Tag Archives: career

Odd Duck

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I have the unusual honour to run two schools, both of them quite unique. I’ve had that privilege for a dozen years now. While my title has changed, I’m the only principal in the district that has stayed in one location for this long. Partly because I haven’t wanted to move, partly because there aren’t many other principals raising their hands to say they want to run two schools, one of which has a program in every high school.

I’ve been an executive member of the BC online principal’s association since 2014, and in that community we recognize that we have far more in common with each other than we have with principals in our own districts. We literally do things completely different than our regular ‘brick and mortar’ (as opposed to online) colleagues. We have different rules and compliance, and we accept students to start new courses throughout the year, with every student on their own timelines.

My other school, Inquiry Hub, is a ‘regular school’ but it is tiny. We still have people in our district, 12 years in, that think we are an alternate school. We are not. And then we run the school like a speciality program, but we are a school, not a program. It’s a unique and odd duck of a school that works with self-directed students, with all the interesting passions and quirks they bring.

Now as I look ahead to retirement, I have the unusual task of thinking about succession. I only know one principal who would be interested in my position and she’s probably going to retire within a year of me, so she’s not a great candidate, (although she’d do an amazing job). Since I don’t know anyone else who would actively be shopping for a move into my position, and even if I did, I couldn’t guarantee that district leadership would agree with me, I’ve got to make sure that whoever comes in can easily get all their ducks in a row.

Part of this will be done for me because I’ve got two great teams of educators, and awesome secretaries, who care about the direction and success of the schools. However, this year I really need to do my part in ensuring the unique aspects of the two jobs have a scope and sequence that is tracked, and all the nuances of running these two schools are shared with the new principal.

It’s not easy to replace an odd duck… the new odd duck might be completely different. But hopefully I can make the transition as smooth as possible so that the incoming principal can enter the role quickly. I’d like to give them the tools and resources to take over with minimal disruption, and also with opportunities to put their leadership skills to work, rather than just managing things while on a massive learning curve.

I hope this new principal will fall in love with the role as much as I did. The challenging thing is that I also hope it’s their last career move, because I think it’s really hard to move back to the ‘regular’ system after being an odd duck.

25 years

I almost missed it. Even though it was in my calendar, I let it slip my mind and fortunately a friend called to see if I was there already. It was the district celebration of 25 years of service, and as soon as I got my friend’s call I left work and arrived at the event during the welcoming speeches.

I sat at a table with 4 other educators whom I started my teaching career with. We were 15 or 16 brand new teachers all teaching on a staff of 28 teachers. I have a post in my drafts titled “How lucky was I”, which will (when I finally finish writing it) share how awesome an experience it was starting at such a dynamic environment with so many of us being new at the same time. It was such a rich and rewarding time.

And here I am 25 years later. It’s hard to believe so much time has passed. It’s weird that the next big transition both in work and life will be retirement, and that this is something I actually discuss with my wife and friends. While it’s still a few years away at the earliest, it’s a big enough change that it becomes topical.

Besides my commitment to family and friends, there is nothing else that I’ve done for 25+ years. Looking back, I have to say that I’m really happy with my choice to go into education. My closest friends are people I’ve taught with, learned with, and learned from. They are a big part of the life I’ve built as I also built my career.

I tip my hat to the colleagues and students that I’ve crossed paths with in my 25 year journey as an educator. It has been an awesome ride… and it’s not over yet!

If I could turn back time

My oldest daughter leaves for France this morning. She’s going to teach English for 8 months in two very small neighbouring towns on the west coast of Bordeaux. I’m so excited for her, especially since she was supposed to spend a semester abroad in her third year of university and that was cancelled due to the pandemic. She is finally getting the trip she was hoping for 2 years after planning to go. It will be a wonderful adventure for her.

When I did my first university degree, it was in International Development and I told myself, “I’m not going to consider this degree complete until I travel to a developing nation and experience what I’m studying.” That didn’t happen. I ended up spending two years working as a lifeguard, and coaching and playing water polo 6 or 7 days a week, then I moved from Toronto to Vancouver. I didn’t end up doing any major travel until about 18 years after graduation, when I went to live in China.

