by Russ Mayo
So far in my series Leaving Academia for K-12 Teaching with Ethical ELA, I have written about the challenges of making a career in academia today. Since many humanities professors today are committed teachers who are struggling to make a living, my aim for this series is to present (1) an argument for considering K-12 teaching as an alternative to academia’s dismal job market, and (2) a guide for those considering in leaving academia for K-12 teaching. As someone with experience in both areas, readers may find interest in my story of transition from K-12 to academia and back again. To start with, I’ll talk about the development of my own career: what brought me to K-12 teaching, what ultimately led me to earn a Master’s degree in Education, and the impact that graduate studies had on my career.
Past Posts:
- Leaving Academia for K-12 Teaching, Part 1
- Steady Diet of Adjuncting, Part 2
- The Shape of Academia to Come, Part 3
This past August, I celebrated my 20th year of working as an educator at the secondary and post-secondary levels. This all began in the year 2000, when I decided to pursue a degree in secondary education—majoring in English and minoring in History. At the time, I wasn’t sure if I actually wanted to be a teacher. I had little experience working with adolescents, but I came from a family of educators and knew it to be a reliable career that aligned with my values: a field of public service based in community and cooperation, as opposed to the competitive values in the for-profit world. As Alfie Kohn notes, educators can and should prioritize cooperation in our work with students, particularly in an effort to undo the harms of living in a culture that overvalues competition.
Teaching not only offered a career path that benefited others; it also allowed me to engage in my own intellectual interests. As an undergrad, the more I learned about language, culture, society, and the arts, the more my fascination grew. My professors regularly taught what Kevin Kumashiro calls troubling knowledge, the sort of challenging facts and ideas that are “disruptive, discomforting, and problematizing” for the learner, as opposed to the comforting knowledge that reinforces common sense ways of thinking (9). Paulo Freire referred to such critical literacy as “reading the word and the world.” I studied Freud and Foucault, deconstructionism and double-consciousness, Toni Morrison and David Mamet. Since I found critical education so deeply engaging, I longed to bring such practices to my own classroom as a secondary teacher.
Months after graduating, I made the decision to move to North Carolina, where I quickly found a job teaching at a public middle school in Chapel Hill. Although I had been a student teacher at the high school level, I came to enjoy the creative freedom and interactive nature of teaching younger adolescents. Across my 10 years in the classroom in Chapel Hill, I taught Social Studies, English Language Arts (or ELA) and Creative Writing at two middle schools, teaching general education as well as gifted, selective-enrollment classes.
In my first few years in the classroom, I quickly realized how much I didn’t know in terms of content knowledge, curriculum development, and classroom pedagogy. I felt unprepared for how best to bring critical education into my own classroom. All teachers require continuing professional development hours for renewing their licensure, and I soon discovered a part-time graduate education program for experienced teachers at UNC-Chapel Hill. I was accepted in 2008 as part of a small cohort of Social Studies teachers from across the state. Graduate school was an invaluable experience, as it helped reignite the critical education practices mentioned earlier. Our weekly readings directly improved my work as a classroom teacher, and our projects encouraged me to create new, engaging curricular options for my students.
After completing the Master’s program at UNC, I soon realized I didn’t want that rich experience to end. Inspired by Chicago’s Teachers For Social Justice, I helped start a study group of fellow critical educators. We presented at academic conferences. We shared critical resources with each other. We participated in the “Red4Ed” teacher activism at the state level to increase funding for education. We even successfully petitioned a face-to-face meeting with the state superintendent of public instruction to discuss the negative impacts of standardized testing.
Completing a graduate degree deepened my knowledge as a teacher-scholar and helped me become a more competent and innovative educator. Graduate school marked a liminal space for on my path as a teacher-learner. In the words of priest Richard Rohr, liminal spaces offer opportunities “where we can begin to think and act in new ways. It is where we are betwixt and between, having left one room or stage of life but not yet entered the next.” This was precisely my experience of completing a master’s degree, and also later as a doctoral student. Rohr goes on to write: “Liminal space is where we are most teachable, often because we are most humbled. […] The very vulnerability and openness of liminal space allows room for something genuinely new to happen.”
Graduate studies helped me to reinvent my own pedagogical practice, developing a thematic approach to developing units that leverage real-world problems to engage students through writing, reading, and inquiry-based learning. The liminality of graduate school opening new possibilities and challenges, forcing me to consider the personal and financial aspects of teaching would soon lead me to consider a career change. In the coming weeks, I will discuss various financial challenges for teachers and academics, as well as my experiences as a former K-12 teacher in academia.
What led you to becoming a teacher? What impact did graduate education have on your teaching? What sorts of “liminal spaces” have you encountered on your path toward becoming the teacher, writer, or person you are today? Please share own thoughts and questions in the comments below, and I will do my best to respond here or in future posts.
*Note: The name of this article is inspired from Finding the Rhythms, the first full-length album by influential Gainesville punk band Hot Water Music. Their band name is taken from the title of controversial beat writer Charles Bukowski’s 1983 collection of short stories, Hot Water Music.
Russell Mayo is an English Language Arts teacher at Burley School, a public K-8 school on the northside of Chicago. Previously, he worked as an assistant professor of English at Purdue University Northwest, where he served as Writing Center Director and Writing Program Director. Russ completed his doctorate in English Education from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2020. His research centers on writing studies, critical pedagogy, and the environment. Most recently, Russ co-edited and contributed to the Teaching Writing in the Age of Catastrophic Climate Change, (Lexington Press, 2024).