If you’ve got a school community that is clicking, there are always infinite new challenges. If you don’t find them sufficient, you were never going to have a long career in teaching. The problem is that generally those periods where things click are generally brief, you have to retreate, then you get bored, then you leave.

Maybe someone who is so satisfied by “instructional innovation than by instructional implementation,” like TMAO, could obtain that satisfaction by moving to schools where both innovation and effective implementation are lacking. There are plenty of schools in each state who could greatly benefit from TMAO’s innovation and teacher leadership. After a few years of innovation, leave the reigns of implementation to someone more interested and move on to another school. Perhaps that is where the challenge lies.

Dan, I’m not so sure that Tom was talking about careerist pre-determination in the way I read his comment. To me, it is more about finding the right place to be, where your talents will be valued and utilised, which might mean looking around and switching schools until you find the right fit. Where I am right now isn’t perfect but it’s where I want to be in terms of control of what I do, where my school sees its future direction and how much I can help to shape it. It’s probably why you see ex-pat teachers in places like international schools – sure, travel and the change of scenery is great but that would get pretty old if the work situation wasn’t stimulating and allowing growth. If you can’t find that place, or are unable to due to life choices (family and other ties to location) then that’s when Tom’s short career observation kicks in.

Agree with Michael. There are no rules with regard to how long you must stay in one place. To stay fresh, take innovations and your joy from place to place. The challenge- to leave a place better than you found it- there’s great satisfaction in that! Each position requires new discoveries and new innovations.

I never stayed in one position for more than 3 years except this last year, I just resigned. You CAN have a long career in education by being the agent of change; I’m in my 22nd without one burnt bridge. Finding a new position took all of three days from resume to interview to offer; there ARE schools looking for joyous innovators who can help those satisfied with implementation.

Lacking imagination if you CAN’T see the new challenges, that is.

We don’t have a school system that supports students in this type of open ended, self-directed development. Why should we have one for teachers?

Just sayin, is all. And just dropping some chum in the waters… But when high stakes testing receives a disproportionate amount of attention in rating a school’s performance, this type of flexibility on the job becomes more difficult to justify — it’s non-traditional, and non-traditional is a risk.

Tom, in 9 and 10, nails it. All challenges are worthwhile challenges, and you have more room to conceptualize and articulate these challenges when working for an administration that supports and encourages teachers to think of their role in the classroom as an integral part of iterative, never-ending improvement.

Several other people have hit on another idea; and that is to have faculty on staff within a district who are roaming support/master teachers. Of course, coming up with the hiring criteria for this position is a difficult proposition. Of course, I’d prefer to do it without the military metaphor.

Cheers,

Bill

I’ll try weighing in on this one, although I’m finding it hard to understand the distinction–there are new kids & challenges every year with lots of room to set the goals higher.

On the other hand, a change of scenery, a new set of challenges, a school needing a whole different approach might be–as suggested by Michael & Joanne to best answer.

While I have found instructional coaches teaming with teachers to support instructional improvement & learning results to be a worthwhile model, there’s a bit of skepticism that wonders how an outsider would better facilitate instructional improvement than an instructional leader, such as a principal, within the school or district.

To me, many different approaches, materials, strategies can be effective in facilitating learning–there’s not one best solution to an instructional issue–but rather it’s the consistent, effective implementation of selected strategies with high fidelity over time that makes a difference. It’s important for individuals to work in systems where they can be supportive of and contribute to the shared instructional approach.

Although in some schools, each teacher is pretty much on his or her own–although I think standards change that dynamic.

