Sarah Sterner is a science teacher turned instructional designer and learning experience designer. In this episode, we talk all about why she left teaching and how she is leveraging her experience outside of the classroom to continue to grow in her career.
Listen to the episode in the podcast player below, or find it on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
Climbing the corporate ladder in ID
Daphne:
Hey, Sarah, thank you so much for being here today.
Sarah:
Oh, thank you. I’m excited to be here.
Daphne:
I know we have been connected online, offline, for a few years, and there are a lot of teachers who are following you actually on LinkedIn. But probably for the majority of the audience, this might be the first time that they’ve been exposed to you. So do you mind sharing a little bit about who you are and your experience working in education?
Sarah:
Yeah, absolutely. So I was a science teacher, a middle school science teacher, in a northeastern district of Atlanta. So I taught for almost a little over five years and met my wife on the job. My wife was my mentor, and so, that was really great. And we taught at the same school. As you can imagine, being openly gay teachers in Georgia in the same school and getting married and having the same last name and stuff was a risk and an adventure.
And we taught at the same school for many, many years. And then, we had an opportunity to go to a new school, which we knew was in a different part of the district, that was demographically different, and that there was potential for the community to not be as accepting of us as the prior school’s community was. That was a correct assumption of far earlier than we would realize of, basically, I had a parent who started targeting me before the school year even started in 2021, because I was an openly gay teacher and I had shared that we were expecting our first child. We had done IVF. My wife was pregnant, which I thought was a pretty normal thing to share, and just. . .
Daphne:
Probably, the kids would’ve figured it out with her as well.
Sarah:
And some people took issue with the IVF piece of that, and I’m like, “Well, I figured it’s better to share that detail and maybe have it be too much information than not have enough.” Because then I don’t want rumors going around about, “Well, how did she get pregnant?” And it’s like, “Well, there, I’m just answering it for you.” It’s just like, that way, there’s no extra speculation needed. It’s obviously not anyone’s business, but just, if it shuts down the potential for rumors, then I will just share that ahead of time.
But needless to say, none of that went well. The district that I was working for, they did not ever tell me that I had done anything wrong, but they also, at the same time, sort of made it my fault and tried to come up with sort of sham things to punish me for, as a way to be able to tell this parent that they did something, so that the parent would go away. The parent did not go away and just kind of kept pushing. And so, all of this is culminating around the time where my wife was seven and a half months pregnant and experiencing high blood pressure, experiencing complications.
And so, my plan was, “I’m going to have parental leave soon. I need to be able to find a job, so that I can find a job while I’m on parental leave and not have to return after parental leave.” And our son was due October 15th, so I was like, “Okay, just need to make it to October. I’ll find a job on leave and not come back,” which was a great plan. All this started in August, literally beginning of the school year, so kind of casually started looking at jobs, but I’m not going to lie, I really thought that it was going to blow over and just kind of pass and wouldn’t be a big deal and I maybe wouldn’t have to find a new job.
Because nobody I knew had ever done that. Nobody I knew had ever pivoted out of education, certainly not [inaudible 00:04:34]. So I didn’t really know what I was doing, frankly, but it just felt like something I needed to do. That really came to a head when I had a particularly contentious discussion with a certain HR leader, who made it pretty clear that she had her own biases against my community and wasn’t interested in defending me at all to this parent, and basically told me I should be grateful I wasn’t fired for God knows what.
No, she never quite finished that sentence. And so, after that conversation, it was just very clear to me of “I cannot stay. . . I cannot continue to be a teacher. I cannot be in this environment. We’re about to have our first child. I need to be mentally healthy and whole for my son, and I can’t do that if I’m having to worry about being who I am in the classroom and worry about community members targeting me, just because I have a wife.” And so, that was a big revelation for me, and that was a scary revelation as well. So all of that’s happening. And then, within three or four days after that revelation, my wife was hospitalized at 33 weeks and five days of gestation, and we learned, early on in that hospitalization, that she would not be leaving the hospital until after the baby was born.
