How To Become a Successful Teacher (Part 2 of 4 on Reflections for a High School Guidance Class) A successful teacher can be measured in many ways. From time to time, a few select teachers are singled out as shining examples of success, most often for things like their ability to inspire kids or their unbridled dedication to their work. Those people, and many others, are in fact successful teachers. But there are other ways to measure success as well. The measure of my own success as a teacher includes traits as above, but I am most proud and content that I have been able to envision and actualize my own, distinctive path to a teaching career. A good and ongoing education has paved the way. I started with a degree, credential, and experience in elementary education. I sampled middle school and high school education as a public and private school teacher and as a substitute teacher. I sampled a wide array of special education settings as a long-term sub, and I worked in exclusive private independent schools and a couple wild, residential ranch schools for seriously emotionally disturbed adolescents. I got a Masters degree in Special Education and did continuing graduate work in educational administration, cross-cultural learning, and bilingual assessment. I worked in a private clinic and school where I evaluated students learning difficulties; there I helped to open a new urban learning clinic/school and designed and built a playground for our students. To supplement the low income of a teacher, I began a private tutoring practice that eventually grew to become a profitable corporation employing several psychologists and educators, and I became something of a businessman as I operated that agency, eventually selling it for ongoing income. After that, I started over, building a new private practice on Kaua`i. It has been an immensely satisfying journey. At some point in my early teaching years, I got discouraged by the low salary. My initial supplementary tutoring helped, but I knew it would never lead me to home ownership or the kind of stability I envisioned for my future. I thought perhaps I needed a change of career, or at least some new insight and perhaps luck regarding investments. I asked a good friend for advice: he operated a successful independent training center for city governments, and I thought he might point me to a path to greater financial satisfaction. I was sure it must have something to do with stocks or bonds or some other mysterious knowledge that allowed certain people to get ahead. Instead, he pointed me to a book, now out-of-print and not necessarily worth reading in its entirety. However, its driving point was that the way to get ahead financially is simply to get very, very good at whatever it is you love to do. Be very, very good at whatever it is you love to do. That sounded too simplistic to me, but to make a long story short, it turned out to be true for me. I renewed my commitment to teaching, and by building an independent education career, I eventually (on the Mainland) was able to earn many times what I ever dreamed I could earn as a traditional classroom teacher. My tutoring rate grew from four dollars an hour to three figures an hour. That certainly solved some of my financial concerns, and it helped me get to Kaua`i, but it is not the measure of my success. The measure of my success is that I built a satisfying career by getting very good at the things I love to do.
Posted on: Wed, 09 Jul 2014 02:44:25 +0000
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