One of these days, I'm going to keep the same exact job for longer than two years. I should add this to my 40x40 list. (That's the list of the 40 things I'm aspiring to do before I turn 40. The one I started somewhere but didn't finish and can't find.)
I know I've mentioned this before, but I was so good at being a student. I loved it - the structure, the clear path to achievement and accolades, the stress, the challenge, the camaraderie, the schedule. Of course I kvetched about it along the way, but one glance at my perfectly-organized notebooks and excessively thorough reports and constant volunteering to do more, and it was immediately clear I was the consummate student. I milked the student gig from preschool through the PhD, and then suddenly I was 30 and that vast "real world" was there to greet me.
Perhaps I could be gentle with myself, for struggling to immediately succeed in the non-student role.
After all, I'm still only four years in. And those four years since the hooding ceremony (which was on Friday, December 14, 2012 - I know because it was the day of the Sandy Hook shooting) have been a trip. To briefly recap:
- 2013: Work at a research post-doc, miss direct clinical practice, decide to leave to work in the schools, get talked into staying, start going to therapy, Jonathan nearly dies of pancreatitis, be really grateful for staying at flexible and better-paying-than-the-schools job when you now have two kids in daycare plus mountains of medical bills and oh hey, it's time to start paying those student loans!
- 2014: Research post-doc gig is not going so great (working at a grant-funded agency is rough) and you still miss direct clinical practice, so in the summer you take the leap and start working at a group practice and working toward licensure
- 2015: That group practice though - all kinds of shady practices and you're working 60-hour weeks, never seeing your kids, and making pennies... so you pass the licensing exams and immediately start a practice with a friend, then you field threats of legal action from the former employer and therapy is really intense and you're giving psychotropic medication a go and you wind up hospitalized and trying to get on insurance panels is a beast and everything is overwhelming
- 2016: Working in private practice, and contracting work in the schools, these gigs are good. Running a business with a friend is hard. One day you're stuffing mailboxes for PTA and the principal asks if you'd like to be the school psychologist. At your kid's school. Where do I sign?
- 2017: The private practice is solo gig in a sweet little office downtown, the caseload is small and the work is meaningful. The school system is... well. It's unlike any school system you've seen before.
If you're counting employers, from January 1 2013 to today I've had five. Right now I have three, but I submitted a letter of resignation today so I'll be back to working for myself and one other agency. That I can handle.
Leaving the public schools, though? That's rough.
It feels like there's a dichotomy.
On one hand, you have people who work in the public schools, who are selfless and caring and kind and dedicated to social justice and equity.
On the other hand are the people who work in education not in the public schools who are chasing money and either only serving some elite subset of students/families or exploiting a parasitic system that is bleeding the public schools dry.
Maybe this dichotomy is real? Maybe I'm making it up?
If you've spent any time with me you might be aware of my tendency towards black-and-white thinking. It's a classic cognitive distortion, in my case one that sets the stage for a system meltdown and a good dose of self-flagellation. Because when I frame the decision to stay or go now as a decision between being a good person and being a sellout motivated only by money, well...
I've read this teacher of the year's announcement that he was leaving to teach in a state where educators are valued - and that value is tangible in the form of an adequate salary - at least twenty times, and I've made the following into a motivational mantra as I've agonized over leaving the public schools.
"We have to stop pushing this idea of teaching as mission work."
I was listening to Fresh Air the other day, and I can't remember who was being interviewed, but Terry Gross said something about "money can't buy happiness" and the guest laughed and said something like, "I think the people who like to say that are the people who have never known what it's like to not have money." She went on to talk about how of course money cannot actually buy happiness, but having a certain amount of money can create a sense of freedom and safety that's really difficult to distinguish from happiness. She talked about how she had to pay to park in the lot for her radio interview, and a few years ago she would have been quite anxious about whether NPR would validate her parking, or if not, she'd skip dinner. But she's in a financially different place and this time was hoping they'd validate but wasn't anxious about it at all. There was some space and freedom there.
It gets sticky when you bring money into it, though. Because we have cultural expectations (in our capitalist society) to not talk about salary, to judge people based on how we see them spend money, to deem those who sacrifice as morally superior (and at the same time, there's that whole prosperity gospel nonsense). So, again, a dichotomy. Am I a good person who will work a meaningful job even it means I can't afford the things I want - the things I think I worked hard for over the past 30 years - frivolous things, luxurious things, college tuition for my kids, not defaulting on six figures of student loan debt?
