I am a teacher and I love to teach.
This isn't really news to anyone. I think I even have a post on this blog a couple of months ago entitled I Love Teaching. The concrete block to the head though, was a reminder of this. My master's degree is in Special Education. My specialist and doctorate degrees are in curriculum and instruction. Nowhere in there do you see the words Educational Leadership. It's not because I don't have leadership qualities, and it certainly doesn't mean I am not good at what I do (one of my teachers oozed compliments all over me today about how good I am at what I do- made me feel really great). But being a school administrator was never in my plans. I wanted to develop curriculum and work on program evaluation and improvement. I was never looking to run a school.
So here's what happened...
I started my traditional teaching career in my mid-twenties. I didn't become a teacher right out of college. I worked in community education and professional development at a domestic violence center while I worked on my master's degree. I learned quite a bit about social services, the nonprofit word, and community engagement. I provided professional development in the form of CEUs for hospital staff, law enforcement, and other professionals who need yearly domestic violence awareness training. At the same time, I wrote literature for the center and developed the training programs and manuals for new hires and volunteers. If you know nonprofit, you know everyone wears multiple hats. While it can be exhausting, it allows people to learn new skills and grow out of their comfort zones. I also helped with group grant writing sessions.
This job involved professional development (a form of teaching) and program development (a form of curriculum writing).
Though it was tough to leave, after I got my master's degree we moved to another city. Obviously, I had to leave the domestic violence center and I took some time off to be with my new born son. But by the time my son was a year old, I was ready to put my master's degree to work. I spent almost a year in public school as a resource teacher, and then I found myself working in a specialized private school for kids with learning disabilities. Small staff, specialized school, overachiever, I quickly became a lead teacher and eventually an Assistant Director. Looking back, the best part of that was I still taught and just provided support to the Director. I got an assistant teacher that year so I could be free to step out as needed to work with the Director on projects, discipline, and anything else a full administrative staff would do at a bigger school. I also became responsible for selecting all subject area textbooks, and worked on a project with regional personnel to revise the academic standards being used by the company's schools throughout the country.
This job involved training teachers (a form of teaching) and classroom teaching (teaching), and evaluating and writing standards (a form of program evaluation and curriculum development).
After a couple of years, I was offered a position as Director at another location. There had been some difficulty with the previous director who was a well educated, highly professional and kind man, who had never taught in the very specialized program prior to being hired as a leader there. He decided to retire, and they brought me in. I had grown up as a teacher in the program and knew it like the back of my hand. I had already been part of the new teacher training staff each year, and there I went.
This job was short-lived, but it was mostly working with teachers to teach them how to develop individual plans for students (a form of curriculum development) and train them on the specialized methods used in the program (another form of teaching and professional development).
From there I went to yet another school within the same company. And this is where the pattern starts to become more obvious. The principal was being fired. I knew this before she even did. Apparently she really didn't know what she was doing. I came in and things were a mess! Students weren't scheduled properly, teachers were doing their own thing (not in a good way), and there was no instructional leader. Come to find out the previous principal's only experience was in pre-school, and this was a PK-8 school with a full service program for kids with learning disabilities just like the one at my previous school. I was 30 years old and running a private school. And I was doing a good job! After a year and a half, I had built a really strong team and cleaned up the previous principal's mess. I felt my job was pretty much done, and some other factors pulled me away.
This job experience was largely about examining what was happening and what had gone wrong (a form of program evaluation) and working with the faculty to build their capacity (a form of teaching and professional development). Of course I started to take on facility management here as well. I managed staff in all areas, not just the teaching faculty.
Next I went to a residential wilderness program for adjudicated boys. I wouldn't exactly call the educational program a mess, but it was a bit messy. I was hired by the person I was replacing because he was promoted. I became the education coordinator (pretty much like a principal or AP) and he became the camp director. Prior to him having my job, he was biology teacher who was really a biology major who took a test and became a teacher. A great guy with super pure intentions, but not an educator by trade. He purposely hired me to replace him because I had the knowledge base he didn't have. There were things that needed cleaning up, and I spent a year doing it. First, there was a disjointed faculty with lots of passive aggression between them. I worked hard to change the culture and build a cohesive team who learned to appreciate each other, work together, and communicate. We lifted the level of education up much higher than where it had been when I got there. I also became a stronger voice for the education staff on the leadership team.
This job was was again, building capacity through teacher training (a form of teaching), building school culture, and teaching. I lived my example and walked the walk. Because of the remote location, I spent most of my tenure there understaffed. I taught right along side the teachers almost daily. I hung up bulletin boards with them, talked to them about their practice. Helped them improve (professional development). I helped them see themselves as professionals, and it showed in their teaching.
At this time, I took a break from administration and went back to the classroom. I wanted to be on the same schedule as my son so I could spend more time with him. Additionally, within the following year is when I decided to return to graduate school to study curriculum and instruction. I didn't want to be a school administrator... hmmm.
I taught in the classroom for the next 8 years.
Fast forward this long story to about two years ago. It had been a year since I finished my doctorate, and as my principal at the time said, "You don't get a doctorate to teach 4th grade forever." It was time to move on but I really wasn't sure where. All I knew was I didn't want to go into the district admin pool. That's what everyone expected me to do, but it wasn't at all what I wanted. Funny how things turn out. I'm not really a public school administrator, but I am the Academic Manager at another alternative private school. This one for at-promise girls. Forgive me co-workers who I know will read this, for publicly announcing that I came into a shit storm. Not the organization itself. It's wonderful and it always has been. Still is. But the academic program at the school was a train wreck when I came on. I won't get into details about what it was, I'll just say I've spent the last two years fixing it up. Now entering year three, I think we're getting to a place of stability and we can focus on a year of excellence. And truth be told, that's exciting.
Here's the point you've been patiently waiting for (Thank you if you've read this far without quitting and exclaiming TLDR). The realization is I am a fixer. Apparently, I'm pretty good at what I do. I can quickly identify what's happening and determine which parts are good and worth keeping and which parts need to be thrown out or reworked. I have a very high standard and personal code of ethics, and I guess that drives me to build a culture around those ideals. Everywhere I've gone, I find my first task is building positive culture among the staff- both within the faculty and between the faculty and other staff. I know I expect the quality of education to be very high, so all the decisions I make and the ideas I have are built on that foundation. But here's the clincher, I don't want to be a fixer anymore. I'm tired of cleaning up everyone's messes. I want to create. I want to develop. I want to teach. I'm not sure how or where, and it doesn't mean I'm going to quit my job. I just need to find a way to feed my soul. It's amazing how you can be really good at something but not want to do it. That teacher I was talking to earlier said headquarters should hire me to go around and fix all their schools when they need fixing. Parts of that sound intriguing. But again, I majored in curriculum and instruction because that's what I want to do. I didn't major in educational leadership because I don't want to be a principal.
Now this is a true epiphany... maybe they need to change the name of the program and certification to educational administration. That's what they are really focusing on. I consider myself to be an instructional leader, from the teaching and learning perspective. No matter where you put me in what capacity, I think I'll always be an educational leader. But once I move on from this job, my admin days are over. Now it's time to work on this...
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