Looking back on her transition from corporate America to the world of education, Renee Clark wishes she had made the change earlier–but not too much earlier.
“If I had started teaching in my 20s, I couldn’t have offered the kids my life experience,” said Clark, 41. But now she can weave real-world examples into her 6th-grade lessons at San Miguel School in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood.
Clark is not alone. Although national educational organizations and the Illinois State Board of Education don’t tally the number of second-career teachers, Chicago-area colleges that equip people to make the transition report increases in their programs.
Some second-career teachers, such as Clark, earn master’s degrees in education and teaching certificates. She is working on her master’s degree in education from Dominican University, River Forest, to supplement the bachelor’s degree she received years ago.Others enroll in fast-track, alternative certification programs (known as “alt-cert” in education circles) that allow them to earnteaching certificates while teaching, without another degree–an option that has been available in Illinois since 1997.
Obtaining a master’s degree is the more popular route, said Cindy Yang, vice president of the Associated Colleges of Illinois, a consortium of 24 private colleges. Half of the group’s colleges offer master’s degrees in education, alt-cert programs or both.
Compared with their younger colleagues, the second-career teachers are “committed, realistic about what they’re getting into and have high expectations of themselves,” Yang said.
More than half of the master’s degree in education students at Dominican University are career-changers, said Sister Colleen McNicholas, dean of the School of Education. They have included lawyers, salespeople, managers, nurses, government workers, paramedics and a forensic scientist, she said.
“It has increased every year since it started in 1992, but we really had an influx after 9/11,” McNicholas said. “Then, they said, Life is short–I want a career that’s more self-fulfilling.”
In Clark’s case, she left a telecommunications job that she said “paid well but left me feeling empty.”
To test the waters, she had taken a leave of absence from her management post in summer 2002 and volunteered at San Miguel. “In the fall, I went back to work and sat in a meeting doodling the kids’ names,” she recalled. “All I could think about was the kids. I quit my job and asked San Miguel if they would hire me.”
Chicago resident Felicia Shakespeare, too, decided to switch to teaching after a career in the business world. She is among the dozens of teachers who have joined the Aurora school districts after supplementing their bachelor’s degrees with master’s in education from Aurora University. A former saleswoman, Shakespeare now teaches at Hermes Elementary School in Aurora.
The `alt-cert’ option
The other route for second-career teachers is to enroll in the alt-cert programs, most of which focus on filling high-need areas (such as high school science and mathematics or special education) or in placing teachers in high-need districts.
Illinois is one of 24 states that offered alt-cert programs in 2003, according to the National Center for Education Information in Washington. As more colleges and universities offer these programs, the number of graduates climbs. In 2002-03, 491 Illinois teachers obtained teaching certificates after completing such programs, up from 24 in 1998-99.
Kiernan Mack, 46, enrolled in Benedictine University’s Alternative Certification Program in Mathematics and Science after previous careers in chemical sales and missionary training. He spent last summer at Benedictine learning methodology, then became a science teacher at Wheaton Academy in September.
While he teaches thisyear, the Arlington Heights resident continues to attend monthly classes at Benedictine and is observed and advised by mentors from the college.
Launched in 2001, Benedictine’s program has grown from nine students the first year to 33 in 2004, said its director, John Zigmond. “We’ve had chemists, veterinarians, attorneys, doctors and engineers, ranging in age from 31 to 64,” he said. “They have had successful first careers. Most have done some work with kids–coaching, teaching Sunday school or parenting–enough to know they enjoy working with them.”
Teach while you train
In Illinois, people enrolled in alt-cert programs can obtain provisional teaching certificates during their training. After completing the programs and successfully teaching for one year, they can obtain Illinois teaching certificates.
Teachers also must take the Illinois basic skills test, which isn’t as easy as it used to be. The test recently was changed, and now assesses college-level skills, up from its former 8th-grade level.
The rules are different for those who want to teach at the college level. Bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history qualified Schaumburg resident Jim Owens, 56, to become an adjunct teacher of history for Oakton Community College and Elgin Community College after a 25-year career in telecommunications.
JoBeth Halpin, 54, of Oak Park, brought a master’s degree in architecture and two decades in the field to her job as architecture instructor at Triton College, River Grove. Like many second-career college-level teachers, she still keeps one foot in the field, working as an architect part time, to keep up with trends and practices. “I don’t want to be one of those teachers who is out of touch,” she said.
Preschool level
At thepreschool level, minimal additional education is required to teach for those who have at least a bachelor’s degree. Former investment analyst Carolyn Palmquist, 43, of Arlington Heights is working on an early childhood education certificate at Harper College, Palatine, while she begins her second career as a preschool teacher.
What motivates people to leave longtime first careers for teaching? Sometimes it’s something as pragmatic as health insurance, still a staple in the education field. For others it’s a need for more fulfillment. Many echo Mack when he said, “I reached a point where I re-evaluated what I wanted to do the rest of my life.”
Shakespeare said she appreciates the opportunity to serve as a role model to her students. “I came from a poor neighborhood like theirs, but I made it,” she said.
Some jump at the chance to educate people about their fields of choice. “I want [my students] to be scientifically literate,” said Barb Backley, environmental scientist turned science professor at Elgin Community College. “I want them to understand medical terms when they talk to a doctor or understand what a candidate means when he talks about `stem-cell research.'”
Compared with their younger counterparts, second-career teachers bring a different perspective.
Working-world examples
Mack might have been speaking for many of the second-career teachers when he said he uses real-world examples in his science lessons. “I try to draw from lots of industries, from cosmetics to automotive to high-tech,” he said.
These teachers also said they also use work world examples when it comes to behavior. “When kids don’t show up on time, I tell them I’ve fired people for doing that,” Backley said.
The fact that they have had at least two careers is a lesson in itself, teachers said.
“I tell [pupils] so often that they have so many choices to make, they get sick of hearing it,” said Hinsdale resident Peter Dalton, who left machine tool sales to become a cadre (permanent) substitute teacher at Byrne Elementary School in Chicago. “I tell them they’ll work 50 to 60 years in their lives and that’s a long time to say, `You want fries with that?'”
Because they are older, many second-career teachers have raised their own children, so they know what makes kids tick.
“A younger teacher sees a kid acting out,” said Clark, whose children are 18 and 24. “I see what’s behind the behavior.”
Maturity helps them work with their students’ parents, too, said Kay McElroy of Naperville, 50, a mother of three teenagers and a former journalist who became a high school journalism/English teacher.
“When I was student teaching, I heard a younger teacher say, `These parents think they can tell their kids what to do.’ I thought, `Well, yeah, of course,'” she said. “I can sympathize with the other parents who are raising teenagers, too.”
In addition to adding doses of maturity to the school faculties, second-career teachers are altering the demographics. Especially among math and science teachers, more are male, probably because men dominate these fields, college administrators said. “I don’t know why, but this group also includes more minorities,” Yang said.
Embarking on an academic career can mean making adjustments, second-time teachers said. Some report having bosses who are younger than they are. Some have lower salaries. (“I can’t hit every boot sale now like I used to!” Clark said.) But overall they say the rewards outnumber the sacrifices.
“Used to be, I was happy when sales were up in my district,” Clark said. “But that doesn’t compare to getting a hug from a kid.”
A plaque on Clark’s classroom wall sums it up, she said:
“A hundred years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in or the kind of car I drove. But the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.”
