I know you are frustrated. You feel stuck. You wanted to teach. You want the best for your students. But this is too much. You feel that you do not have any option but to follow whatever your principal wants you to do. I used to feel helpless too. That’s why I resigned in 2015. But I was not ready. Oh yes, I had another job line up, well more of a business. I was already buying things on sale from a nearby Target and selling them for profit at Amazon before I resigned. I thought I was ready to earn on my own. Wrong. I was not ready.
I went back to the classroom in 2017. Same school district, different school, and the best classroom set-up I had after 12 years of teaching. But this time, I went back with a different mindset. I went back thinking I must always have another option. I must be ready. Sure enough, something happened.
My school had a substitute problem. That means, we were “highly encouraged” by the principal to give up our planning period to be substitutes for a fee. Some love it. They earn double. I don’t. I want to use my planning period to plan for the next day. And frankly, I don’t want to be a sub to HS freshmen during their last period. It just drains me. Whenever I am so tired, I just think about the options I have. I felt empowered. I can resign but I chose not to. So I did the next best thing, I told my principal what I really think about it. He listened. And I was able to survive another school year. Yet the following year, the sub problem became worst. And my admin seem to see only my errors. Constantly. Long story short, I opted out of the classroom.
I left the classroom before the pandemic and whenever I read stories of teachers being forced to go back to the classroom; I cringe. I understand. My reason for opting out seems irrelevant compared to whatever is happening now. But I can do something. I can share what what options are out there. I brainstormed and put together everything that I have been trying since I first resigned. Below is a spectrum of options that I tried or still doing. I put them together and this framework came up.
If you just want to earn money to pay the bills, there are a lot of non-teaching options out there or online. Companies are always looking for salesperson. What I will show you are options that will take advantage of your teaching experience. But with a twist. Everything will be from a teacher’s perspective. I call it Teacher Career Options Framework.
If you are looking for a quick career change, this is not for you. But this framework will help you think and plan. It will also help you avoid mistakes that I made. I’ll soon post a one teacher career option for everyone to read so you can find out if it will help you. The rest of the posts will be for my supporters. If you want to be updated please follow my page at Ko-Fi or in Facebook.
