Room to Grow

In conversation with my colleagues, I have heard the phrase "career path" often. Most teachers around me have an idea of some leadership role they'd like to hold at some point, along with the path they must follow in order to do so. One of these teachers with whom I recently traveled to China on a school trip asked me if I had considered a particular role, in this case pastoral. I allowed that I hadn't, and it led to an admission that I had never truly considered a leadership role. It's not that I have no ambition or confidence in my abilities, but simply that there were few options open to me until now. 

In the American system, there were two main roles into which I could grow. The first was science department chair.  This involved organizing schedules, equipment orders, professional growth opportunities, and the like, all activities at which I could excel.  I did consider this a possibility, but the position was eliminated in Calvert County and replaced with the more data driven role of Core Lead. This largely involved analyzing test scores for the one subject Maryland tested, biology. I felt less interested in and less qualified for this position. One of the teachers I respect the most, Rob Halstead, served as Core Lead of the Math department for a year and seemed to hate it for all the reasons I thought I might as well, most notably that it replaced teaching time with number crunching. 

The other leadership roles to which I could aspire were vice principal, principal, science coordinator for the county, and various roles at the board office. All of them, even at the lowest levels, would require me to give up teaching all together. I enjoy teaching, and I think I'm pretty good at it, so these positions held even less appeal to me. Many good teachers must have agreed with me, as in my experience these positions were often occupied by people who either didn't like classroom teaching very much or weren't very good at it. There have been administrators who were quite talented teachers, but sadly they've been few and far between in my career. I often found myself in the position of being supervised by people I felt were far less qualified for the job than I, but who had the only advantage of actually wanting the job. Most of the principals and vice principals I had in 13 years of teaching in the USA were former gym teachers. I don't know why the PE departments churned out such large numbers of administrators, but they consistently did so, at least in my schools. 

So, I had always been happy staying in the classroom and being the best teacher I could be. The leadership positions I occupied were either accidental, as with my performing arts roles that no one else wanted, or somewhat opposed, as with my international trips I organized that my school district discouraged. 

Now that I am teaching in the UK, however, options suddenly abound. One reason is that every step along the way still involves teaching, and the other is that there are two categories of leadership positions, academic and pastoral. 

On the academic side, there is a physics department head, a science department head, an academic deputy head of the school, and head of the school. Each step in that chain involves fewer lessons to teach, but at least they still teach. The head doesn't teach at all, though she certainly could if she wished. Every subject is tested, so the science department has a refreshing balance of physics, chemistry, and biology teachers. There are obviously numbers to be crunched, but far more academic leadership is involved than I've witnessed before now. I have already discussed with Jenny the prospect of growing into a physics department head, and she is of the opinion, at least, that I could do it quite well. 

Pastoral duties are ones that don't even exist in the USA to my knowledge, at least not with the teachers. Britain takes the duties of the high school guidance counselor and splits them among the teaching staff. There is a form tutor, a head of year, and a pastoral deputy head. I am a form tutor now, which means I am assigned a group of 16 students (mine are in year 12) with whom I meet each morning. I register them (meaning I take attendance), give any announcements for the school, speak to them about how life and school are going, and basically take care of them en loco parentis. When they are stressed, having trouble academically, considering different university options, or anything else we Americans would consider the realm of the guidance counselor, it is from me that they seek help. I communicate with their teachers and parents. I communicate any concerns to the head of year, who advises on courses of action and has the final say in all big decisions. Each key stage in their schooling (years 7-9 are Key stage 3, years 10-11 are KS4, years 12-13 are KS5) involves a single form tutor and head of year that follow them throughout. So, I will have my form for two years, until they finish their schooling all together. At boarding schools, there are additional levels like house master/mistress that take on the unique responsibilities involved with housing the students. The colleague with whom I spoke in China aspires to be a house mistress at a boarding school one day herself. 

My current supervisors on both the academic and pastoral side are all talented teachers from a range of subjects. My head of school is even a physics teacher. So, not only do I feel quite effectively managed by a talented group of people, but I also feel an urge to grow within this framework. Both paths seem equally likely at the moment, but we shall see which opportunities actually present themselves. 

I do sense more room for growth in this system, but as another colleague in the Math department pointed out, it seems that the best teachers in the USA are motivated to stay in the classroom while the best teachers in the UK are motivated to leave it. Interesting consequence indeed.