Fun times hiking the Grouse Grind with Rockridge Principal Judy Duncan and more than 100 Grade 9’s earlier this fall.
If you are an administrator you have probably been asked some version of “you must really miss teaching and the kids in the classroom?” It is often said in a way to make you feel guilty somehow, that taking a job as a principal or vice-principal, although may have more responsibility and a greater scope to your work, the insinuation is that you have lost the best part of education.
The official correct answer for “Do you miss the teaching?” is “yes”. You are supposed to say that working with kids in the classroom is the best and I miss it every day. Even though it is an unfair question, you are still supposed to answer it in the affirmative.
Well, when I get asked this guilt-inducing question – I say no. No, I don’t miss teaching. Teaching is awesome. Most of my best friends are teachers, my parents were teachers, most of the smartest people I know are teachers. And I loved it!
I am surrounded by teachers and I still love teaching in a K-12 classroom when I get the chance to do it. But I don’t miss it. Just because we love something doesn’t mean we need to do it forever, nor does it mean we miss it when we do something else. And I don’t define teaching as something strictly with a finite group of students in the classroom over a 10 month period of time.
I have been thinking about why I loved teaching. It comes down to purpose and satisfaction.
I actually get amazing purpose and satisfaction as an administrator. Both at the school and district level there are significant chances to make a difference and have a great sense of accomplishment. It is different, the feedback is far more immediate as a classroom teacher – you know right away from the students how you are doing and the difference you are making. This satisfaction is not as easy to see, but just as powerful in other roles in the system whether you are working with one student, a group of students, teachers, parents or others in the community.
In many industries as you are successful you move up a ladder – that is far less true in education. Education is one of those funny jobs around the notion of promotion. It is not really true that becoming an administrator after being a teacher is a promotion. They are two different jobs and while some people are good at both, I have seen great teachers become mediocre administrators and teachers who were just OK in the classroom become excellent school and district administrators.
And the suggestion that you are removed from young people once you become an administrator is just not true, at least not if you don’t want it to be true. I have been in about 30 classrooms so far this fall – working with teachers, learning with and from students, and ensuring I know how the decisions I make are influencing teachers and students. You can be the administrator who is removed from kids, I guess. But that would be your choice – we all make choices on how we spend our time in our work.
I love my current job, but I often tell people my absolute favourite job in the system was high school principal. Being in a school of 1400 students, with over 120 adults coming together everyday – exhausting, exhilarating, challenging and on most days a lot of fun. And never once did I think I had given up “kids” for a job. This feeling continues to this day in my current role.
As we finish-up celebrating National Principals’ Month (October), here is to all the great school and district leaders who are working with and for students everyday. I am lucky to work with so many awesome ones in West Vancouver!
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