I live a pretty content life with very little I regret, but if I could turn back time and do one thing differently, I would have travelled more when I was younger. If I could give advice to a younger me, that’s the big thing I’d share… (well, that and buy Apple stocks😀).

I see some high school students excited to head to university and they know exactly what they want to do. To them I think, ‘go for it, good for you!’ But I also see kids that just don’t know what they want to do. For them I think, ‘take a year off!’ Still apply for university if you want, then differ for a year. In both cases, travel and see a bit of the world before settling down in a job.

I didn’t become a teacher until I was 30. I have told both of my kids, “If you finish your degree, travel for 2 years, work for a year, do a whole other degree, and then do a year’s work at something you really wanted to try before finally starting a career… you’d still be ahead of my timeline.” When I’m done my career, I will still have had close to 30 years as an educator. I tell my kids there is time for a career after you try doing a few things you really want to do. And who knows, maybe the adventures you go on lead to a career you truly love.

I’m lucky to have a family and a career that bring me joy, and I know that if I had travelled more, I might never have met my wife and had my two wonderful kids. So I still actually don’t regret the choices I’ve made. But looking back at my younger self, I’d say ‘travel more’ would be the advice I’d give if I could whisper to myself half a lifetime ago.

learn-by-gerait-on-pixabay

Learning on the job, for the job

I’ve been a fan of Tim O’Reilly ever since I heard his “Create More Value than You Capture” talk he gave at Stanford:

When a colleague suggested his new book, WTF? What’s the Future and Why it’s Up to Us, I knew I had to get it on Audible.

This quote from the book really got me thinking:

“A lot of companies complain that they can’t hire enough people with the
skills they need. This is lazy thinking. Graham Weston, the cofounder and
chairman of managed hosting and cloud computing company Rackspace, based
in San Antonio, Texas, proudly showed me Open Cloud Academy, the
vocational school his company founded to create the workforce he needs to hire.
He told me that Rackspace hires about half of the graduates; the rest go to work
in other Internet businesses.” ~ Tim O’Reilly, WTF – What the Future

This goes well with two other quotes:

The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay. ~ Henry Ford

And,

Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to. ~ Sir Richard Branson

When I think of Tim O’Reilly’s book and his catch phrase, “Create more value than you capture”, one of the ideas here is that there is social capital that you can capture by creating a workforce that is going to help you, not just because of the money, but because they want to. Yes, good and well trained people will leave your company, but is that because of the training you provided, or the lack of support or encouragement that came during or after that training? While some occupations will keep employees for decades, many employees will work for several companies in the careers, and some of those will be competitors. Creating a positive work environment, and training staff, are essential for success. Social capital will be essential for success in the future of most organizations.

Also related:

Work is going to get much more specific and instead of job descriptions like, “A bachelor’s degree and 5 years of experience in the field,” what we will see are descriptions like, “Familiar with at least 2 coding languages and willing to learn on the job.” Or perhaps, “Portfolio evidence of a growth mindset.” Both of these suggest the person is a learner, and willing to learn on the job, with the first example having a specific skill added (in this case coding), and the second one asking for evidence of learning, rather than certification or accomplishments. That isn’t to say that certifications won’t be important, in fact certifications will become more important than degrees.

My nephew has a great job with a startup in Silicon Valley. He didn’t get the job because of his 4 year college degree, he got it because of the 18-month comprehensive training certification in the field of programming and artificial intelligence. Even then, his learning curve on the job was huge. He is and will continue to be successful because he is interested in learning and he wants to learn. He is working in a job where the expectations are high, but it is a rewarding and positive environment.

There will always be a place for university degrees and technical colleges. There will always be a need for doctors, lawyers and teachers, as well as plumbers, electricians, and carpenters. Technology will remove some of these jobs, or some aspects of these jobs, but they aren’t ever fully going away. Neither will the degrees and technical training needed. But this won’t be what most work and educational pathways to work will look like in the future. For most employees in corporations and stores, both large and small, the nature of work is changing. The idea that there will be manufacturing and office jobs that don’t involve learning and training and re-training is disappearing. Employees of the future will need to be learners. They will be learning on the job, for the job, or they will be looking for a job.