One of the things on my summer "to do" list was to visit an M.A./M.Ed. program I was interested in, and I got to cross that off of the list yesterday (and had the joy of combining this goal with a weekend visit to dear friends whom we hadn't seen in way too long!). It's a program in educational leadership in private schools, and although I have a bias against education degrees in general, this one actually seems like a great program, one that has an excellent reputation in the independent school world and that opens a lot of career doors in school administration. It's also important that it has a concentration on private schools (independent and sectarian schools), because so much of most education programs is bound up with federal and state regulation that, thankfully, private schools don't have to deal with for the most part. The degree can be earned in either one intensive year or in two summers with independent work and practica in the intervening school year. And there's apparently very generous financial assistance available, and of course FGS would provide professional development funds as well. In the summer version of the program, the courses are prescribed, and they actually all look interesting, courses that I would genuinely want to take. It seems like a fabulous program all the way around.
The reason I was considering this and put a visit on my summer goals list is that I'm still struggling with what my professional goals look like in this not-so-new-now career path I'm on. A teacher in another department just got feted and lauded at the end of the year because he was retiring after teaching at FGS for over 30 years. On the one hand, wow, what a career, and what a respected figure he has been at the school! On the other hand, the thought of doing the same thing for that many years leaves me cold; I'm either more restless or more adventurous or something, and much as I love being an English teacher at FGS, I already want to know what the next thing is going to be. Or rather, I want to know that there will be a next thing, even if I don't yet need to know what it is. One of the options I've considered is administration, although it's really clear to me that I don't want a job that would take me entirely out of the classroom. But there are all kinds of administrative jobs that are mixed with teaching jobs -- deans of faculty or academics, or department heads -- and this is what I've got in mind for possible future positions. But it's also true that I will always have less independent school experience than other people at my same career stage, even though of course I have more education than most of them and quite a lot of teaching experience in a different venue. So I thought that perhaps getting this degree in educational leadership in private schools would be a fun adventure in the immediate future and a step up in looking for future jobs.
With all of this in mind, I contacted the school and arranged to visit the program yesterday. They were very hospitable and set me up with class observations and student hosts and lunch, and it was a very good visit. The classes are all really big because the entire cohort of 47 students takes all of the same courses at the same time, which is very different from my own grad school experience of small seminars, but the upside of this is the shared experience that everyone in the program has. And of course these are motivated students! I was really impressed at the energy and commitment of the students in the program, all of whom are obviously people who do school well and who are doing a hell of a lot of intensive work immediately after their school year ends and they might well prefer to collapse. And they are all people who are thinking about or already are in administration, so it's a lively, take-charge bunch of smart folks who seem to be good at working with others and interested in education at the macro as well as micro levels. Very fun to watch them at work! I particularly enjoyed the educational law course in the morning and was especially gladdened to see first-hand the commitment to social justice apparent in both the students and the professors; apparently this is a hallmark of the program. The afternoon class was kind of meh, displaying the namby-pambiness that I tend to associate with education courses, but I was again impressed at the work of the small group that I got to sit in on. And every single student I met was friendly and personable, and they all as with one voice urged me to apply for the program, saying that it would be an amazing, intensive experience that I would find exhilarating.
By mid-morning, I had decided that this was definitely a program that I wanted to do, and that I would just make it work somehow financially. And this is why it's good to stay for the whole day! By mid-afternoon, I had decided that, although there would be a lot that was fun about the program, it really would be an unnecessary expense that couldn't be justified in terms of my long-term career paths.
The change occurred for me over lunchtime, when I ate sandwiches with five students in the program. I found them all interesting and motivated people who were happy to talk about their own experiences and answer my questions -- really, the program did a great job of hosting me for the day -- and yet, in talking with them, I changed my mind about the program, or rather about its fit for my career goals. I had been thinking of this as a program that would help me achieve what we might call intermediate administration, but I realized that more than half of the program participants already had such positions. This program really sees itself as training the next generation of heads of school and division heads (that is, lower or middle or upper school heads who answer to the overarching head of school), and of course this is why the commitment to social justice in the program is a great thing; they're intentionally hoping to change the tenor of private schools away from training-ground-for-rich-kids, and this is a wonderful thing. But I don't really want to be a head of school or division head, at least at this point! One of the folks I met in the program works at a nearby school in Adventure City and is a department head and the dean of faculty there; I told him that this was my ideal job combination, and he looked at me a little askance, not because that's not a good job but because it clearly seemed to be aiming kind of low. That's the kind of job you can do without such a program and degree; indeed, that kind of job is what a lot of these folks were already doing, and they were in the program to move to the next level. Plus, one of the women at lunch who is working on her Ed.D. (and taking this M.Ed. program along the way of getting there) seemed to think that being Dr. Now had already given me much of the cachet that people take such a program to get. We also talked about the cost of the program and just what "generous financial support available" actually meant ... and they said I should plan on paying about $20,000, minus what FGS would give me (which would be only about a quarter of that). When I blanched a little, they said it was an investment in their careers -- both for the name of the program and the valuable network of contacts -- and of course that investment will pay off if they becomes heads of school, but since I don't want to do that, it seems really obvious to me that the money is not worth it!
Now, the other thing that people get from the program is an actual education, of course, but on the train ride back to my friends' house, I realized that I could simply take individual courses in subject areas I was interested in; FGS will give me professional development funds to take any courses I want, and so I can study education law or adolescent brain development or anything else I want without paying $15,000 and spending so very much time and energy on a degree I don't really need.
So I'm really glad that I spent the day visiting the program; the $60 or so investment in the visit (between tolls on the way to our friends and the train ride into the city and back) was well worth it, having saved me oodles and oodles of money and time and helped me clarify my career goals.
Not so bad for crossing off an items on my summer "to do" list!
You know, I think the "looking for the next thing" is a huge side effect of academia. I mean, if you do a Ph.D., you spend multiple years doing something knowing that you will finish it and move on to something new (something you've been training for, admittedly, but still different and new). And then when you get wherever that is, if it's a t-t job, you have to work towards tenure, and while for a lot of people that ends up being more of the same, for some people that ends up being something else different. So it can be hard to imagine not always moving towards something else!
(Granted, people in general are much less likely to stay at the same job for 30 years, these days, so it's not *just* academia. And some people are more inclined to change anyway. But I think academia may train us that way?)
Posted by: New Kid on the Hallway | June 26, 2010 at 04:58 PM