I second the comment on moving schools. I think such movement is absolutely critical to keeping both schools and teachers fresh (which of course keeps kids fresh!). I’ve taught at three schools in ten years and only one of the three was really open to hearing ideas from teachers who had been other places. The last two have been very set in the “this is how it’s done here” mentality which I think mainly comes from a staff of teachers who have only taught at this one school, often including their student teaching! Obviously moving schools is a pain and difficult and requires a great deal of cognitive dissonance for teachers but it is that exact cognitive dissonance that in turn makes them better teachers – imho. I’m sick of trying to work with teachers who are still making copies off of old purple and white ditto “originals” because that’s what they’ve always used. If you’re a teacher like TMAO the goal is to find another school that has what he had when he first arrived at his current school. I don’t teach with him but that sounds like a school in need and a staff (all levels) unified in order to meet that need. The problem is finding that school.

I agree with what APPEAR to be TMAO’s thoughts on the issue of being a teacher coach – for many of us I don’t think that’s what we want. I can’t imagine this job without the kids. I LOVE the kids! I love doing data and analyzing scores and growth and making charts and all of those things. But without knowing the kids I wouldn’t enjoy it. I enjoy it because I know the individuals behind the numbers and I know what it means to them to be successful. OK I guess that’s a little much for a “comment”!

@Dan I think this is a issue that is bigger than TMAO. He is (and I hope he’s not offended by this idea) our case study and his situation will apply to many of us at some point in our careers, if it hasn’t already. How do we, as teachers, keep our (personal) motivation to do what we do? If your motivation is intrinsic and never wavering, then Hallelujah and Congratulations: you’ve reached the promised land.

I know I struggle with this on some level year after year. How do I constantly re-invent myself? How do I keep from growing stale or jaded? How do I reconcile spending more time with other people’s kids than my own?

For TMAO, I guess the question I want answered is: Do you want to leave education, or do you want to leave your school? There are options in either case…

My career prior to teaching was in technology in everything from startups to Fortune 50 and in that world I always noted that the organizations with the highest levels of innovation had the most chaotic organization charts. On the other side of that coin, the companies with low innovation had very stable, formal, symmetric org charts.

Public education is organized (at the point of delivery) as a very flat, stable, formal, symmetric organization. In most schools there is a principal/VP and then ‘everybody else’. There might be a department head or two but generally these are found in high schools not in lower grades.

Here’s a short list of the various skillsets you might expect to find in a math teacher: Scriptwriter, Director, Entertainer, Mathematician, Curriculum Expert, Behavorial Expert,
Analyst, Clerk, Linguist, Cognitive Expert, Technology Expert, Custodian, Decorator. Now in an innovative tech company you would find formal and informal organizational structures that criss-cross the skillsets like silly string. In education what you find is boxes (classrooms) filled with ‘teachers’. You find recruitment of ‘math teacher’, ‘ela teacher’, etc. No skill distinctions are made in recruitment because every one is (unrealistically) expected to have and love the whole enchilada.

People evolve, and in innovative organizations, managers provide the stimulus and ecosystem to take advantage of the evolving skillsets and interests in order to leverage (as much as possible) every single person. The side effect of this managerial style is that people can move to, or create the kinds of jobs they love.

In public ed it’s just the box. If script writing is what floats your boat and you’re really good at it, there is no structure that enables you to leverage that work product across the organization. Each box sort of drifts into a comfort zone, if you’re so inclined, or a discomfort zone, if you’re an eagle.

TMAO is an eagle in a box!

I say he comes and teaches at SLA, where we believe in educational innovation *and* innovative implementation.

We look to get better every day, and then we look to share our best practice with anyone who reads our blogs, comes to visit, comes to EduCon, etc…

Tom’s right — we need schools that work, that see themselves as incubators of ideas, etc.. .and we need more and more and more of them.

The lack of a career progression in classroom teaching I believe does discourage people from entering the profession at the K-12 level and hurts retention. If I’m a bright and ambitious would-be teacher, college-level teaching with its career ladder (associate professor, full prof, subdepartment head, department head) is going to be much more attractive. Obviously there are other reasons why someone might prefer teaching at the college level- higher pay, much greater autonomy, better physical surroundings, students who are in the classroom of their own volition rather than by force of law, etc. But I think the flat structure definitely makes K-12 teaching less attractive a profession.