Let’s rethink the message we send to potential educators

I had no plans to become a teacher. Sure, I liked kids, I had been a camp counselor, and I always knew I would do something to serve the public good. But even though I would often look at my own teachers and think, “I could do that better,” actually becoming one wasn’t on my radar. But I was inspired by the Jewish principle of tikkun olam, literally “to repair the world,” often understood as an imperative to pursue social justice. After leaving college, I realized that education is at the foundation of all other professions and the cornerstone of democracy, so what better path could there be than education? And heck, kids are fun!

When I began my journey, Teach For America had just launched, promising to save impoverished and vulnerable kids through two years of exposure to elite, Ivy League students whose passion would lift them up through mere osmosis. While it caught my eye as a potential path simply because I wouldn’t have to get a degree in teaching, I had graduated from a state school with a double major in English and history and didn’t think I was the kind of person TFA’s founder, Wendy Kopp, was looking for.

I also knew in my gut that while I wanted to start as a teacher and experience the classroom, it would be the first step on my education journey, not the last. And it has pretty much turned out that way. I began as a classroom teacher with aspirations to become a high school principal and then maybe a superintendent, and I ended up in a central office working for an amazing mentor who gave me opportunities to learn and grow. That led to two superintendencies and now the leadership of a national organization that I’ve long admired and where I’m able to influence public education in new ways.