Retirement: Voyage of Discovery

[dedalus_1947]

You have to put off being young
until you can retire.

(Unknown)

 

The thoughtful soul,

To solitude retires.

(Omar Khayyam, Persian poet)

 

The stucco structures reflected the sun’s brightness with double intensity, and the luminous biege of the walls contrasted sharply with the deep burgundy tiles that lined the roofs. Sky blue-painted eaves, window frames, and doors muted and softened the light, allowing the eyes to gently glide toward the dark green lawns of the playing field and garden courtyard. It was like looking at a timeless, still-life painting of a simple sandstone vase with handpicked crimson, blue, and green spring flowers, highlighted with a spray of mimosa. One would never expect a school to be adorned in such vibrant colors, and yet here it was. A modernist impression of a pocket-sized World War II gymnasium, cafeteria, and classrooms; a seaside academy, a small school nestled a mere stones throw from the edge of the Pacific Ocean in Ventura, California. My first thoughts, when I saw Pierpoint Elementary School in 2002 were, “I wonder if we could buy a house here, because I’d love being the principal of this school”. I visualized myself walking out of my office, if I felt annoyed or frustrated by a problem or worry, and being refreshed when facing the fresh salty breezes coming off the beach and sand dunes. If I positioned myself just right, I could see the sparkling shimmer of the sea. From this distance, the ocean looks like painted dabs of twinkling light. The water gives off this glimmering effect at about 4 o’clock – when the sun is beginning its western descent, and most students have left the school. Working there would be a meditation, surrounded by soothing and tranquil sights and sounds. I envied the principal. I’ve lived and vacationed near or on the beach many times in my life, and I always longed to work in a seaside community. I remember making this same wish when I saw other schools in California: San Juan Capistrano, Venice, Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, Carmel, Monterey, and San Francisco. I never saw a seaside school I didn’t want to work at; until this year. This was the summer when the wishing stopped.
 

 

I always wondered how I would know when it was the right time to retire. When does a school administrator, especially a principal, know when they have had enough? What makes them decide? I remember posing a question like this to a newly retired elementary principal in 1985, when I was 39 and just promoted to my first assistant principal (AP) position at Flamenco High School. I was introduced to him by his wife, the coordinator of a continuing education program, who was recruiting me to teach a multi-cultural awareness class for post-graduate credit. I was still radiating pride and excitement from my new role as assistant principal, and I was eagerly quizzing veteran administrators to learn as much as possible. “What made you retire?” was my innocent question, after shaking hands. I was honestly curious, because he looked too young, fresh, and vital to be retired. I imagined retirees to be wizened, exhausted old people who barely had the energy to walk. This man looked like he had just stepped off the schoolyard from lunch supervision, having broken up a fight, played basketball with 6^th graders, and was making mental preparations for a music assembly at 2 o’clock. He looked me up and down, reflecting for a moment on my query, and simply replied, “It stopped being fun”. No explanations and no illustrations were offered; just that it was no longer fun. He then changed the subject by asking me about my upcoming class. I continued talking, but I was a little confused by what I thought was a frivolous answer. I wanted to learn and he was talking about FUN. What kind of an answer was that? Fun! How was being a principal fun? Becoming an outstanding principal was the Holy Grail of my ambitions; what did it have to do with being fun? It wasn’t a game or sport! Did principals really retire when they stopped having FUN? His answer made no sense to me. In fact, I was so annoyed by the response, I asked my own principal about it, the following day.

 

Anne was a slender, white-haired, chiseled-faced, veteran principal with three successful assignments on her resume. She had completed her doctoral degree, worked as a middle school principal for 4 years, completed a difficult stint as an administrative legal advisor in Staff Relations for another 2, and was now being rewarded with a plum assignment to a high profile, high achieving high school. She was esteemed as a clear-headed, intelligent, and fair administrator. It was also whispered to me by various female professional friends that Anne was one of the seven assistant principals who had challenged the school district by suing the Board of Education for gender discrimination in their promotional practices. The insurgent women won the suit, and forced the district to promote more women principals in secondary schools. It was a testament to her talents that she was one of the first chosen. I respected her abilities, advice, and opinions, and was grateful that she became my career mentor. She did not share my annoyance with the retired principal. She thought for a bit and said, “Hmmm that’s an interesting way to put it. Fun – I don’t think I’d use that particular word to characterize the job of principal. I think rewarding or satisfying would be my choice”. She laughed when she saw the look on my face. “I’m not helping you much with my answer, am I? Look buster”, she chided me, “don’t worry about it. Every principal describes the work they do in different ways. Why do they retire? I don’t know. I suppose I’ll find out when it’s my time”. It sounded like sage advice, which I didn’t understand at the time. I nodded and said thank you, but the retired principal’s response bothered me, and I never forgot it.
 

 

I served as an AP for 6 more years at three schools (one high school and two middle schools) before I was promoted to principal. Looking back, those years were the hardest, most challenging, and most stimulating years of my professional life. I was constantly learning, exploring new experiences, searching and sharing information, making connections with people at the district and state levels, and interacting with professional friends and other assistant principals. The conceit among AP’s in Los Angeles, during the 80’s and 90’s, was that we were the best and the brightest in the state, and we engaged in a friendly competition to see which of us had “The Right Stuff” to be principals first. We were convinced that we were getting smarter, more experienced, and better able to handle any emergency or dilemma. We were ambitious and eager, but the top contenders were the ones who realized that they couldn’t learn it all, and they had to depend on other people who were older, smarter and more experienced. I thought it was an obvious lesson, but I was surprised by how many AP’s continued to think (or pretend) that they could do it all. The best part of my job was observing the 4 principals I worked for as they managed their schools and dealt with school problems, emergencies, and employees. I had a particular set of duties and responsibilities, but my overarching imperative was to research issues, solve problems, and support the principal. However, the principals had to shoulder ALL the school’s problems, worry about ALL the ramifications, and ALWAYS make the “right” decisions. I left my duties at school at the end of the day; the principals carried theirs around all the time. I learned from each principal I worked with; the ones I liked, the ones I feared, and the ones I tolerated. I learned from their successes and their failures (more from the failures), and after six years I impatiently believed that I was ready to match, or surpass them. I was restless and arrogant; and I was wrong. Nothing adequately prepared me for the actual experience of being a principal. It had to be lived and survived to be understood.

