A New Old Direction

Well as another school year comes to an end I am preparing for a shift in my career direction again. I have resigned from my administration position and I am heading back to where I started, the classroom teaching social studies. I decided earlier this year that after years of university education gaining my Bachelor of Education and Master of Educational Technology degrees that I had strayed too far from the education side of schooling and too close to the management side. It has been a tough year in many respects as I struggled with the decision to quit, I am sure Marla would share with you how annoying I was as I worked through everything in my mind. While I am very excited, happy and proud of my decision it did not come easy. In a society that values promotion and views success as how much money a person makes it is easy to let your ego drive decisions. However, the more I examined the reasons that I went into education in the first place the more I realized I had moved farther and farther from those reasons over the last two years. Clarity was really brought to the situation when my son asked me one night at dinner as we talked about our day "How many kids did you suspend today dad?" I thought back to the days when I was teaching and he used to hang out with me in my classroom on the weekends as I was prepping for lessons and decided I liked the idea of my children knowing me as a teacher better than as an administrator. Besides, as I told Marla, it is hard to reconcile an ideology of "screw the man and his stupid rules" with actually being "the man". I am looking forward to next year as I have decided to remain at PGSS and will have an opportunity to get back to what I love, teaching social studies. Who knows what the future will bring but for know I can rest easy in the knowledge that I got in on my own terms and I am going out on my own terms.