After some years of teaching in the classroom, you have made a big decision in your career: you are going back to school for your graduate degree! You are likely to do this for many reasons.
You may see how you can contribute to others and not just in your classroom. Maybe someone has encouraged you to move up to another level of (assistant principal, instructional coach, etc.) because of the leadership or talent you displayed. You may want to give yourself future options. Or perhaps you love school so much you want more.
Odds are, when you have made this decision, there is some “life” going on in your part of the world. You are likely married, and you have a child or children of your own. It is just as likely that you have established yourself as a strong teacher, and there are hours of work you put in to make your students successful. Thus, adding graduate work to your life will require finding the time to do the work necessary to get that second degree or certification.
Begin With the End in Mind
As you start your graduate journey, this author should assume (without making a donkey of himself) that you have a purpose in this journey. Maybe your goal is to be a principal, or maybe your goal is to stay in a curriculum strand and be an instructional coach or curriculum director, but either way, this will dictate what graduate degree you will be working toward. Some go for a master’s in education, educational leadership, curriculum, etc. If you are making this big decision, have in mind what your end goal will look like.
Who Can Help You Get Answers
Throughout your graduate work, assignments will require you to work with your principal or a trusted administrator (especially if you are interested in administration). You will need to consider who you will ask to be your “mentor” or supervising administrator. This person will likely need to have been in their role for two or three years, pending what the qualifications are for your program.
If you are looking at the curriculum route, is there a Chief Academic Officer or individual like that in your district who you can go to for the assignments you will have? When I was working on my superintendent certification, there was only one person in my district who qualified to be the supervising administrator. Had something else changed, I would have gone outside the district. Have this bench built in your head.
Support System
In addition to the “academic support system” discussed above, you may need an at home support system to help you complete the graduate work. For example, will there be a babysitter that comes to keep your children busy while you work for two or three hours on your coursework?
Will your spouse be willing to take the kids for most or half of a Saturday while you work at home? In your head or in your family, what does your support system look like that will help you do what you have to do to achieve the goal of that graduate degree?
Money
Another consideration for your graduate degree is how you will be paying for your next degree or certification. Have you saved for this for a long time? Is this easily doable with your salary and your spouse’s salary? Is your income low enough that you might qualify for a grant? Do you need to take out a loan? Does the college where you are going or working online have special assistance or grants for educators?
Most of the time, educators are paying most if not all of the graduate bill for their next degree out of pocket. Part of the reason this needs to be considered is that the next job you get with your degree, that raise may be needed to pay off that loan or credit card that paid for your next degree. Thus, make sure you have a plan for paying for your degree or the steps for after you get your degree. The last thing you want is to pay for two years (or three) of work and then to be strapped with that debt with no plan to take care of that obligation,
When Will You Work
This section could easily be a subsection to your support system.
- Will you be staying after school to get your coursework done?
- Will there be a night each week when you sit down and do all the work?
- Will there be time on the weekends between your kid’s soccer games for you to get to work?
- Will you stay up later after the kids are in bed because you were a night owl in college anyway?
Granted each week and month will look different, but you need to have a plan (even if it is in pencil) for when the graduate work will take place. In my experience, graduate work is mostly just that, work that needs time to get done. Your usual battle with this is volume and not so much rigor. You will find that many of the things you are doing on your campus already (professional learning communities, department chair, mentoring other teachers, etc.) will fit into many of the assignments and reflections that will be completed in conjunction with your coursework.
Since you have already started a successful teaching career, your choosing to pursue a graduate degree after you have been teaching indicates you have the academic acumen to be successful. Your biggest battle is now more about the infrastructure to achieve your goals. Successful teachers become successful graduate students.
Educators never stop learning; check out our available graduate degree programs to hone your skills and promote lifelong learning and academic excellence.