So the hope was to keep the baby in until 37 weeks and induce or whatever. That plan also did not last long. She ended up having an emergency C-section a few days later, and our son was born six weeks early. So all of this is happening around the time that I had started pushing out hundreds of applications a day. And I’m not exaggerating that it was an obsessive survival mode job hunt that was not healthy. I do not recommend it to anybody, but it was effective, to be fair. So I was starting to get interviews and stuff. So I am interviewing from my wife’s hospital room. I’m interviewing from the NICU, for all kinds of positions, frankly. I had my master’s in instructional technology, so ID sounded like a reasonable next step. I didn’t actually know much about ID. I was learning on the fly trying to sound competent in these interviews, because I hadn’t done any of these things before.
I knew I had the skills to be able to do it and to be able to learn it, but I didn’t have experience. I think my degree actually made it sound like I had more experience than I did. And so, that was an advantage that I’m not going to lie, that helped. But even I was even interviewing for sales positions. I, frankly, that does not sound like my cup of tea. I would not have probably liked working in sales, but it was just a matter of “I’ve got to find anything to get out and not teach here anymore.”
And so, yeah, it was a wild, wild ride. I was on LinkedIn, but I never posted anything. I don’t think I ever posted anything until after I ended up getting my first job out of education. I didn’t really understand the purpose of LinkedIn posting. So it was kind of an interesting thing being a sort of passenger in LinkedIn and then, kind of accidentally becoming a driver, which I’ll talk about, I guess, in a minute. But my transition out of the classroom was very sudden, not well planned, don’t recommend the way I did it, but it happened and I’m grateful it happened.
Daphne:
Yeah. And if you don’t mind sharing, one, congratulations on your first child. You’re also expecting a second pretty soon now, but besides the birth of your first child, did you ever have any indication that it might not be your forever career in your first few years of teaching?
Sarah:
Absolutely. Yeah. With my wife being my mentor, even when I started teaching, so she was in her 13th, 14th year of teaching when I first started, she was already pretty burned out. And so, because we were working in the same department and things, some of the factors relating to that burnout, I was able to help her with. But then, over time, and especially with the pandemic, I knew I probably didn’t want to be a classroom teacher for 30 years.
I just saw that, and that didn’t scare me or anything. So that was actually why I chose instructional technology as my master’s degree, because A, as a teacher, as I’m sure most of you know, at least in my state, getting advanced degrees was the only way to get a pay increase. So I was like, “Well, I need to get another degree, because I want to raise, but I would like to get it in something that isn’t just for teaching. So I don’t want to get it in science education. I don’t even really want to get it in curriculum, because those aren’t as applicable to the outside world.” And I didn’t really know what instructional technology would do for me outside of teaching, but I just knew that that had a more general sound and possible application to the private sector. So it just was a safety net thing that I did. Not really picturing my transition out, but just knew that it would help if or when I ever did want to.
Sarah talks about her first role outside of the classroom in instructional design
Daphne:
And it sounds like you are pretty tech savvy, so let’s talk about your first role outside of the classroom. That was an instructional design position, correct?
Sarah:
Yes, it was.
Daphne:
And did you look into instructional design, because you naturally felt a little bit more inclined to work with technology or you enjoy that aspect of creating things?
Sarah:
Yeah, I definitely did. When I was a teacher, I was very into trying new EdTech tools. I was usually piloting things. I was usually teaching professional developments on things, and I was finding tools that nobody had heard of. And I’m not saying that as a pat on my back. I was just a nerd, and I liked trying exciting new things. I wanted to make science engaging for kids. I wanted to make kids excited about coming to school or even learning online. I ended up being one of the kind of more prominent online teachers as we were sort of straddling that return to school/still staying online type thing. And I loved the challenge of that, of trying to take something that is usually so hands-on, like science, and translate that to an online environment for 11 year olds, who are not super tech savvy, but curious and they want to learn things. And I loved that challenge of trying to find workarounds and simple ways to recreate that experience online. It was fun, but it was also very tiring. It definitely led to some burnout.
Daphne:
With your new role, did you find that there is better work-life balance once you shifted into instructional design?
Sarah:
Yes, to an unsettling degree, frankly. I think, when teaching was my first and only other career experience, that sets the tone for what you believe is normal about working and about leaders and work expectations and your job. And so, when I transitioned into an instructional design position, with a company that had a really great culture and great leaders, great people I worked for and worked with, that were just very all about mental health and supporting employees, and I almost didn’t know what to do with myself. It was too good to be true. That was really how it felt for a long time. It took a long time to believe that nobody was looking over my shoulder trying to find things I was doing wrong or not doing, which is not me. I’m a hard worker and I’m a rule follower. But yeah, it was a crazy amount of work-life balance.
