Every few months, it seems, I meet another ed policy PhD student who used to be a teacher. And every single one seems a little bit scarred from it. When they talk about teaching, their faces get serious and their tone drops. They talk about how hard it was. They puzzle over what exactly went wrong.

There’s a whole subculture of us…people who have always been good in school but not so good at teaching it (or at least not as good as we wanted to be). We all carry a certain sense of regret - we all spent a couple of years feeling like failures, and that’s something you don’t forget.

K-12 teaching really is the hardest job I’ll ever do. Getting a doctorate is easier - I’ll never stop saying it.

“After writing all of this I realize that I am not leaving my profession, in truth, it has left me. It no longer exists. I feel as though I have played some game halfway through its fourth quarter, a timeout has been called, my teammates’ hands have all been tied, the goal posts moved, all previously scored points and honors expunged and all of the rules altered.”

I just thought this was a cool analogy.

“A school is often the community vault, containing priceless intangibles like people’s personal identities, family histories, and even one’s sense of security.”

*********

I went to the same elementary school K-5. It was a five minute walk from my house. I knew exactly where I’d go to middle school and then exactly where I’d go to high school. I watched older kids participate in plays, sports, dances and I knew I’d get to do the exact same things on the exact same stages, courts, fields, and dance floors.

All of the schools I attended had been in the same place, serving the same community, doing the same kinds of things, for decades. I knew what teachers to cross my fingers I’d get and which ones to avoid. I knew what clubs to sign up for - what educator ran a life-changing program you just had to be a part of. I went to the same high school my father and grandfather attended. My history teacher had been one of my dad’s basketball coaches.

And I really think that a lot of the general well-being and security I feel as an adult stems from the stability I had as a kid.

I worry a lot about the upheaval city kids experience when it comes to their education - attending one school this year, another the next. Signing up for a charter lottery for middle school and applying to attend a high school across the city. Mass school closings, of course, add to the chaos. I don’t know what the answer is, but I think we could stand to slow down and try to make the world a little more predictable for Chicago’s kids. 

One of the undergrads I’m TAing is doing TFA next year. When she heard that I was writing my dissertation on teacher retention, she asked if we could meet for coffee to talk about what I knew. She’s nervous about her own experience on the job and wanted some tips.

I made this list for her, which I titled “How To Keep Teaching.” Please note that I myself did NOT keep teaching - I left after two years - so I’m by no means a personal expert on this. These tips are simply what research on personality and teacher job satisfaction has to say. 

**********

How To Keep Teaching

The following is a compilation and summary of research findings I’ve come across while reading for my dissertation on teacher retention. Nothing is ever set in stone in social science, but there’s some evidence that following these pieces of advice might make the difficult job of teaching a little bit easier and more satisfying.

(1) There aren’t a lot of formal ways teachers are rewarded for their work. You don’t really get raises or promotions or even a lot of respect from the outside world. Research shows that teachers who really focus on the everyday fulfillment they get from working with their students are more satisfied. So notice and celebrate when you build a solid relationship with one of your kids, when they learn something new, etc.

(2) Find ways to feel successful. Teaching is a never-ending job. There’s always something else you can do. The articles I’ve read are really clear about one thing – teachers who stick around tend to feel more successful than those who don’t. Make sure to celebrate small successes. Pay attention and feel proud when you do well, even if it seems like no big deal.

(3) On the same note, consider breaking the rules from time to time. Don’t get yourself into trouble, but teachers who are overly conscientious tend to struggle. Decide what your priorities are, do your best, and then let yourself off the hook. If that means filling out paperwork less carefully than you should or skipping a meeting here and there, do what you have to do to keep yourself relaxed and positive.

(4) Satisfice, don’t maximize. To “satisfice” means to use the first acceptable solution you find to a problem. To “maximize” means to keep searching until you find the best possible solution. You’ll drive yourself crazy trying to do everything perfectly. There’s just not time when you work as a teacher. Decide what you can’t compromise on and what you can, and be okay when the unimportant stuff is good enough instead of perfect.

(5) Surround yourself with teachers you respect. You will not believe the support and peace of mind this brings you. Make sure you regularly talk to (a) newish teachers like yourself – they can empathize with what you’re going through and (b) more experienced teachers you really admire – they act as mentors and as inspiration.

(6) And finally, most importantly, in general, happier people tend to stay longer and feel more satisfied in teaching. Teachers who are happy and satisfied also tend to teach better, research shows! So keep yourself happy! Again, it’s a never-ending job, you can always think of something else to do – an improvement on your lesson plan, more one-on-one sessions with struggling students, etc. Remind yourself that you’re doing the right thing not only for yourself but for your students by setting boundaries, doing out-of-school activities you love, and leaving work at work when you can.

An interesting and, I think, brave step taken by the faculty of a high school in Seattle. I expect this to happen more and more in coming years.

This incident also made me think about teacher tenure. Something I hadn’t considered before was how a strong sense of job security might empower educators to take a stand like this when they think it’s in the best interest of their students. 

“The factoid-filled textbooks that most young U.S. students are assigned for biology class make science seem like gibberish—an unending list of dry, meaningless names and relationships to be memorized. 

When my grandson and his classmates successfully complete that book and the class based on it, it is clear that they will know nothing of the kind of biology that inspires passion in the souls of the scientists working in the labs around me…How might we instead give schoolchildren the gift of experiencing the profound joys of science, or history, or literature?”

“Sometimes, it really hits me that most people don’t and wouldn’t work under the conditions so many teachers do.”

Good point. I often think about how physically uncomfortable teaching can be. I felt famished, exhausted, sweaty, chalky, germy, you name it by the end of each school day. I think we underestimate how draining that can be. 

“While no system is perfect, and the United States education system is certainly no exception to that rule, it is vastly superior to any other system in the world.”

Not a perspective you often read! 

My faith that journalists will get education policy stories right is pretty shaky. But I think this is a beautifully researched and written piece. Although it’s mostly a cautionary tale about the overuse of “bubble” tests, the author takes a pretty nuanced position. For example, she actually goes back and takes a historical look at standardized testing and some of the good things that have come out of it. For one, it’s the reason we really realized, as a society, that we were failing poor and minority kids. 

This is what careful, thorough education policy journalism looks like. I think about this stuff all the time, and I learned a ton from this article. 

“We talk about how the gender makeup of the teaching force impacts the profession’s willingness to stand up for itself. How this gender disproportion impacts all kinds of issues, from why teachers can’t get family insurance (the presumption there’s a husband whose job will provide it) to why Scott Walker stripped away teachers’ rights, rather than firefighters.’”

and

“Men are making the policy arguments and pronouncements, hosting the virtual communities and producing the media. Women are carrying out the policy orders, teaching kids to read using scripted programs and facing 36 students in their algebra classes. And when teachers are bold enough to mention this, they’re likely to be reminded that fixing public education is far more important than their “feelings” about being slighted—a depressingly familiar argument to women of a certain age who consider themselves feminists.”