Steven C. Watson
Course Change
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| Doing the math: A successful entrepreneur adds up his life's pluses and minuses and decides he wants to give back. Photo by Porter Gifford |
Two years ago, if you bet me five bucks that I was going to be a school-teacher, I would have taken that bet in a heartbeat.” When his students question the relevance of precalculus to their future lives, entrepreneur turned high-school math teacher Steve Watson finds it useful to share such observations about how life can take some unexpected turns. “I point out to them that I couldn't teach this course without my background in math, even though I didn't use it in my previous careers.”
As he approaches his 25th HBS reunion, Watson has just finished his rookie year teaching in a Brookline, Massachusetts, classroom. Explaining the decision that led him to this radical midcareer transition, Watson, an engaging veteran entrepreneur with a long and successful record of cofounding and running early-stage companies all over the world, says, “I knew there was something really missing in my life.”
Watson achieved financial independence with the sale of his first company in 1988. “It was a milestone,” he admits, “but I found myself asking, ‘So what?'” The question led Watson, who is divorced and has no children, to reexamine what was important in his life. “For a start, I realized I didn't need to live in a huge house and have two of everything,” he states with a poignant smile. “I turned back to Christianity and started to look for ways to put my energy back into society.”
Following an interest in public policy, Watson earned an MPA at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in 1991. He pursued pro bono work in community development in Boston and in business development projects in Eastern Europe before focusing on education. “As a larger issue, it seemed to me that a lot of the initiatives designed to impose change from the outside — vouchers, bilingual programs, charter schools — were having limited success,” he explains. “My take is that with the huge bureaucracies in public education and the teachers' unions, reform needs to happen from the inside out. To make a difference, I knew I had to start my learning curve in the classroom.”
So began a journey that has so far taken Watson through an accelerated Massachusetts teacher-training course, a summer of student teaching, and the job at Brookline High. He says his first year has been “as difficult as learning a new language. Understanding something and helping others to understand it are two completely different things.” Until he adjusted to the daily grind of preparing lesson plans and correcting tests and homework, Watson regularly found himself logging ninety-hour workweeks — after taking a 90 percent pay cut from the consulting job he held the previous year.
But he has clearly been inspired by the nonfinancial rewards of teaching. When asked for highlights from the last year, he enthusiastically describes a session where he asked students how his class could be better. “In business, we'd call it participative management,” he notes. “My senior teaching colleagues thought it was a risky strategy in the classroom, but it worked. It led to a great discussion.”
Watson says he still has “a lot to learn” about teaching, but after one year in the classroom he definitely has mastered the basics. “When you see the light go on, and a kid who's been struggling actually gets it,” he explains, “that's when you feel you've really done something.”
— Deborah Blagg (send e-mail to the author)
PROFILES FROM THE CLASS OF 1977
John R. Davis: Nature's Blessing
Michael F. Cronin: A Focus on the Fundamentals
Ann M. Fudge: Enhanced Perspective
Steven C. Watson: Course Change
Karen Gordon Mills: Her Excellent Adventures
Amy S. Langer: Fighting the Good Fight