Daphne:
I feel like, when your first career comes with all the challenges that teaching comes with, and then, also, sometimes, we come from work environments that are not very professional, not very supportive, not very collaborative in the education space, and then, we go into these corporate environments and we’re expecting it to almost be more cold or harder like “Oh, well, if this is what sunshine and rainbows and stickers and fifth graders are like, then what’s going to happen when I go to this Fortune 500 company or this corporation? They’re going to be big boss businessman who’s just completely cold and cruel.” And then, when you see the opposite, I think that’s such a shock for so many teachers and so many former teachers, once they really realized that.
Sarah:
And I think, again, an interesting litmus test for me was going from an environment where I had basically gotten in trouble for being gay, if we just want to call a spade a spade, to corporate environments where LGBTQ diversity is celebrated and welcomed and affirmed, I was just like, “This is awesome, but also is kind of mind boggling.” I choose to believe that that is probably how the majority of workplaces are now, but just so much the opposite in education that it is wild.
Daphne:
The discrepancy between a heterosexual teacher and being able to show, “Here’s a picture of my family and let me talk about family on back to school night” and that expectation of you having zero identity is so hard on so many people and it’s so unfair. And I could talk about that for an entire podcast episode, I feel like. But I’m so happy that you were able to use this to help leverage yourself into a better situation, because ultimately, unfortunately, I don’t think that that problem is going away anytime soon. There isn’t going to be a huge resolve for teachers who are struggling with being able to just be human and also teachers at the same time. You were at your first instructional design position for a little bit over a year, correct?
Sarah:
Yeah. About a year and a half. Yep.
Daphne:
What made you start looking for other jobs beyond that? Because that’s something I really wanted to talk to you about as well is I know you’ve been able to, it’s not necessarily successfully pivot, these were all stepping stone careers, but you were able to continue to climb and change corporations or change places where you were working and climb the corporate ladder in a pretty short amount of time. And I’d love to hear your first experience. When did you start looking for other jobs? Or what did that process look like after you left the classroom and were in that first position?
Sarah:
Yeah, so first of all, the decision to try to even look for another job when I was in the position that I was in with my first job out of education was wonderful. And I loved the people, I loved the work, I loved the mission of the organization. I was really, really happy there. And so, it was so different from my previous job hunt, of where I was like, “I have to get out right now, because it’s an emergency” kind of thing. And so, the choice to even consider looking was different this time. What it really came down to was money. We were looking at trying to have another child, and daycare is practically another mortgage payment here. And I just wasn’t making an amount that would support another mortgage payment, frankly.
And so, that was a really hard thing to have to reckon with was “These two things aren’t going to be able to work together. I can’t stay here and also accomplish the personal goals that I have with my family.” So that was really bittersweet, but my managers were very understanding, very kind and supportive about it. And so, there was no ill will, no hard feelings there. But I started probably January, February of this year looking, and then, I kind of utilized the same processes that I had done with my first job hunt. I had also helped my wife with her job hunt a couple months after my first switch. So for better or for worse, I’m kind of used to this. And put together a resume, got some great advice from some friends on LinkedIn, and started applying and ended up, I think I applied to 150 or so positions.
I got interviews at 15 to 20 of those. Some dropped off after the first interview, but I probably had about 10 roles that I made it more than one round. And then, it just got really competitive from there. And the company that I really wanted is the one that I ended up getting, which I was super, super grateful for. And that came with a pretty steep pay increase, which has been really nice for trying to add onto the family. I wish it felt more exciting in this world of inflation, but it’s definitely I wouldn’t have been able to stay at my last job with this economy.
Sarah discusses the competition for jobs outside of the classroom
Daphne:
And one thing that I love that you shared the actual number of how many applications you sent out. Obviously, it’s just kind of like a rough estimate of 150, but this is after you already had experience outside the classroom, you were showing that you had a portfolio, a resume, with years of experience in this field. So was this something that surprised you when you left the classroom, how competitive jobs really are for these types of positions?
