Redemption in Teaching

I read with great pleasure an article in the Hartford Courant which detailed the efforts of a number of displaced workers who have navigated their careers towards teaching in the midst of layoffs from science and technology companies. Many of these folks are people who used to work at my present employer before the restructuring of our research and development organization.

It's great to hear how the obvious trauma and discouragement in lost jobs can be addressed in win-win programs such as Connecticut's "Alternate Route to Certification" summer program, which takes laid off professionals and gives them a fast-track to certification to teach in public schools. People need jobs, and my understanding is that there's a paucity of teachers in certain fields. Having a wife and many friends who are educators, I have the utmost respect and admiration for those who devote themselves to sharing their knowledge and skills with the next generation.

I've always considered a 2nd career in the latter years of my career, never assuming for sure that I'll be running the rat-race in large company until retirement. My wife has suggested that teaching is something that might be a good fit - I've always enjoyed teaching Sunday School and other opportunities to teach, including Junior Achievement and "Take Your Children to Work" programs - and it's something that I might consider doing as an adjunct someday in a college. But another entrepreneurial side of me would also consider ministry management and leadership, where I can devote myself full time to either church or missions work. Or maybe even counseling, given my affinity to pastoral care. We'll see - it's likely I have some ways to go before that time.

I'm not surprised that more than being glad that their getting a paycheck, a number of people enrolled in the program are truly enjoying themselves and their new career path. Consider this from a scientist from a major pharmaceutical company who had accepted early retirement to enroll in the certification program:

"I'm having a blast doing this. It's new, it's fresh. It changes every day. … Boy, it's sort of endless here. Anywhere from going back and reviewing chemistry I haven't seen in more than 30 years, to classroom management."

I'm only half-joking when I hypothesize that trying to manage the politics of giant-sized egos in a changing business environment probably is a proxy of classroom management. I've sat in more than one meeting where I've seen colleagues act childishly, including one where a colleague waved his arms around angrily and insisted that adherence compliance processes be exempted from his bonus paycheck or else he was going to have his team to purposely abstain from certain work responsibilities. Could telling Sally to stop passing notes during class be more challenging than dealing with things like that?

I also found it interesting that the program participant will be reviewing chemistry he hasn't "seen in more than 30 years". Given that this gentleman worked at a major pharmaceutical company presumably doing, uh... chemistry, should we be doing a better job in ensuring that school curriculum is relevant to the skills that are demanded in the current job market? More on this on the upcoming post.