The Beginning of the End

On January 1st I made the leap.

I emailed my resignation to my Head.

I plan to see out the rest of the academic year at my current job but these will be my last two terms there. I haven’t yet got a new job lined up and have no idea what happens next. I only know for sure that I can’t start another September and still be in that same place. After eleven years it’s become too much of a familiar treadmill and I need something new and challenging for myself. Something intellectually stimulating. Something that thrills me again.

I want to explore my options in academia as well as education. See what’s out there. Find the time to do more academic research than my current position allows me to. I have no idea what my chances are in that completely different job market, but I’m building up a nice little CV of publications and I won’t know until I’ve tried. And if it proves impossible, who knows what a different school might feel like after all these years if I decide to stay in secondary teaching?

My current job, after all, began with similar uncertainty. A late interview. May. For a part-time position. I had almost given up on the idea of getting a job for the new academic year because I was only applying for the ones that felt right to me, and so far that had meant a school I didn’t want to work at, but was near enough to walk to, or this one. I knew the school from others who worked there, and knew specifically that they taught some high level philosophy stuff to the younger years. I’d heard good things and been intrigued. My interview went well. When I started, I thought it would be an interesting detour en route to whatever I ended up doing full-time. By the end of the year I was Head of Department. Eleven years later, here I still am.

So now I return to looking for something new that feels right.

Wish me luck.