Sarah:
I’m going to be honest with you, honestly, no. And I think that’s maybe where my mindset was a little bit different than other teachers, because I’m an only child, so maybe that plays into it of, I think, I’ve always just… I knew that getting out of teaching wasn’t going to be just some easy thing. I think it’s very different from, in the world of teaching. I was just thinking about this earlier, because I knew we were going to be talking about some of this to a degree, I think, when you’re a teacher, you’re used to kind of doing things in packs. There’s a very strong sense of comradery amongst teachers. There’s a very strong culture of group learning, even getting advanced degrees.
Half of those are in-house cohort programs. So you’re even professionally advancing your own career in the context of working with other people. So this idea that you would go out and have to fend for yourself and upskill for yourself and apply and break into these job markets where there are other people with more experience than you in that field that you’re trying to get into, I knew that going in. And so, I guess that was just something that I always had in my mind, because my dad’s a salesman. And so, I just always heard in my head of, “I’m going to have to sell myself to these people. It’s on me to show them why I can meet their needs, even though I don’t have the specific things on my resume they might be looking for.”
That part just wasn’t even… It is hard for me, I think, sometimes to understand and see the people who are like, “Oh, I’ve been applying for a year or whatever and nothing’s happening.” And just sort of this sort. And I don’t say that to imply that anyone is less than or that they’re not doing things right, but I think there is this sentiment that it’s a more passive process than it is or that there is going to be somebody who walks along the road with you and helps you get what you want. And that’s just not how I’ve ever seen it. And I think that has been to my advantage in a way.
Daphne:
Yeah, I’ve seen that quite a bit. And we have coaching calls with people in the Teacher Career Coach Course and people DMing us all the time, and they’re at this level of frustration of, “I have done so much. I’ve been trying so hard, and this is literally impossible.” And then, they’ll say something or we’ll ask a clarifying question, and they’ll say something around the lines of, “Well, I have been applying for four months time, but I’ve sent out about 25 total applications, because I’m being really, really picky with the types of roles that I’m applying for.” And we’re like, “Okay, that’s unfortunately…”
It’s not a numbers game necessarily when you still need to be tweaking your resume and all the other parts of it. If these were really hardcore aligned with exactly what your resume says and very strategic, and you have people who are ins at the company. But this is just, it does feel a little bit, like you said, more passive. And unfortunately, this was a wake up call for me was I thought that it was competitive for me to get into some of the teaching positions when I was changing districts. I thought like, “Oh, that was kind of challenging.”
And then, it was a real big kick in the butt when I finally moved to other careers, where it doesn’t take specialized credential for you to apply for that role in a specific demographic you’re working, in the exact district within a driving distance. When these remote roles open up, everyone who’s had any experience even close to it are also applying for those same positions. So that can be a wake up call.
Sarah shares her experience using LinkedIn in her job search
I know that you and I have also talked a lot about your presence on LinkedIn, how you kind of became a little mini LinkedIn influencer, but also, some of the conversations that teachers are having on LinkedIn posts like “I’ve applied for so many jobs, and this is impossible,” honestly, being detrimental to their job search, that they’re on LinkedIn using it as a platform. So do you mind sharing a little bit about your journey into using LinkedIn and how that went down?
Sarah:
Yeah, that was completely by accident. So this is always really funny to talk about, because again, like I said earlier, I was on LinkedIn for the sole purpose of just finding a new job. And I also couldn’t tell anybody that I was finding a new job. I was still under contract. I couldn’t go on and really tell people what had even happened, which was really toxic in a lot of ways. Of course, when I was interviewing and people are asking me why I’m leaving teaching, I told employers in interviews, because I was like, “Honestly, I can’t even make up a story that sounds. That’s just what happened, and it sucks. And they’ll either be okay with that and sympathetic or they won’t. And I can’t worry about it.”
So I didn’t post anything on LinkedIn, and I think I really looked at it as “My life is a disaster right now. So I don’t know what I would have to offer to this community. I do not have any good advice. I don’t have anything to add to this conversation, because I’m brand new to this field.” So it was probably a good month after I got my ID job, which I had not started yet either, because thankfully, they allowed me to delay my start date, so that I could have my parental leave that I had saved up as a teacher. So I was super lucky with that. But my very first post that I ever made was my honest-to-god reflection on what it felt like to be cleaning out my classroom when I never thought I would be, frankly, and certainly not. And at the time, my wife was still, she was on maternity leave, but she was still employed there and was also going to be returning as a teacher there.
