Search Institute

I had the privilege of visiting my alma mater, St. Olaf College yesterday to meet with a group of college juniors who are preparing for their student teaching next fall.

We met to talk about some of the thinking they can do before they even start their careers in order to best position their own boundaries and expectations around teaching and a joyful, meaningful life.

Sitting in the room, I couldn’t help but be saddened by the notion that half of these bright young people might very well be in and out of the profession within the next five years. To that end, we talked about how it is they were going to seek sustainability in their own professional lives.

One of the key questions of the day came from a young woman who asked, “I’ve been told that the first three years or so are going to be really bad and THEN things will get better. That seems like a long time. Is that true?”

I think all teachers were told something like this at the beginning of their careers. I agree that there’s some truth to that. But mostly I question it.

In my book, I share the following thoughts:

Most new teachers are told not to judge the profession for a period of time – usually a minimum of three years. New teachers are told to “hang in there” for multiple years until they are able to at long last enjoy their work. But three years is a long time! It’s a dismal prospect to enter a career in which you are immediately discouraged from enjoying your work for months and months until you finally crack the code.

This whole line of thinking is even more upsetting if you’ve been teaching for longer than three years and still don’t feel satisfied. How long are you willing to wait for professional happiness? At the risk of asking a strange question, wouldn’t you be happier now if you were happier NOW?”

While I shared with the class that the first years of teaching are indeed full of personal learning and development, that doesn’t mean that they can’t love teaching from the first second they enter the classroom. If we’re HUMBLE enough to know we don’t know everything, CONFIDENT enough to be ourselves, and STRONG enough to ask for help, there’s no reason to think that ALL of our years of teaching can’t be rich, challenging, and wonderful years.

So thank you to St. Olaf for having me, and good luck to all of the college students getting ready for their student teaching. Welcome to the profession. It’s great to have you!