Need idea for new career currently teaching

amother

Burlywood

Mon, Apr 20 2015, 4:29 pm

I need an idea for a new career. My degrees are in education and I no longer love teaching. I am willing to go back to school for something else, but if there is anyone who has any ideas for me I would love to hear them. I'm not interested in teaching any area or any of the PT, OT or speech type careers. Will post more details later from a computer but would love some ideas so I can brainstorm. Thanks.

rachel6543

Mon, Apr 20 2015, 4:59 pm

With your background in education you might want to look into educational technology. There are jobs for people who help develope online classes & content. There are online masters programs for this. For instance you might develope internal training for employees. You wouldn't necessarily have to teach people, but create the training tools people use. I'm actually looking into moving into this field in maybe 10 yrs from now, after I'm done having babies and can go back for my master's degree.

What age did you teach? Maybe teaching a different age group would be better fit, like college age and adult students? Maybe you could teach at a local community college?

Also, a business degree is very practical. I did my undergrad in business. You could get a master's in business. With a business degree you can work in many areas (finance, marketing, management, .... Etc) or use the skills to help start your own business.

Otherwise if you're not sure what your interested in, you should check out the free online college courses. Maybe you'll find a subject area that interests you.

Fox

Mon, Apr 20 2015, 5:03 pm

Start by analyzing what you like and don't like about teaching. For many of us in education, the actual teaching part is what we like best -- it's the extra responsibilities that get us down.

Figure out which tasks you enjoy and which are making you unhappy -- you'll be better able to figure out a career change that makes sense.

amother

Burlywood

Tue, Apr 21 2015, 8:57 am

Fox wrote:

I love the actual teaching, but all the extra responsibilities and dealing with crazy/obnoxious parents isn't worth it to me anymore. I also want a job that I come home and don't have hours of prep work and phone calls to parents to make. Especially since the parents are rude. Maybe it's just the school I work in, but some of the parents are so nasty that it's no wonder their children have major social and emotional issues.

Fox

Tue, Apr 21 2015, 1:24 pm

Think about jobs that involve transmitting knowledge to people, but *not* in a traditional school setting.

Some ideas that come to mind:

* Training and/or instruction design in a corporate environment.

* Making presentations for a non-profit organization.

* Working in high-end technical support.

* Working in a retirement community as a residential life director.

* Working as a writer or instructional designer for filmmakers who specialize in creating health care videos or similar instructional or informational films for corporate clients.

* Working as a benefits analyst for an energy company (someone who researches and counsels potential corporate clients about the tax and other financial incentives to improve energy efficiency).

* Designing training materials for nursing homes, home health care agencies, and other health care settings.

* Working in an administrative role in a college or university such as recruitment, university publications, residential life, or career development.

These are just a few things I've thought of while sitting on hold -- there are obviously many more!

Although I no longer teach in a classroom setting, I've found my graduate work in adult education and instructional design to be incredibly useful and applicable to a wide variety of settings and industries.

Teachers develop tons of skills that are desperately needed by virtually every employer in an information-based economy. Your job is simply to figure out what kind of setting you would most enjoy, and then find someone willing to pay for your expertise.

amother

Olive

Tue, Apr 21 2015, 3:47 pm

rachel6543 wrote:

I'm not the OP but I never heard of this as a field. I'm looking for a career and I have a background in education. Thank you so much for this information!

amother

Mustard

Tue, Apr 21 2015, 9:53 pm

Librarian. It s a 2 year masters, some places less if not combined with information science. A degree in education will provide great background. Most programs are prob 90% women! and there are a lot of online programs as well.

Best part of being a school librarian is you get to work with the kids teaching them to be information literate without the headache of major lesson planning, dealing with parents, conferences, grades and all the out of class work. You do have to maintain the collection but you don't have to deal with others. You are there to support the educational goals of the institution without having to actually accomplish them.

Anon because many people would recognize me as a librarian Wink

amother

Olive

Wed, Apr 22 2015, 2:10 am

amother wrote:

I'm the amother above this post. This is even better! For a long time, I wanted to look into being a librarian, but it fell by the wayside and I pursued other things. This is amazing!

Is it hard to find jobs in this field? Also, do you need any prerequisites? I have a BA in english.

Thanks so much in advance!

amother

Blonde

Wed, Apr 22 2015, 2:40 am

I was surprised to find that as a (VERY quickly) burnt-out teacher, I needed no other qualifications in order to go into educational publishing. I saw a job listing of a nearby publisher, applied, and got a job as an editor. Ended up working on mostly technology-related things, but all textbook materials seem to be shifting to that lately.

PAMOM

Thu, May 14 2015, 9:33 pm

OP, this is a totally different direction, but I know several people with degrees in education who went to work for insurance agencies. The agencies trained them after they were hired, in some cases to then train others. I also know someone in education who runs children's programs at a small zoo. Look at a site called Idealist and put in your location and whatever search terms you want to try.

amother

Blonde

Fri, May 15 2015, 4:43 am

amother wrote:

Another burnt out teacher here looking to transition into educational work outside the classroom. How do I find these jobs? How do I break in? Many of the postings I'm seeing require experience in those areas. How do I make the switch?

I guess it depends on where you are and what your degree is in. I would look up textbook companies in your area and see if they have any job openings that fit your skills. If you have a degree Math/Science/History/English in particular, that probably makes it easier to get a job as an editor in that field, but if you taught you must have enough experience in at least one of those subjects. If you're not near any publishing companies, there are "freelance exam writing" jobs out there, but for that you also need expertise in a subject (probably more so) and I would imagine they're much more difficult to make full-time.

amother

Black

Fri, May 15 2015, 10:48 am

It would be helpful to those who might have work if you articulate not just your interests but your strengths and skills. Having writing or editing samples can be helpful as well.

Posting these things here might even result in recommendations or introductions.

Bumping this post as I didn't see any response. Very Happy

amother

Ruby

Fri, May 15 2015, 10:57 am

amother wrote:

Thank you. I have a masters in my subject and live in NY. I've only been teaching for 2 years. Definitely interested in possibly working for a textbook or testing company. Which companies should I look into?

amother

Ruby

Fri, May 15 2015, 11:50 am

nyer1 wrote:

perhaps you would be interested in educational consulting or curriculum design? what about school administration? private tutoring?

I don't know if you're talking to me or OP. I do some private tutoring already but not enough to make a parnossah. I don't have nearly enough classroom experience to go into administration. I would be interested in consulting or curriculum design, but have no idea how to break into either of those. I am young and don't have much experience under my belt, and most of the job postings I've seen ask for 5+ years experience, with some experience in actual curriculum design (which I really don't have very much of other than tweaking what the school already had in place). SO how would I get started?

nyer1

Fri, May 15 2015, 12:01 pm

amother wrote:

was talking to the op.