And so, that was a very profound day in my life of just having to physically close my teaching career in that way, when I frankly didn’t want to. I didn’t feel like it was my choice. It was my choice and I’m glad I made that choice, but I felt like it had been made for me. And that was hard, I think, at the time. And so, it was just a post of my feelings, my sadness, my anger, my hurt, but also, just kind of a call to action of like, “We’ve got to do better.” And it’s been really hard to see how things have evolved in the last two years, to be honest with you, because I think I wanted my situation to be an isolated incident that didn’t happen to anybody else. I did not want to see this get worse as a cultural issue.
And it has gotten worse, and I’m now having teachers message me from, they have been in the paper, because they read a book about accepting all people to a group of elementary school students who voted to read the book. And she got the book in their local book fair. Another teacher, who is being targeted for being too involved in the clubs that they lead, because those clubs have to do with LGTQ acceptance and social justice and things. And it’s hard to see that, not only was I not an isolated incident, but it’s becoming more common. And I know the feelings that those teachers are going through. So basically, when I posted that first post, that went viral on LinkedIn. And so, all of these people just started following me. I was honored, in a way, to be seen by that many people.
But also, the imposter syndrome is so real, because I was like, “I haven’t even started my new job yet. I did this and I got out, and I’m proud of myself for getting out.” But it was very haphazard. It was not a polished clean job search, following best practices for resumes and applications and interviews. It was messy and ugly and bad strategies, bad practice. It worked, which yay, but can’t say I recommend any of these things. And I’m not qualified to comment on your job hunt. So it’s been a weird two…. And so, obviously, I’ve gotten more comfortable sharing my opinions. I’ve tried to learn this space a bit better, but I’ve also just really tried to pay attention to what is actually going on on LinkedIn. As I mentioned to you kind of off recording, the way my job search went down, I didn’t have the luxury of time to go through a program like yours or anybody’s.
I didn’t even frankly know these existed. And when I found out they existed, I was like, “I got to find a new job in the next six weeks. I can’t do this, and I don’t have extra money to devote to it either, because I might be unemployed soon.” So to see all of these great things, many great options are out there for teachers who do have more time and want more structure with their job hunt and things and help figuring out what they want to do next, and that’s awesome. But there’s also a lot of grifters, and it’s really disgusting, frankly, is the word I would use. I have very specifically not ever marketed my services, because I don’t have services. I’m not an expert, and I wish people were more comfortable saying that themselves.
Daphne:
LinkedIn is, I would say, probably one of my least favorite places on the internet, the way that it makes me feel every time I go on there. Because like you said, there’s a lot of really great resources, a lot of people giving really good advice. There’s a lot of people who are, with big hearts, giving not so good advice, and then, getting in fights with other people who are trying to politely correct them of, “Hey, maybe don’t say this, because it might work once in one unique circumstance, but overall, general best practice, it’s not the best advice.”
And it has become, in this space, really hard to navigate what’s good and what’s bad. But I also want to go back to what you said about you didn’t really use it much during your career hunt, and this is where I think a lot of the disconnect is is teachers get on LinkedIn, when they’re in the middle of their transition, and they see everyone who is overposting or oversharing, in order to try and build their own audience, and they don’t necessarily realize you don’t have to do that. And often oversharing before you understand the space you’re in or who you’re trying to write to or what you’re doing is potentially what is keeping you from getting those interviews.
You don’t have to have a single post, you don’t have to have a single comment, but if your posts or your comments are, “Hey, here’s an update from my job search. I’m not doing so well. This is really confusing,” or “I’m really overwhelmed,” that’s not something you would necessarily say in an interview. So it’s not what you want on a post or a comment on LinkedIn, where hiring managers are going to see it.
Sarah:
No, and that’s been my thought as well. And at the same time, in some ways, I guess I respect that level of transparency. I think it’s good, in some ways, for teachers to see that this isn’t easy and this isn’t a fast process. And so, I think some level of that and some level of that sharing is healthy, but it, very, very quickly, becomes unprofessional and potentially a detriment to your hunt. And so, I think those are better conversations to be having in more private groups of there needs to be a place to vent those feelings, but maybe not with everybody kind of thing.
