Second career ideas? Would teaching be a mistake?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ditto the coming home completely spent, and starting at the beginning salary no matter your past experience.

Coming from a creative office environment to teaching, I’m blown away by the number of people who can’t write a professional sounding email to save their lives, and those who reply all to 250 people. The people who lack the work-skills like, such as making a user friendly spreadsheet/ document and basic clear communication. I’ve been here over 10 years and it still bugs me. I have some very smart coworkers who are good at what they do, but have absolutely no patience for those who don’t.

Especially coming from project management, I’m assuming you are used to knowing how to organize and communicate information efficiently- and teaching will be…different.

+1. I am a career changer to teaching (from fed project management) and I have been blown away by how unprofessional other teachers are. They communicate so poorly, it is really mind boggling.

[Anonymous]

The tricky part about teaching is that the good teaching positions are hard to get precisely because they are good positions. There are always going to be 'high need' positions in SPED and ELL and Foreign Languages because those jobs are hard. At the same time, they can be very rewarding. It's quite hard to get the easier positions like high school social studies where there are tons of applicants. Those jobs are few and far between.

As others have said, think carefully about what you want to teach in terms of what age group you like working with. Regarding the poor work life balance, I might wait a few years until both of your kids get past the sick-very-frequently stage in daycare. It has made a big difference for me that I switched to teaching after my son was old enough to stay home alone when sick. (And my district is very supportive about sick leave).

Have you considered nursing or physical therapy assistant?

[Anonymous]

Be prepared to know that you will start at $70,000, maybe just a little more. Your experience is not classroom based experience unless you have explicit international teaching classroom experience .... many school districts won't give you credit for that.

This high teaching salaries come with a Master's degree + classroom experience.

MCPS will give you credits for the master degree though. So you will be at a master's degree, step 1

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/siteassets/district/departments/ersc/employees/pay/schedules/fy26_mcea_10-month_salary_schedules_eff_7.1.25.pdf

You could make more in DCPS, but they also count salary steps like MCPS. And DCPS is not for the weak!

[Anonymous]

Tutoring dyslexic children.
https://www.asdec.org/certification

[Anonymous]

Some VA school districts have started crediting career switchers for non teaching work experience in addition to master’s degrees that aren’t directly related to teaching. There’s enough of a teacher shortage that some counties have become much more competitive in trying to secure talent. It’s a good idea to apply to multiple counties as that potentially gives you more leverage.

[Anonymous]

Do you have strong interpersonal skills? Are you adept at thinking on your feet? Do you have gravitas? Can you command a room with your presence? Does bullsh*t roll off your back?

If you answered “no” to any of the above, then you will probably not be effective in today’s teaching environment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you have strong interpersonal skills? Are you adept at thinking on your feet? Do you have gravitas? Can you command a room with your presence? Does bullsh*t roll off your back?

If you answered “no” to any of the above, then you will probably not be effective in today’s teaching environment.

Can you be on the “go” for six hours a day without a true opportunity to recharge? Can you triage a never-ending avalanche of work without getting overwhelmed? Can you navigate the disconnect between mandated initiatives and your students actual needs?

[Anonymous]

What about tutoring instead? Some of that can even be done on Zoom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tutoring dyslexic children.
https://www.asdec.org/certification

I am in ASDEC’s program. It is wonderful, and I am thrilled to be teaching dyslexic kids to read. But it is a two-year, $10,000 investment with 200 class hours and 700 hours of supervised teaching. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to make more than $5,000/month, and that is working full time, driving a lot, and working most evenings and weekends. There just aren’t enough paying students in the area, and not enough after school hours to carry enough of a caseload to make a living.

If you are semiretired and want a meaningful next chapter, or of you are a teacher whose district will pay for the training it’s awesome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you have strong interpersonal skills? Are you adept at thinking on your feet? Do you have gravitas? Can you command a room with your presence? Does bullsh*t roll off your back?

If you answered “no” to any of the above, then you will probably not be effective in today’s teaching environment.

I’m a teacher and you’re being ridiculous. Just stop it.

[Anonymous]

Don't do this to yourself. Figure out something else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you have strong interpersonal skills? Are you adept at thinking on your feet? Do you have gravitas? Can you command a room with your presence? Does bullsh*t roll off your back?

If you answered “no” to any of the above, then you will probably not be effective in today’s teaching environment.

I’m a teacher and you’re being ridiculous. Just stop it.

So am I. Every effective teacher I know has these qualities.

[Anonymous]

No way if you have little kids. It is truly draining work. I’m an ESOL teacher which may be at slightly less draining because I work with small groups of students all day. But schools are extremely overstimulating places and it is too much most days. I’m asleep by 8pm every Friday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ditto the coming home completely spent, and starting at the beginning salary no matter your past experience.

Coming from a creative office environment to teaching, I’m blown away by the number of people who can’t write a professional sounding email to save their lives, and those who reply all to 250 people. The people who lack the work-skills like, such as making a user friendly spreadsheet/ document and basic clear communication. I’ve been here over 10 years and it still bugs me. I have some very smart coworkers who are good at what they do, but have absolutely no patience for those who don’t.

Especially coming from project management, I’m assuming you are used to knowing how to organize and communicate information efficiently- and teaching will be…different.

+1. I am a career changer to teaching (from fed project management) and I have been blown away by how unprofessional other teachers are. They communicate so poorly, it is really mind boggling.

Given the low pay and challenges, our best and brightest T20 students are not going into teaching. More common from small and regional schools.