Considering Leaving Teaching; What's Next?

April 15, 2024 6:19 AM

My tenth year of teaching has felt like my worst, and I am considering a career change. I am not sure what to do next. I'm not sure what I'm qualified for, I'm not sure whom to talk to, I don't know how to get started. Please help me with your knowledge and experience.

I'm 40. This is my tenth year of teaching. I have always struggled with the performance part of teaching: every morning of my career I have been anxious, occasionally to the point of throwing up. But this year has felt different. My anxiety has felt out of control. I can't relax on the weekend, I'm waking up at night and struggling to get back to sleep, I'm having trouble feeling present when I'm with my family. I'm in therapy for this.

My therapist, incidentally, suggested that this might just be a down year and that I should try teaching in a different setting or with a different mix of classes. I am not sure that I agree, or anyway I already look forward to returning in the fall with dread.

I think that a career change would help. If I could find a job where I am not presenting in front of a group and managing that group's behavior every day, I imagine that I could be a less anxious, happier person. Please help me think of other possibilities. Some considerations:

1. I have read asks by people who love teaching but are disillusioned and/or burnt out. They would love to continue teaching in a different setting. That's not me. I am not looking for something similar to teaching.

2. I'm a male high school English teacher in Chicago. I still think of reading and writing as strengths. Editing or technical writing jobs sound good to me; I do not know whether I am qualified for them or where to look.

3. This feels like a long shot, but I would be interested in doing something physical and outdoors. Maybe I am a little burnt out on sitting at a computer and reading student papers. I'm imagining, like, trail maintenance? (Maybe you are getting a sense of how scattered my career planning is.)

4. Money is a consideration. My wife and I have two kids, and she's in the middle of a career change right now. I can't stop working and not make money for any period of time, at least not right now.

Sorry, this is all over the place. Here are my questions:

1. If you've left teaching, how did you decide what to do next? What steps did you take? What obstacles did you run into?
2. What careers are ex-teachers best qualified for?

Thanks for your patience with this tentative first step.

posted by The Larch to Work & Money (22 answers total)

I know a few teachers who went into textbook writing. No idea how to get into that, but seems like a thing.
posted by greta simone at 6:26 AM on April 15

I know some teachers who've ended up in social work or public health kind of roles working with kids ( think social emotional learning or sexual education or dating violence) in much smaller groups than classroom settings ( think 1:1 or less than 10 kids at a time). Sometimes this requires additional education but sometimes not. Can't say that it pays particularly well either, but if a jump from all day teaching 30 kids at a time to 10 kids a few times a week with paperwork and administrative stuff to fill the rest of the time seems managable it is something you could look into.
posted by AlexiaSky at 6:41 AM on April 15

Best answer: I left teaching (also in the Chicago area) after ten years, back in 2022. I'm now working as an academic librarian, but I already had my MLS and pre-teaching library experience. I still do some teaching and presenting, but much less frequently, and with essentially zero behavior management. It's been great, but maybe not a super useful suggestion for you. I tend to assume that every problem in my life is a "wherever you go, there you are" situation, but that was absolutely not the case with leaving teaching. My life improved so much and so quickly it was sort of ridiculous.

Other former teachers I know have done a huge range of things. Project management, sports coaching, working for the park district, working for summer programs (they have year-round administrative needs), working in university admin, bartending, tutoring, marketing, sales, working for the city...etc. It's worth thinking about who's in your network and what kinds of things they might be able to hook you up with, at least in the short term.

Mostly I just want to post here to offer you support. Leaving teaching is really hard for a lot of reasons. If you haven't already, consider taking a look at the subreddit Teachers In Transition, which can be pretty toxic so tread carefully/click selectively, but you'll find a lot of posts from other folks who've left the field and found new work. There is life after teaching. Feel free to memail me.
posted by goodbyewaffles at 6:53 AM on April 15 [3 favorites]

There is a tough market for technical writers right now.
posted by NotLost at 6:57 AM on April 15 [1 favorite]

But you might consider an apprenticeship in trades. They pay while you are in training.
posted by NotLost at 6:57 AM on April 15 [1 favorite]

My friends has done a few career changes from teaching but the one that stuck was communications in local government. He prepares written materials, presentations, and goes to public events to staff booths. He was shocked how eager they were to hire someone with his skills.
posted by lepus at 7:21 AM on April 15 [4 favorites]

Think of any software that your school uses to manage day to day operations and see if the companies that provide them have any roles for implementation specialists or consultants.
posted by maddieD at 7:40 AM on April 15 [2 favorites]

Oh yeah, like learning software - for instance, Lexia appears to be hiring (though that appears to be a hybrid job so it would probably only work if you're roughly in the DC area). But the job postings could give you an idea.
posted by slidell at 7:50 AM on April 15

Best answer: Former Chicago Public Schools English/drama teacher here, left after 7 years. (You may have already read my Ask posts on the subject.) I had intended to spend a full 34 years teaching. I have never regretted leaving, and I had a lot of the same anxiety issues you do now.

Echoing Goodwaffles above that Project Management is, broadly speaking, a good second career for teachers. Teaching requires and incredible degree of organization and planning -- I'm not a certified Project Manager of any sort (SCRUM etc.), but I do a lot of that sort of work as the Education Administrator for a small department at an academic hospital. I get to do the parts of teaching that I like (i.e. looking after the needs of our residents) without having to do the actual teaching part (grading, lesson planning, getting up in front of a group for 5 classes a day every damn day).

