Eventually, every educator leaves school. Some retire. Some move to another professional opportunity. Some leave the profession. The longer an educator’s tenure in a school, the more likely the outcome of being the last of your original peer group. What does a veteran educator do when all in her peer group have left the school?
A teacher’s first year in the classroom can be traumatic. Regardless of prior work experiences or the richness of student teaching, the first weeks of a first teaching assignment in an “I don’t know anyone” new school can create extreme anxiety and tension. On the outside a rookie teacher may look well-put-together, but underneath the skin lies a tempest of frazzled nerves. Will my students like me? Will they do what I ask them to do? Can I gain and maintain reasonable classroom controls? Is my lesson plan good enough to cause them to learn? What will I do if the answer to all these questions is “No!!!”?
Classroom teaching is unbelievably personal. A teacher stands alone before wide-eyed children, some wild-eyed, and begins the teaching and learning dance of instruction. Most first-year teachers have tunnel vision. All they see, hear, and feel is their aloneness. It takes a bit of time for a rookie to look up from these very personal daily challenges and realize there are other rookie teachers in the school. Not many, but there are other first year teachers “enjoying” the same first-year challenges. And, there are last year’s rookies who survived and are in their classrooms for a second year. This group becomes a natural peer group for a first-year teacher. No matter where they come from, their gender, race, or background – first-year teachers who find each other are bonded in friendship and kindred spirit forever. The word “kindred” fits this bonding exceptionally well.
Kindred first-year teachers resemble young mothers who find other young mothers in their neighborhood and become kindred in the raising of children. Or younger couples who find other young couples in their community and become kindred in friendship and support of each other.
Within a school faculty it is easy to identify kindred groups. The rookie class of 2001 and the rookie class of 2011 still seek each other during the school day and sit together in meetings. They lunch together and attend professional conferences together. When asked for professional opinions, they look to each other first. They are their own reference point even after ten and twenty years in the school.
Becoming a veteran teacher in a school carries gravitas. Younger teachers take professional leads from veteran teachers. Principals rely upon the leadership and insight of teachers with greater and wider experiences. As a kindred group becomes more veteran, they may hold more sway in a school faculty. “Sway” is an interesting concept. By their nature, teachers seldom tell other teachers what to do, but they do influence each other. Sway is an informal influencing.
As time passes, however, life paths that were converged at school years before start to diverge. Some of the kindred group leave a school for life in another community. Some leave teaching. Some retire.
A time comes when a veteran teacher looks around as she did in her first year for her kindred group and finds she is the last of her group in the school. Her “group”, her “dream team”, her peers are no longer present. What does she do now?
To paraphrase Tim Robbins in Stephen King’s Shawshank Redemption, “…get busy staying or get busy moving on…”. These things are true for you in your school home.
- A quality teacher never knows more about teaching than on her last day in the classroom. Your talents are needed and wanted. You are the aggregate of your professional training and experience, and you bring tremendous value to your school and colleagues. Get busy adapting and stay.
- If you are not ready to retire or move on, don’t. Retire or move on for the right reasons not a single, wrong reason. Get busy adapting and stay.
- Senior teachers make bona fide connections with younger teachers all the time. Younger teachers will not replace the camaraderie of a kindred, first-year peer group, but they still are bona fide as strong, professional, and personal friendships. Younger teachers need you. Get busy adapting and stay.
- There are other roles for you in your school besides the classroom. Your talents may produce strong results in an interventionist, specialist, or director role. Get busy adapting and stay.
- School cultures evolve. The culture that you and your kindred group experienced as younger teachers is not a forever culture. If the culture has changed so much that you no longer find your professional home in your school, get busy moving on.
- Perception is reality. If your perception is that professional life without your kindred group is no longer tenable, get busy moving on.
Teaching is a highly productive profession. A teacher causes children to learn. Sometimes the engine of a teacher’s productivity comes from her engagement with a kindred group. When a teacher finds herself as the last of her group in her school, it is a decision time. Get busy adapting and contributing to your school or get busy moving on.