Help me decide what I can do instead of teaching.

July 1, 2020 11:06 AM

I'm an expat music educator and am contemplating a return to my home country in a few years' time. Given the complications and considerations that COVID is presenting for the field of education, I am seriously considering a change of career on my return home. More details inside...

The distancing measures that are being put in place for upcoming school years are very likely to have a terrible effect on the performance component of music programs. This is extremely disheartening and will seriously affect the engagement and enjoyability of the subject for students and teachers alike. In preparation for this, I am hoping to have some clear ideas for alternatives as I near the time to return home.

Here are some factors that may influence or focus any thoughts/advice:
* My main experience is in teaching music to middle school and high school students.
* I would likely be settling in or near a mid-sized North American city.
* I will be joined by Mrs. Potato and our little spud. My wife is also currently employed, although she may very well be in a similar position as myself.
* I am open to further education to support the change, and we have enough put away to support this, though not for a particularly extended time (e.g. Law or medicine degree).

What do you think? What seem to you like good options for a job change, given my current experience and skill set?

posted by elected_potato to Work & Money (3 answers total)

Personally, I would not stray too much from what you're already doing. That would be wasteful, because you probably have a lot of experience and joy in the field of music teaching. So why not take it to a new level by working mainly from home?
- Create online courses and sell those on your own website.
- Write and self-publish books about music theory and practice.
- Create courseware for existing music teaching sites (such as https://www.groove3.com/).
- Create music for AV productions.
- Teach yourself software that makes music. If nothing else, become fluent in Ableton Live, become a certified trainer and teach people how to use it over the internet.

You will probably discover things you excel at on the way. Maybe you have a knack for creating chord progressions? You can even sell those as MIDI files.

Good luck!
posted by hz37 at 3:55 PM on July 1, 2020

My daughter has been taking even more lessons online now - both at the end of the school year since school wasn't taking up so much time and now in the summer. Her piano lessons go as usual with a tripod holding her phone pointing the video at her hands. The music theory lessons are great - keeping her busy and really moving through the material much faster than in a group class. The voice lessons are the hardest for her to adjust to the video call format but the voice teacher just organized a virtual recital, collected video recordings from all her students that premiers Friday. These options might feed into your plans.
posted by RoadScholar at 4:09 PM on July 1, 2020

Hmm, so you say you're concerned about this upcoming year (understandable!), but you're also talking about a career change to take place in a few years' time. So it sounds like your frustration isn't just pandemic-related? Or you're concerned about education, or music education, in the long haul?

I think the easiest shift might be to gain credentials to teach something else (math? science? history?), as a back-up.

Outside of education: I think that's the big question right now. I've chatted with a few friends and said, "Okay, let's say we knew we had one year to decide on a new career. What's a good field to go into right now?" And that's the thing: no one knows.
posted by bluedaisy at 12:49 AM on July 2, 2020 [1 favorite]