I also find that, by working to support a field that I have never had much inherent interest in (medicine/science), my skill set (not just project management, but also writing and, to be frank, social skills) is in need and appreciated. I am very happy to communicate over MeMail as well.
posted by HeroZero at 7:56 AM on April 15 [2 favorites]

A local kindergarten teacher I know went into real estate.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 8:28 AM on April 15

A number of teachers I know went into curriculum development and also some went to work for testing companies. One guy (our music department chair) bought a power washer and started a business power washing. I became a teacher educator for a large university and loved it but that was a retirement job because adjuncts get paid miserably and have no benefits.
posted by Peach at 8:50 AM on April 15

Retired teacher here- 2nding project management of some flavor you find interesting- like to garden? maybe landcape companies. like building ? construction management.. etc.
Also consider educational management companies such as Canvas or Edupoint or whatever SMS you’re familiar with.
posted by TDIpod at 10:38 AM on April 15

Also my cousin (an elementary school teacher) resigned during covid and has been tutoring at Sylvan or one of the other big chains. Her pension was vested already, your mileage may vary.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 10:55 AM on April 15

Best answer: If you want to try something pretty different, I'd say to look into the trades. The apprenticeship programs can be a few years long, but they are paid. Here's the electricians' union in Chicago, as one example (poke around and you'll see they have a career changers category in their apprenticeship info). Some advantages are that you are probably used to the earlier work day, and you might appreciate the structured nature of the program and field. These jobs can pay pretty well, and you might be able to, down the road, move into a more management and project management aspect.

I think it's easy for folks who have worked inside to romanticize working outside as an escape fantasy (and I'm not sure trail maintenance is a great year round midwest city job), but there might also be seasonal technician jobs available through your parks and recreation department, and that could potentially turn into something permanent. Or you could look into something like being an arborist.
posted by bluedaisy at 12:01 PM on April 15

Also, I know some teachers who moved into librarianship. It can be a more satisfying career path if you're burnt out from teaching, but jobs in the field are very hard to find, so I would advise against that if you're not geographically mobile.
posted by bluedaisy at 12:02 PM on April 15

Statistically speaking, the organization that hires the most English majors is the IRS. (I know, it surprised me, too.) But they have an interest in making sure their people know how to read complicated documents and deliver comprehensible decisions.
posted by seasparrow at 12:02 PM on April 15 [1 favorite]

>Editing or technical writing jobs sound good to me; I do not know whether I am qualified for them or where to look.

I'd be concerned that chatbot tools are going to transform those jobs for the worse. If that link is to be believed.
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:03 PM on April 15 [1 favorite]

The best admin at my previous (academia-adjacent) job was a former teacher. Her experience wrangling a classroom of students seemed to prepare her really well for dealing with the engineers and researchers that she was supporting. (Who did need to be herded a bit to deal with bureaucracy. And who also sometimes lacked appropriate emotional regulation.)

It doesn't necessarily pay well, though if you're good at it .... I'm pretty sure the best admin at my current job makes more than I, a mid-career software engineer, do. He's worth it. And, if it's a position in a state university system ... the job security is pretty good.

The people I've seen be happy in a role like this view their job as really understanding the bureaucracy and finding ways to manipulate it to help the people that they support get things done. I am so thankful for the admin who took me seriously and walked me through how to hire my first intern and how to actually prepare a budget for a grant proposal. He may have been my most important mentor so far at this job =) The people who appear the most miserable seem to view their job as enforcers of the bureaucracy, and are stressed by researchers who don't have the minutiae memorized. And they spread their misery.
posted by Metasyntactic at 5:21 PM on April 15

I was a writer/editor, went into teaching, found it wasn’t for me, and now work for our teachers’ union.
posted by Ollie at 5:54 PM on April 15

Corporate training. Find a product/software that you are relatively familiar with and then look to train folks on how to use it. In my previous life, I was a music teacher for 10 years then stayed home to raise babies. Decided to take a part time job (think receptionist) at a large company that uses a leading, CRM software. Within a year, I had a good grasp of the software and now I’m on the corporate side in a full time, training and development role. I’m not an expert in said technology but I know enough to be able to teach the current end users how to use it effectively for the industry we are in. My education degree and years teaching landed me this role over a dozen applicants. Explore corporate training. I know a few, ex-educators who have made that a second career.
posted by pearlybob at 3:21 AM on April 16 [3 favorites]

I like pearlybob's idea above!

I work in a not-for-profit in the Impact & Learning team and yes, we do give presentations, but only to engaged staff who want to come along (for the most part, we seldom do mandatory). My newest colleague is right from a teaching job and her skills are ideal for a "learning organisation". Sure, the pay is not great, but here it's not great in teaching either, so comes in around equivalent.
posted by london explorer girl at 7:32 AM on April 16

Response by poster: Thank you, everyone! I'm grateful for all of these responses! I'm marking a few best answers, but really I could mark them all.

I'm sure that I will post more questions! In the meantime, thanks also for the offers to MeMail; I'm going to take you up on that!

Thank you all!
posted by The Larch at 7:22 AM on April 17