TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/021389/02138900.005

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 5KB | 95 lines

EDUCATION, Page 69

The Lure of the Classroom

Many professionals turn to teaching in midcareer


    Teachers usually consider their work a lifetime profession,
like doctors or clergy, and look askance at colleagues who "defect"
to more lucrative or less demanding jobs. But the traffic is not
just one way. A growing number of professionals are turning to
teaching in midcareer, taking pay cuts and accepting sacrifices in
order to pursue their late-found vocation. Says John Kean, chairman
of the department of curriculum and instruction at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison: "They are coming into education in droves."

    The boom is being fueled by fatter teacher salaries and efforts
by many states to speed up the certification process. As recently
as 1983, only eight states allowed full-time staff teachers to be
hired without an undergraduate degree in education or previous
classroom experience. In the 1987-88 school year, some 2,500
teachers in 24 states were trained through alternative
certification programs.

    Some states run such courses themselves, while others encourage
colleges and universities to tailor them to the needs of career
changers, who often cannot afford to forfeit full-time income. At
the California State University at Dominguez Hills, one-half of the
students at the Graduate School of Education are job switchers. One
reason: the program provides salaried internships.

    Proponents of this trend say career changers are often more
motivated and more effective than teachers who took the
conventional path to the blackboard. "These are a different type
of teacher," says Dianne Worthy, South Carolina's supervisor of
teacher education. "They bring more life experience with them."

    Many of them, in fact, make considerable sacrifices to move
into the classroom. When Tom Carlyle decided to become a teacher,
he quit his job as a manager in a Manhattan publishing firm and
invested $10,000 in a one-year program for career changers at
Harvard's School of Education. Since 1986, he has been teaching
high school math in the New York City public schools. His $30,000
salary is $5,000 less than he made in the private sector -- but
$9,000 more than he would have made teaching math five years ago.
Carlyle, 39, has no regrets. "Getting these kids through high
school is much more satisfying than working behind a desk," he
says. That kind of gratification translates into high job-retention
rates. In the past school year, only 4% of midcareer teachers in
New Jersey left the classroom after one year on the job, compared
with almost 16% of teachers with traditional training.

    A few of the new recruits end up teaching college courses, the
most prestigious positions in the educational system, but most
enter at the elementary or high school level. For some, the long
hours, the strains of work and the drop in pay and prestige can be
sobering. "If you tell somebody you are a chemical engineer for
Exxon, that's great," says Nancy Pfeil, 29, who left such a job in
1985 to teach high school calculus. "But if you say you are a high
school teacher, they just say, `Oh.'"

    Conventionally trained teachers do not always give their
midcareer counterparts a warm welcome. In some states, teachers'
unions have opposed laws aimed at attracting job switchers, arguing
that teaching is a skill that even the most talented professional
must learn before entering a classroom. "Many believe if you want
to be a classroom teacher, you should go through the same training
that they did," says Karen Joseph of the New Jersey Education
Association.

    Midcareerists point out, however, that many traditional
programs are rigid, requiring even seasoned professionals with
doctorates to take two years of undergraduate education courses.
In Los Angeles, Jeff Newman, 37, was at first not permitted to
teach junior high school drama, even though he is a former actor
and published playwright. Behind that bit of illogic was a state
requirement that all drama teachers must have an undergraduate
degree in English or pass the National Teacher Examination. Newman,
who majored in theater arts, finally had to take the exam.

    Nor are midcareer teachers immune to the stresses that cause
many of their traditionally trained colleagues to burn out on the
job. In the fall of 1983, Air Force Major Robert R. Tindall was
commanding a lead plane in the U.S. invasion of Grenada. When he
retired three years later, he began teaching basic math at
Florida's Fort Walton Beach High School. Tindall is still not sure
which job was harder. "There were times when I thought, `My God,
it would be easier to fight a war,'" he says. Last summer Tindall
abandoned his school work to accept another job offer. "I was
nickeled and dimed to death with administrative duties," he says.

    For most late-blooming teachers, though, answering the call of
the classroom has brought fulfillment. "Today you can put
everything into a company and still get pink-slipped," says Ken
Bryant, a former assessor and land manager who is now
student-teaching in a suburban Chicago elementary school. "No
machine can ever take the place of a teacher." That may be so. But
most midcareer teachers are also reaping the deeper rewards that
come of doing a demanding job well.