The Long Career

"The long career is dead." So goes the feature "Generation Flux" in the February 2012 issue of Fast Company magazine.

Data on jobs do show that the average tenure of an employee in his/her current company averages 4.4 years, down markedly from thirty or forty years ago. There is much churn, especially among those in their late 20s and early 30s, with many in the latter age group staying at a job for only one to two years at best. Given the how the trends seem to be aligning, we might expect the 4.4 years to decrease a bit more.

One wonders what the data show for jobs in independent schools. There are plenty of schools, for example, where the average tenure is around 18 to 21 years, a remarkable average when you consider the 4.4 years cited in the aforementioned paragraph. Likewise, there are plenty of schools where the average tenure is much shorter, somewhere around 8 or 9 years. Even though we might question why a given school has an average of "only" 8 or 9 years, as opposed to almost 20, we ought to pause for a moment and consider that those "short-tenured" institutions still buck the trend, more or less doubling the average of 4.4 years.

In independent schools, the notion of "the long career" is something to be lauded, generally speaking, yet there are certain tensions that come with that moniker. Let's consider both.

First, some advantages:

• institutional memory benefits greatly from those educators who remain with a given school for a long time. Whether a long-time humanities teacher or the well-tenured middle school math teacher, the institution benefits from a coherent vision over the long haul, as opposed to a constantly-changing vision that comes from frequent turnover. Memory is a powerful driver in schools.
• mission benefits when an administrative team with several "long careers" looks to marry tradition with modernity, keeping the school's mission alive and healthy.
• program benefits from a cogent vision over the long term, whether in the form of a corpus of long career teachers in a specific division or in long career division leadership.

Second, some potential disadvantages:

• stagnation can occur in a long career teacher's/administrator's professional life, when that person become comfortable in the machinery of status quo. If the school's culture is supportive of status quo, the long career person will suffer.
• school culture, related to the bullet point above, can become inflexible when there are many long career individuals who promote the status quo above all else.
• program can suffer from inflexibility; in schools, we tend to see this manifested in teachers who continue to teach the exact same classes using the same materials in year 20 that they generated and used in years 1 and 2.

There are more examples, to be sure, in either the "advantages" column or "disadvantages" column. What I'd like to underscore is that both columns can appear identical (e.g., "program" above appears in both), because school is about balance. We want that long career person, but sometimes the long career person is someone who might hold the organization back from advancing in ways it needs to.

The other area in which 'the long career' makes good sense for us in independent schools is for heads of school: a head is someone with a 'long career,' even though his/her career has taken any number of twists and turns along the way. Yet, through it all, his/her focus has been on education and its inherent value.

Any other thoughts out there on 'the long career'?

Comments

[Troy P. Roddy, Ph.D.]

Kevin,

Nice thoughts. In addition, I sometimes wonder about the new teacher who works at an independent school for a year or two and leaves to try something new. In some cases the person may realize how much they liked teaching and return (probably at a different school). If they do return, those first few formative years in the classroom have been disrupted and need to start over.

Of course they may not return. In which case they were probably looking for a job with responsibilities or a place to spend their time (with pay) while figuring out what they really wanted to do. This is a dangerous hire for independent schools because this person's focus on fulfilling responsibilities (rather than serving a cause to teach) may make it difficult for them to make the personal connections and nurture an environment conducive to creating the distinct and inviting experiences independent schools strive to offer their students and families.