Why My Goal Has Changed
David Bull
My goal at the beginning of this program was simple. I wanted to make myself more marketable, I wanted to give myself options with regards to my career choices. I had sought advancement within my school district and had applied for a promotion, but did not get it. I was disappointed and sought out the reasons why. Put simply, I did not have the experience they were looking for. As I pursued how to overcome that obstacle it was shared with me in a meeting that I could either accept a demotion into a job that would give me the experience I needed or I could go back to school and pursue my Master of Arts in Education. I choose the path of furthering my formal education.
As I near completion of my degree I have come to realize two things. First, the changing face of public school funding has made me weary of pursuing any central office administrative positions in a school district, which is where I had envisioned my career going. Two, being back in school has also helped me realize that I now want this degree for more than the possibility of creating career choices, I want it because I want to be a better Head Start Director. With my very first class I quickly realized that there was valuable knowledge to be learned that could improve my work right away and with this last class I can say with certainty that each and every one of my classes has helped me to become a better Head Start Director. EAD 863 Training and Professional Development, for example, helped me understand the concept of employee performance gaps and why they occur. Understanding this has helped me better target our program's responses when these gaps happen. Another example would be EAD 991B Concepts of Educational Inquiry, this course deepened my understanding of teacher inquiry. Our curriculum relies upon teacher inquiry, but I did not fully understand the concept nor did I really see the interconnectedness of teacher and student experiences until I took this course. Teachers guide students and yet also learn from them and they use what they learn to guide learning in the classroom.
While the completion of my degree will make me more marketable and thus has achieved my original goal I really feel that my goal has changed. The goal that truly means something to me now is being a better employee, a better co-worker and a better Director and the hard work that I have put into my coursework has helped me to reach this newer more important goal.