out of the ‘system’, person by person. The underlying question came long before either one of us began teaching (or even needing our diapers changed).

Without being cheeky, figure out who (and what) “John Galt” is for you, Dan. Forget trying to save or preserve or argue the merits of any system that doesn’t work for you. And forget about bitching about the “when will they figure out they could lose yet another young gun teacher?” conflict. Instead, define tangible terms — not just uttering the “innovative environment” routine over and over — that would allow you to continue teaching in a way that matches your career objectives. Or, shy of that, get out of the game and go work at Google (or whatever design firm rocks your world). I hear the benefits, dry cleaning services, and free salad bars are kinda groovy.

As Chris says above, there are many schools out there that do and would match what you are screaming for…just not in the typical public school system you’re most familiar with today. Seek them — tangible attribute by tangible attribute — out if you truly want to keep working with ‘kids’ in the classroom. Or admit that it’s really not about the teaching after all, and simply ditch the teacher/student relationship altogether in pursuit of something in more dynamic professional waters. The world and the ‘system’ will continue spinning either way. And you’ll be a far happier MoFo in the process.

You’re just saddled — said with a respectful tone — with a bit of myopia right now (not your fault, BTW) that shadows the range of legit solutions coming to mind. Until you consider the full range of ‘schools’ that can allow you to evolve and work at the level you believe possible, there seems to be little reason to ‘stay’ in teaching or working with kids in a traditional school setting. Get out.

If I were your principal, I’d fire you today: “Bingo-bango, You’re fired, kid!”

It’d be better for the kids, your colleagues, and you. A true trifecta. I’d fire you so that you could pursue the question rather than just tread water nearby it, simultaneously railing against the system while seeking blog-comment ego confirmation for doing so. I’d walk you to the door and wish you all the best.

Oh, and in a few years, if you ever came back and knocked on my Principal door, I’d offer to re-hire you in a second…hoping you’d say, “No, thanks, I figured it out and have a different plan…” instead. Better yet, then I’d invite you out for coffee so we could brainstorm with you as to how you could ‘make an impact’ on my students as a visitor/mentor, rather than as a day-to-day classroom teacher.

Quit teaching. Stop bitching about the ‘system’. OR both.

In the meantime, use the power of your blogging voice, Dennis-Miller-esque conversational connections, and often-unmatched design savvy to spark the imaginations of anyone who sees something kinda dynamic going on here.

Cheers,
C

P.S. BTW, who is John Galt?

Dan: In hind sight (and upon re-reading) I can definitely see how my last comment was received. And received in a not-so-ideal way. Fair enough. It landed poorly. It was expressed poorly. Not intended as such originally, but no sense denying the reality after-the-fact. Appreciate the reaction, Dan. Good for me to read/receive your words. Learning curves are generally very steep for me. Case in point.

As I also said, “I’d offer to re-hire you in a second.”

Why? Because I see you as one of the strongest teaching voices available today. Period.

Two quick points of clarification (for what it’s worth):

1. The “fire you” concept was the same exact point a past mentor and administrator said to me in my first few years of teaching when I was wrestling with a similar proposition as you. She knew I had to search out the question via non-teaching experiences before I’d realize I was a ‘teacher’ through and through. I’ve never been able to thank her enough for expressing it as such. She pulled no punches. She knew where I’d ultimately end up (back in the classroom), but she knew I had to go elsewhere to see that for myself. And that it wasn’t going to be about the ‘school’ or the ‘system’ when all was sorted through. What is clearly the case, however, is I have no right to presume anything on the personal level of a mentor…and I stand wisely corrected. A handful of emails and comments notwithstanding.

2. The “stop bitching” comment speaks to the unmatched power of your voice when you are demonstrating real innovation in spite of the limits around you. The system will change in direct proportion to YOU being the INNOVATOR, not the critic of the system. You’ve built a fascinating blog audience who truly responds to all of the innovation you bring to the table, Dan. While critics are plentiful, guys like you that can create, can solve, can build, can see gestalt opportunities are few and far between. This is where you stand to have the most impact now and over time. Again, I’m not your mentor and once again stand wisely corrected.

I’d completely understand if you opt to ignore the ultimate meaning of what I intended to write last time. Most likely that will be the case…and I can’t say I blame you. The earned compliments and recognition are offered either way.

If leaving teaching at some point to pursue other passions — design, et al — is part of the larger professional arc for you, I can’t imagine it would do anything but continue to deepen your instincts and voice as an educator (if you ever chose to return). And your kids (and clients) would only be the better for it.

If you remain as a full-time teacher, however, I think you’d find a wide array of ‘learning environments’ (i.e. schools) inside and outside the setting that you currently call home that would more quickly embrace what you’re doing as a classroom teacher and as a larger voice for innovation. Or perhaps it happens ‘right there’ where you already are when all is said and done.

Both are fair options that a young educator of your instinct, talent, and passion should consider equally. And undoubtedly, you’ll excel without limit in either direction.

C

P.S. The beginning of your second paragraph is where it all shakes down, I think. I gladly accept the reaction (again, fairly expressed by you after I re-read my previous comment although it was actually intended with a much different tone, had it been spoken face to face), but my gut tells me that ultimately its worth it to read that “too happy teaching to go elsewhere” line end up unapologetically on the table.

I’m not really the point. Nor my previous comment. Your statement about not wanting to leave, however, is. And for all the right reasons, I suspect.

P.P.S. Feel free to delete this comment. It may ultimately be a better choice to let your response stand as the end of the conversation. If so, however, the compliments and recognition still stand. As does my head-nod on the “too happy teaching to go elsewhere” line.