 

This year I turn 61, and as I look around at the administrative landscape of the district I see that all my former principals and the generation of assistant principals who were promoted in 1991 are gone. I have been in the district for 32 years, seventeen as a principal at three middle schools (not counting a brief stint as an “acting principal” at a fourth). Each assignment has been different from the one before, and my feeling toward each varies. I would guess that I am now about the age, if not older, of the retired principal I questioned in 1985. I have never forgotten my conversation with him, and each year, in every new location, I asked myself the question, “Am I having fun, yet?” I can honestly reply that I have never described the work I do as FUN. The excitement and eagerness of my first school, Fire Mountain Middle School (MS), dissipated in six months. The joy of being transferred to Shangri-la MS lasted one year, and I didn’t relax in my latest location, Mash MS, until after two years. Fun was never a criterion that measured the job or my performance. If I were pressed to characterize the job or role of principal, I’d use a metaphor and describe it as a voyage of exploration and discovery, on a treacherous sea. In 17 years, I’ve learned more about ME and my human and spiritual needs, than the mechanics of leadership, or how to increase student achievement.
 

 

At my first school, I fervently believed that the job of principal was manageable, if one had the “right” Vision, Mission, and leadership style. I also believed that I had the time to learn and command these skills, because I had 24 hours each day and 7 days each week. The trick was finding the techniques and strategies that produced the desired results. It was simple, right? Wrong! After a six month grace period, I learned that KNOWING the right course of action and practicing the corresponding leadership behaviors to achieve it did not always produce the desired result. In fact, most times it had the opposite effect when adult and personal agendas and interests got in the way. I learned that every decision and action by a principal is personal to the individual affected by it. Changing teachers’ classroom assignments to cluster students and interdisciplinary teams into discrete geographical locations on a middle school campus may be theoretically sound, and supported by research and district policies, but when it resulted in the union representative’s classroom being changed, it became a declaration of war. The next three years were a Cold War conflict, with constant posturing and brinksmanship between the three spheres of power and influence in the school: teachers (the union rep), management (me), and the parents (the Community Representative). It was a period of shifting loyalties, self-serving alliances, and betrayals. A teacher who had served as a Navy Seal in the Vietnam conflict once called me “The Old Man” of Fire Mountain, using the nickname that sailors give the captain of their ship. I told him that I was still too “green” to deserve the honorific, although images of Captain Bligh from Mutiny on the Bounty and Captain Queeg of The Caine Mutiny did cross my mind. The only practices that seemed to produce beneficial results were those directed at spiritual peace: jogging, meditation and attending daily mass at a church on my way to school. Even though they did not end the dull pains that developed in my back, neck, and chest, during times of confrontation and stress, these practices did provide a momentary respite. At the end of my first full year at Fire Mountain, I tried to resign and petitioned John Leichty, the Director of Middle Schools, to reinstate me as an AP at another school.  I didn’t feel I was doing a good job. He said he knew of the hardships I was facing, but believed I was being too critical of myself; he told me I was doing a fine job for a freshman principal, and that the situation would only improve with time. I trusted his confidence, continued going to 6:20 mass, and remained in the position until he transferred me to Shangri-la MS after two more years.

 

In Shangri-la, I attacked the challenge of effective leadership with renewed vigor and dedication. It was a smaller school, with fewer students, a stable and experienced administrative team and faculty, and was only 25 minutes away from home (Fire Mountain was a two to three hour round trip). Hoping to avoid my freshman mistakes, I put greater emphasis on collaboration, making a concerted effort to meet, get to know, and build consensus among my administrative team and the natural leaders in the faculty and parent organizations. I tried being extra careful and respectful of their feelings, because I had walked into a leadership vacuum, with the previous principal having abandoned the school at mid-year on a medical leave when a parent organization and some teachers began agitating for her removal. However, I still believed that the job was manageable, and that I just had to work harder, longer, and more efficiently to find the “right” vision and system to be effective and get results. For the first time as principal, I was happy. The first year was a textbook case of what new principals are supposed to do, and how teachers and parents are supposed to react. It was a honeymoon period that allowed the teachers, counselors, and administrators to know me, and I them. The situation was so idyllic that I ignored the ominous clouds of disaffection that a few people were pointing to, believing that, having survived Fire Mountain, I could weather any storm. In my sophomore year at Shangri-la I confronted the power of one; how one frustrated and angry coordinator (with 2 allies), feeling unappreciated, undervalued, and threatened, could generate sufficient parent support and media coverage to ALMOST oust a principal. I learned the consequences of hubris, the wisdom of asking for help and advice, and the absurdity of school management.
 

 

(To be continued)

Comments

Retirement

[(Anonymous)]

Although I have never walked in the shoes of an administrator and admittedly FAILED retirement, I do understand the description of working in education as FUN. It has always and continues to be FUN for me...I thank YOU for the opportunity to be able to continue to have FUN!

I'm looking forward to reading about the next part of your journey!

Blue

voyage of discovery

[(Anonymous)]

Tony,

"In 17 years, I've learned more about ME and my human and spiritual needs, than the mechanics of leadership or how to increase student achievement" is a very, very insightful, brave, and profound admission. It illuminates the essay!

TRH