So here I am at the beginning of a new journey. I am making this post today to make my introduction and to talk about something I learned.
I was a teacher until about two months. I have taught for more than 15 years in total and done much work in special education. I wont go on too much about it at this point however, I finally made the tough decision to leave teaching once and for all.
Teaching has been my entire life (outside of raising my own family) for the last 15 or so years. I have tried before to make the decision to leave but I just was always to scared to leave what I knew and was comfortable with. Even after I completed my Master's in Digital Innovation in 2021, I still didn't feel confident to leave the career and to be honest I am still not 100% that I can do something else. With that being said here is what I have learned in the past month or so:
That as a teacher I have to been lead to believe that I can only be a teacher and that this is a career I should stay in no matter what. Even as I drove home after my last day of teaching thoughts of what my new career could entail crossed my mind and before I knew it I was back to thinking about teaching/education related jobs. This is not to say that those skills I will gain in the near future could not lend themselves back to an educational position however my goal is for a new career. I have learned that being "a teacher" is so ingrained in me that I even when trying to transition out it is a difficult concept to get my head around.
I have many teacher friends and as I had given noticed that I would not return to teaching a surprising amount of my colleagues also expressed that they would like to leave but they all had the same feelings/thoughts that I had such as: What else could they do, how else could they do it, and they have been teaching for so long that leaving would be very difficult.
I learned that teachers have been taught that this is all we can do, teach, and that leads so many of us to staying even after we are ready to move on. I learned that I have to know that this line of thinking is in fact not true and that I can transition out of that career and be successful in new profession.
So with all that being said I am on the journey to learn about software development, UX/UI and so much more and hope that I can have the confidence to make successful career out of it in the end.
If you have some advice to share with me as I get started I would love to hear it!
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