This is an excerpt from the article, “Makeover Moment,” which is published in the forthcoming Summer 2025 issue of Independent School magazine.
“A good teacher is like a candle—it consumes itself to light the way for others.” This popular quote has been floating around for centuries. It’s been attributed to various writers and historical figures, but its exact origins are unclear. You can find it on T-shirts, embroidery, and laser-etched signs on Etsy. But its popularity is working against teachers and, to a greater extent, the profession.
Teaching is indeed a noble calling, and we rightly view teachers as selfless individuals dedicated to making a difference. But this idealized view of teaching is often paired with a story of sacrifice and hardship. The public celebrates teachers while turning their challenges into a badge of honor, romanticizing adversity as part of the profession. And somehow we’re surprised that fewer and fewer young people want to become teachers.
Clearly, the teaching brand needs a “glow-up.” In the same way that other brands and products get rebranded, the teaching profession could benefit from a bit of a makeover. After all, if any profession deserves better marketing, it’s the one shaping tomorrow. And independent schools are in a prime position to lead the charge. With our schools’ freedom, agility, and commitment to innovation, we can elevate teaching as a dynamic and empowering career centered on growth. We can attract and retain talented educators and ensure a thriving future for education.
Create a Solid Career Ladder
In the corporate world, once you move past the entry-level position at most companies, you face a wealth of opportunities for career advancement: associate, manager, director, vice president, etc. Teaching, on the other hand, is often a one-stop shop. You’re a teacher when you start and a teacher when you retire. The essential job functions don’t change, and growth is often limited to “getting better at teaching” or maybe becoming a department chair.
Teaching is one of the only careers where doing an excellent job with quantifiable success doesn’t lead to promotion in the traditional sense. It usually just leads to more teaching. That’s not a structural quirk; it’s a missed opportunity. Teachers want to grow. They want to try new things, expand their impact, and be recognized for how their skills have evolved.
This isn’t about copying the corporate ladder. It’s about offering clarity, choice, and meaningful ways to move forward. Some teachers want to stay in the classroom their entire careers, and they should be able to do that with increasing prestige, compensation, and professional development. Others want to mentor colleagues, lead curriculum work, or launch new programs. If we don’t build clearly defined career paths that support both, we risk burning out our most ambitious educators or losing them altogether.
To support teachers in taking on special projects or moving to leadership positions, schools should offer smaller teaching loads—just as department chairs often receive reduced teaching responsibilities. Schools could create hybrid roles that combine teaching with positions like technology specialist, faculty wellness advocate, experiential learning coordinator, and more. These positions would come with reduced teaching schedules so that educators can thrive without running on empty. This scenario could be part of a clear advancement framework, tied to benchmarks, with salary increases and expanded access to leadership roles.
The best schools create a culture where teachers want to stay because they see real opportunities to evolve and expand their impact. That might mean mentoring, curriculum leadership, or taking on new responsibilities that tap into a teacher’s strengths and passions. That was certainly the case for me.
In my own career, I’ve had to work to create a ladder upward. I’d been teaching for more than a decade and balancing a full teaching load while also leading curriculum initiatives; strengthening our arts department; and establishing our school’s design thinking, innovation, and maker programs. I saw my potential for greater schoolwide impact—and also the tremendous potential for burnout. I knew that without some kind of shift in my role, I’d eventually hit a ceiling or burn out—or both.
So I approached my school leaders, and we talked about adjusting my course load and the possibility of stepping into a role that extended beyond the classroom and allowed me to work with the whole school community. As a result of those conversations, the school created a new position: director of arts and innovation. The role comes with a reduced teaching and advising load and gives me the time and capacity to drive programs that support both students and teachers while still keeping me in the classroom. It was a natural next step—one that aligned with my passion for creativity, my experience leading cross-disciplinary initiatives, and my desire to have a broader impact across the school.
Every school has great teachers with big ideas and the drive to grow. The question is whether we’re giving them the support and space to do it.
Live, Laugh, List the Salary
Teaching is widely recognized as one of the most underpaid professions. According to the latest Education Next survey from May 2019, Americans believe that teachers are undercompensated. But the same survey findings show that people also tend to underestimate these salaries. On average, respondents guessed teacher salaries to be 30% lower than actual state averages.
To elevate the public perception of teaching, we need to clearly communicate the value it offers. Teaching is a financially stable career with excellent benefits and unique perks. But saying that out loud can feel uncomfortable, even for teachers. The story of the overworked, underpaid martyr is deeply ingrained in our culture—and many educators don’t feel empowered to challenge it. Still, we’ve got to start saying it, clearly and confidently, and push back on the idea that teaching is all sacrifice. Let’s make teaching look as good as it actually is.
When searching for teaching roles at independent schools, candidates often encounter this lack of salary transparency. While some schools publish salaries, many do not—sometimes out of a desire to offer flexibility based on experience, and other times out of concern for internal equity or fear of difficult conversations. But this lack of transparency creates uncertainty that leads prospective teachers to assume the worst. Our veteran teachers often take this lack of clarity as an indication that incoming teachers are being offered higher salaries than they are.
This kind of ambiguity can quietly erode trust, create resentment, and lead to a sense of being undervalued—especially among long-serving faculty. Schools must include salary ranges in job postings to build trust, reduce speculation, and foster a culture of fairness. Transparency will attract and keep professionals who simply want to know they are being compensated honestly and fairly. If this means raising the salaries of our current faculty to keep up with inflation, good—we should have been doing that all along.
Addressing salaries is only part of shifting the perception that teachers work too hard for too little pay. To redefine teaching as a top-tier career, independent schools must build benefits and support systems that teachers actually need. And there’s no one more aware of this than our schools’ greatest potential advocates: our current teachers. When we create a culture where teachers feel supported and proud of where they work, they naturally take more ownership of their stories.
From Burnout to Brilliance
While the world has evolved dramatically over the past century, teaching has remained a relatively static career, framed as an act of self-sacrifice. This perception isn’t just outdated; it’s harmful to the profession. If we want to attract and retain the best educators, we need to give teaching the glow-up it deserves. That means creating real paths for career growth; ensuring salary transparency and equity; proactively addressing burnout; and amplifying the narrative that teaching is a dynamic, fulfilling, and kick-ass career.
A good teacher isn’t a candle consuming itself. A good teacher is a mirror, reflecting and amplifying the brilliance around them. Teaching isn’t about sacrifice; it’s about impact. When we build systems that support and uplift teachers, they don’t burn out. They shine.