To complicate the matter even more, there's a whole heap of self-worth issues bubbling up. Not only because I care about being perceived as a a morally good person, but because I struggle to think I'm worth making money, worth having the stability of paying all the bills every month, worth providing more than the essentials to my kids. I have to go all Stuart Smalley on myself when I create my fee structure in private practice or (this one I try really hard to avoid at all costs) negotiate salary. To be honest, I usually fall back on the "six figures of student loan debt" line because it's a whole lot harder to think (or, god forbid, say) "I am highly trained and qualified and I produce excellent work. Give it to me, I'm worth it."
Oops, slipped into a Fifth Harmony break.
So yeah... I resigned. I'll still work in the schools, but I'll be in the wild west land of charters. I'll be doing the same thorough evaluations and reports I did in the traditional public schools. I'll be advocating hard for students and their families in systems sometimes designed to work against them. I'll be advocating for adequate funding for the public schools, advocating against vouchers, advocating for increased oversight of charters. I'll be doing this and making a salary that
I'll step away from the emotional asbestos. Hat tip to Neil on this one.
Alright. So I've worked in a school district that is hamstrung by a state legislature hellbent on destroying public education in North Carolina, but that is also uniquely peculiar in how it is run. Or, sometimes, not run.
For example, my Human Resources intake session, where there were open jokes about staff members frequently (?) caught selling illicit drugs to other staff members, and a sort of chuckled admonition to try not to sell drugs to your co-workers. Or students! *laugh track* They also forgot to bring my contract, which I was supposed to sign prior to starting work. Not to worry, because they'd just courier it to me and I could go ahead and work. I never got the contract.
Or the training led by some bigwigs where around noon they released us with instruction to "go back to our schools to finish the workday," with a clear message that we were by no means expected to work for the remainder of the day. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm all for some freebies every now and then in the work setting, but I've learned I don't work well in places where shirking seems to be so frequently or openly encouraged by such high-level "central office" types.
In comparing notes with friends in other districts, I did more evaluations and reports in the half-year I worked than most people do in a year. My family could attest to this, as I was often up until 2 or 3 AM finishing reports, and "not now, Mommy is working," was one of my most frequently-used phrases. For this, I never once received positive feedback from my supervisor. I did, however, get admonished for setting off the alarm when I came in to work on a weekend, and for a "high referral rate."
In comparing notes with friends in other districts, I did more evaluations and reports in the half-year I worked than most people do in a year. My family could attest to this, as I was often up until 2 or 3 AM finishing reports, and "not now, Mommy is working," was one of my most frequently-used phrases. For this, I never once received positive feedback from my supervisor. I did, however, get admonished for setting off the alarm when I came in to work on a weekend, and for a "high referral rate."
At one of my schools, a bunch of us shared a large office and we wondered what was up with the constantly bubbling and flaking... substance... all around the room. After weeks of requests, maintenance came out to take a look and said, "yeah, that looks like asbestos," and then left. I sent the supervisor a note just to say, you know, "Hey boss, the office I'm required to use appears to be covered in asbestos," and he replied, "I'm sorry to hear that." A few weeks later, a critical system was down at an especially inopportune time so I emailed a bigwig to see whether something might be done to fix it, and I got a response of, "I wasn't aware the system was down." That's it. No actual help.
After that, Neil summarized this most recent employment experience as emotional asbestos. And that's where I'm leaving it for now.
I met and had the true privilege of working alongside some absolutely phenomenal teachers, administrators, and educators of all sorts. I worked hard. Maybe one day I'll look back on it and I'll see clearly that I did make a greedy, selfish decision in deciding to leave. Or maybe I'll be proud of myself for saying I'm worth more than working grueling hours in asbestos flakes for a pittance and little reinforcement?
The jury's out on this one, but I'm going to keep doing what I do for students and their families, and doing it well.
I met and had the true privilege of working alongside some absolutely phenomenal teachers, administrators, and educators of all sorts. I worked hard. Maybe one day I'll look back on it and I'll see clearly that I did make a greedy, selfish decision in deciding to leave. Or maybe I'll be proud of myself for saying I'm worth more than working grueling hours in asbestos flakes for a pittance and little reinforcement?
The jury's out on this one, but I'm going to keep doing what I do for students and their families, and doing it well.
Comments