In our first year as administrators, we have vast reserves of empathy and understanding for teachers, having just come from that place ourselves. We think about our own teaching career, remembering the high points and treasuring love letters from parents and sometimes students. We think that our new position as administrator is testimony to our teaching acumen.
As our years in school administration go on, we continue to fondly remember our teaching days and support faculty members as much as we can. As we retire, many of us find purpose as trustees or on panels to share our expertise. But, how many go back to teaching? As I learned on my journey after retirement, teachers deserve more appreciation. We think we remember how hard it is to teach. But we really don’t.
A Curricular Passion
I’ve always been a teacher at heart. As I prepared to move from elementary to secondary teaching, I leaned on my network of math professionals, including my husband who was a high school math teacher, to gain advice about working effectively with adolescents. I also found it helpful to participate as a student in a revered teacher’s middle school eighth-grade class, much to the delight and incredulity of some of the students I had previously worked with. I asked questions, was an eager partner, and loved the spirit and the content of the class. I solved each question without peeking at the answer key.I spent many years as a teacher, first in public school and then at an independent school. I worked really hard, and that work was recognized with a Presidential Award in, blush, 1995 for exceptional secondary math teaching. Eventually I became a division head at two different schools, and then a head of school at two exceptional schools. The kids, the parents, and the teachers all knew that my curricular passion was mathematics.
My positions in leadership allowed me to infuse mathematics into unexpected places. Nearly every assembly had a math component. Bulletin boards sprung up with information about money, the measurements of the Statue of Liberty, animal bones, seasonal statistics, or whatever I could find to entertain and enchant our students. I couldn’t walk by a math class without drifting in and sharing in the delight of the students. I’d find articles or math games and leave them in teacher mailboxes. I had a library of resources I was eager to share; many of them now out of print. I offered to substitute, and no matter what the subject, there was some math involved (an art class became an exploration of Cuisenaire surface area). I was shameless about exploiting kids’ interests to hook them into math.
Newfound Purpose
At age 67, it was time to say goodbye. Goodbye to administrative lawsuits, last-minute teacher hiring, budgets, trustee presentations, facilities challenges, fundraising, teacher evaluations, committees, disciplinary conversations with incredulous parents and the other attractions of administration. And thus, I retired.For a year.
Then a friend called: Her independent school was in the middle of its accreditation visit, and though the visit hadn’t concluded, she knew that the math program needed support. She asked if I’d be interested in coming in one day a week the following year? You bet I was. Finally, a purpose for all the preparation I’d been doing.
During that year I had rearranged my files, color-coding math resources and sorting them alphabetically. I could find any math-related children’s literature by approximate grade level, and I found out-of-print materials and entered them into my computer so that I could personalize them with kids’ names or real contexts. I read every copy of The Arithmetic Teacher, which morphed into Teaching Children Mathematics, that I had saved since 1978. I subscribed to the Oregon Math Teacher and to the California Math Communicator, though I’ve never lived in either state. I cut out articles and collected excellent problems.
And so I became a math evangelist. It was the most perfect job for me. I began to teach at my friend’s school, and worked with nearly every student in the lower school and held an enrichment math lunch for intermediate students. I felt renewed purpose in my life, working just one day a week and preparing during the other six. I worked with teachers and helped them with the challenge du jour, teaching, coaching, and responding to faculty needs.
And that’s when I found out I was dead wrong about how hard it is to be a teacher. I taught one subject one day a week, and I was consumed with creating dynamite lessons and giving feedback on papers that I hoped would be useful, if not inspirational. My husband joked that in most houses the appliance most used was a KitchenAid or a Cuisinart; in our house, it was the paper cutter. I bought a personal laminator and a second printer because I kept tying up the other. I stalked craft stores for card stock sales. And Avery Labels loved me as a customer. I shared digital materials with teachers, advising them to use label #5603 to make their own game-piece sets.
Having held many positions, including consultant, administrator, and coordinator, I recognize that great teaching is rare and ought to be vigorously recognized. Teachers do what I am currently doing five days a week. They span math to teach in other disciplines. They correct papers without a four-day weekend. They keep up with research without having precious time to devote to reading professional journals. They do not get to have their hair cut on Friday mornings when the rest of the world is at work, and they have to carefully consider when and if to see a doctor, should the need arise, because they know their students will bear the cost of their absence. They sometimes skip lunch because their days are too full, and they may not go home to a childless house, as is mine now.
This year I added another day of teaching. A former school called me about an opening for a math specialist, and I accepted. My own sweet reward, this year, comes from a first-grader, who gave me a “guaranteed backstage pass” for his first concert when he becomes famous. I keep it on my washing machine, where it reminds me why this hard work is worth it. We are doing no less than losing sleep and fretting over how to best serve the future.
