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For many years, transitioning from academia to the world of independent secondary schools was a secret escape hatch for many Ph.D. holders who decided to leave higher ed. Those of us who made the change often wondered why many more didn’t. We were able to continue living a life of the mind outside the high-stakes, high-pressure and often low-reward world of the university.
I myself transitioned to independent schools when my college shuttered my department and terminated my tenured position—a situation that is regrettably becoming common. My students are now younger, but just as smart, and my colleagues are intelligent, curious and kind. I still use my brain to make a living and still trade in knowledge and ideas.
More and more aspiring and former professors are also looking for career options outside academia. Tenure-track positions have become more and more scarce, the adjunct labor force more and more exploited, and the political landscape more and more fraught. And universities still give only limited support for graduate students interested in finding “alt-ac” careers, creating immense mental and emotional pressure on young adults being trained for jobs that no longer exist.
A position in a good independent secondary school is often an attractive alternative. My school and others like mine value the skill set that comes with a Ph.D.: We can think deeply and critically, research effectively, evaluate and synthesize complex ideas, speak and write compellingly, and—not least—exercise perseverance and grit. But as a result of the narrowing career field in higher education, the escape hatch to independent schools is getting more and more crowded, and candidates are finding it harder to make it through to the other side.
Having been a professor, high school teacher and school administrator, my job now includes recruiting teachers. These roles have given me some insight into how candidates with doctorates can successfully navigate an effective transition to independent schools—and why many fail.
Four questions will help orient you to secondary school teaching.
First: Are you, and do you want to be, a teacher? Not a professor, not a lecturer, not a researcher, but a teacher. After all, teaching is not the same as professing. Professors can work in relative isolation, and often in an echo chamber; teachers must successfully engage with and enable others’ learning. It’s not impossible to carry on writing or researching as an independent school teacher, but it is difficult, rare and secondary to your work in the classroom. And contrary to the higher ed axiom that research and teaching are mutually supportive, these are two separate skills. A great researcher can be, and often is, a poor teacher. Teaching is a learned skill and a honed discipline of practice, not a side effect of completing a dissertation.
The second question is whether you are any good at teaching. In other words, if you like the idea of teaching but you have only ever lectured twice a week to an auditorium full of passive listeners, you might not be ready to embrace teaching as a profession. First, spend some time with different student-centered pedagogies. Try to lead seminar discussions (called Harkness discussions in many secondary schools), teach students how to work in groups effectively and then assign them projects to extend and demonstrate their learning, and guide students as they apply their learning to their own interests, outside the rigid traditions of your discipline.
If you love teaching and are good at it, ask the next question: Do you like teenagers? If you have never spent time with kids or don’t enjoy it, don’t expect a school to offer you a position in which you’re with them for hours every day. If you’re not sure, volunteer to spend some time with teens in your university’s summer program, or offer to go into a local school for an activity based on your discipline. Develop an understanding of how a ninth grader is different from a 12th grader and whether interactions with these teens can realistically be the cornerstone of your professional life.
Lastly, what kind of school do you want to join? Do you understand the differences between public schools, charter schools and independent schools? Day schools versus boarding schools? Domestic versus international schools? AP versus IB versus IGCSE schools? Take some time to understand what kind of high school you could best contribute to, and why. And consider where you want to apply: Are you partial to cities or the countryside? Large schools or small schools? Might you want to live abroad for a while? While flexibility in any job search is helpful, you also want to know your own preferences and limits, and to discuss the options intelligently with potential employers.
Finally, it’s time to apply. A few tips will make all the difference.
Consider how you would like to apply to schools. There are a number of options. You can apply directly to individual schools. Their webpages will give instructions. As with any job application, follow those instructions. It will not reflect well on you if you are unwilling or unable to follow simple directions. You can also find jobs listed on specialized job boards, like that of the National Association of Independent Schools or the Association of Boarding Schools.
Alternatively, many candidates prefer to use the services of one or more placement agencies; these services are often free for candidates or available for a modest fee. Organizations like Carney Sandoe & Associates, Search Associates or International Schools Services, among others, will share your materials with dozens or hundreds of schools at once and can often suggest good matches for your skills and interests. They also sponsor in-person job fairs across the U.S. and the world, where you can meet dozens of potential employers and make your pitch in person. Hiring usually starts in November, peaks in January and February, and continues through August, when schools are starting.
When you prepare your materials, remember you’re writing a résumé, not a CV. Your curriculum vitae, or “course of life,” represents the totality of who you are as an academic: It is a detailed description of every element of your professional journey. But take, for example, that seminar paper you worked up for a minor conference on a niche topic that stopped being trendy 10 years ago. It’s not going to help you get a job teaching world history to 10th graders. The more irrelevant details you include in your résumé, the harder it will be for you to highlight the experiences and qualities that would make you attractive to an independent school, like what courses you designed and how you empowered your students to learn. Two single-sided pages, in a readable font, with normal margins. That’s all you get, so focus on what’s important for your next job, not for the one you’re leaving.
Make your résumé and letter of interest succinct and engaging. Throw what you know about university applications and CVs out the window: This is a different genre. Use bullet points and action words. Highlight your accomplishments, not your titles. Avoid jargon and acronyms that are not widely understood. And delete the presentations and publications and professional memberships unless they are relevant to teaching high schoolers. If you are applying directly to a school, customize your one-page letter of interest (yes, just one page) to show why you’re right for that particular school, with its unique mission and character; if you are working through an agency, paint a colorful picture that illustrates your passion, your skills and how you see yourself contributing to students’ learning. Don’t rehash your résumé or include a tedious paragraph listing your degrees— that should all be clear in your résumé (and in a more readable format). The letter gives you a chance to share a bit of your character and personality— to show you are someone who would be good for kids to learn from and good for adults to work with.
When you make it to an interview, a few additional pointers can get you an offer. First, be yourself, but be warm and humble. There are no ivory towers in secondary education. Feel free to mention your research interests, but don’t belabor them; your Ph.D. is a great bonus for any school and you should never dumb yourself down, but your specialized expertise is no longer the centerpiece of your application. (In fact, you will be working to overcome the stereotype, right or wrong, that we Ph.D. holders are narrow-minded know-it-alls who want to live in a higher plane divorced from reality.)
Spend more time sharing your educational values or giving examples of times you spent helping students. Certainly discuss your work in the classroom, but you can also share your engagement with teens in other contexts, like sports or scouts or summer camps. Next, be prepared to discuss how you teach. How do you structure your lessons? How do you assess students? What kinds of instructional activities do you prefer? Likewise, describe your work style. Do you prefer to take charge and run with a project? Do you prefer working on a team? How much autonomy versus structure would you hope for in your first couple years of teaching high school? Last, be frank about the areas in which you hope to grow, and ask your interviewers what support they offer for professional development.
Finally, while many independent schools in the U.S. don’t require teacher licensure, a teaching license will open more opportunities for you, both domestically and internationally. Many programs will let you earn licensure online, even without an education degree, and others allow you to earn credit towards licensure through your work on the ground as a teacher. Some schools will even help defray the cost.
Teaching in international boarding schools has been, for me, the most fulfilling and satisfying work I have done. As a professor, I spent the best part of my year in academic-based summer camps for teens. I am lucky to have parlayed that love of teaching gifted teenagers into a full-time job. With careful planning and a little courage, like-minded professors, adjuncts and grad students can also find immensely rewarding academic jobs in independent schools, outside higher ed.
