I was a teacher before I went into administration, and there are many things that I’ve learned since making this career change.
Administration
I Was A Teacher, I'm Now An Administrator (What I Learned)
I was a teacher before I went into administration, and there are many things that I’ve learned since making this career change.
I’ve become much better with time management, and I interact with parents and colleagues differently than I used to. Not only that, but I’ve also become much more aware of how to use technology to make my job easier.
Education resources
I come to work more prepared
To succeed as an administrator, you need to ensure you’re ready for many situations that could arise on the job. Here are a few ways that I get ready for my work day:
- I always eat breakfast, especially since I don’t always have time for a lunch break.
- I use my phone’s calendar extensively to remember upcoming tasks.
- I get emails I need to send in the morning, ready the night before.
I’m much more aware of the challenges in every job
As a teacher, I didn’t know much about what a workday was like in the cafeteria, as a janitor, or in a secretary’s office. However, I need to know what everyone’s responsibilities are now that I’m an administrator. As a result, I’m much more understanding of the struggles of employees, such as these:
- Schedule changes can make things quite hectic in some positions, such as for cafeteria workers.
- Secretaries are often exceptionally busy when there are changes to the school’s event schedule.
- Janitorial workers often have more extensive duties after sporting events that draw a large crowds.
I interact with people differently
As a teacher, I sometimes sent work-related messages to co-workers late at night, which I no longer do. I’m very aware that work-life balance is extremely important to most people, which means that it’s important for me to avoid messaging employees outside of normal work hours.
Also, it has become easier for me to understand parents’ points of view. As a teacher, I mostly only interacted with students during class times and parents during parent-teacher meetings. However, being an administrator has led to me interacting with parents much more often, which has given me insight into the lives of students and their families.
Due to laws on confidentiality, I can’t share most of what I learn from parents with teachers or colleagues. These are a few aspects of the lives of families and students that I have been made aware of since I became an administrator:
- I’m more aware that many students have challenging struggles of their own.
- I understand even more that students have a wide range of family situations.
- I’m more aware of the financial hardship some students and their families face.
Being an administrator is a challenging job
As a teacher, I didn’t fully understand what administrators do, and it’s harder than I expected it to be in many ways. The workday doesn’t always end after I go home, which can also be true for teachers. However, the workload I’ll have after I go home is much less predictable now.
Another difficult aspect of my job is that I have to make many daily decisions, which can get overwhelming. While I worked as a teacher, one aspect of being an administrator that I looked forward to the most was the ability to make major decisions related to the school’s management. However, I sometimes don’t have very strong opinions about these questions after I leave work.
Also, I found that I face many more uncomfortable situations on the job than when I was a teacher, which has forced me to become accustomed to dealing with these situations. Also, one reality of working in administration is that you won’t always make the right decisions, which has forced me to learn from my mistakes and not let my regrets get the better. As time goes on, I will continue to learn new things from my career as a school administrator and change.