Daphne:
100%. I think that finding a private group or finding a safe space or texting a friend just LinkedIn posts and comments. One of the ways that I’ve always described this, and I think you can probably relate to it, if we were fortunate enough to be in the process of hiring for someone to come to our home, let’s say a nanny, and we were looking up the history of three different nannies, and two of them wrote, “I’m not even quite sure I wanted to be a nanny a month and a half before,” or they wrote something around the lines of, “Hey, I don’t really know how to do overnight stays” or “I don’t know how to do diapers. I’m really confused. Can someone walk me through it?” Even though they’ve had that month and a half to actually learn it, even if they did really well in the interview, if all three nannies were all the exact same, you would get a little bit scared of the two that overshared.
You’d be looking for things, because they were showing breadcrumbs of where they were in the process. And it’s not necessarily something you, as a potential employer, want to see. It doesn’t alleviate those concerns. And right now, employers are looking for people who are the furthest along. They’re looking for the people who are self-sufficient and pulling themselves up and learning on their own, with really great mindsets, and are also really confident that the job they’re applying for is a job they would do for a couple of years. That’s what hiring managers really want is someone who knows what they’re going to do. So if you’re on LinkedIn saying, “I don’t know what I want to do,” that’s that “I don’t know if I even like nannying. Do I even want to be a nanny?”
Sarah:
It’s so spot on. And I think that goes back to the way I handled it when I was first transitioning was I really took that to heart. A, I knew my net resume needed to be on point, so that I could get interviews. That’s, A, the first step. I just need everyone to back up of, if you’re not getting interviews, it is your resume, period, end of story. That is the ticket to an interview. So I knew that, if I could get interviews, that I could have a way to talk about being… I wanted to be very honest about my experience, because I definitely didn’t want to get into a job where I was in over my head and getting into a worse situation kind of thing. So I kind of developed this very basic format of, “I don’t have experience in this, but here’s what I do have. I don’t have experience with this LMS, but here’s the LMS I am familiar with. And here’s what I’ve done and here’s how I think it could translate to the thing that you’re asking about.”
And I think everybody has got to figure out what that script looks like for them, and you need to practice it and you need to be confident in it. Because I think another thing that probably happens a lot with teachers in interviews is you don’t have that preparation for those questions. And so, you don’t know how to answer or you’re just answering with the first part of that, which is like, “Well, actually, I don’t have a lot of experience with that.” And then, you’re ending that sentence with a period, and they’re like, “Oh, okay.” So there’s more to that sentence, hopefully. And if there’s not, you can be very honest about that too and say, “But I’m really willing to learn. Here’s all the things I’m doing.” But I think there’s just a lot of small missteps that happen in a lot of teachers’ job hunts that completely undo their progress or their chances, that could be easily fixed, essentially.
Daphne:
And a lot of it, that confidence piece is huge, and it’s not something that comes overnight. It comes with practicing the skills, practicing whatever tiny tasks you can do, that are similar to what the job is, learning about the job, whether it’s on LinkedIn Learning or whatever program can kind of quickly teach you, “Hey, give me 30 minutes of what a customer success manager does.”
And that way, in those interviews, you’re able to say, “Hey, I know how important X is to this job. I don’t have full experience with that particular skill, but I have this other skill that’s really similar and I can see how these skills are similar. And this skill, it only took me X amount of time for me to teach myself this. I taught myself this on my own, because I was so excited about implementing it in this way. And that’s how I know I would be really great at this particular role is because how connected these things are.” You’re going to have to connect those dots for people. But such great advice. When you are on LinkedIn, do you have a couple of favorite people to actual follow on there, that you would suggest other people follow?
Sarah:
Oh, definitely. This is a tricky one, because I have so much. So first of all, I want to say the algorithm is sometimes not the most helpful, so there are probably a lot more people that I wish I was following that I just don’t happen to see anymore. Heidi Kirby’s always been a fave. Tim Slade. I definitely got some good snippets from the TPLD group at the time, and you, of course. Your podcast was great.
There is a lot of good stuff out there, and there are a lot of really reputable people, who are offering genuinely good advice for low to no cost. But for every one of those, there’s probably at least five offering not as good advice, who they maybe haven’t been out in the field very long. They don’t really know what they’re talking about, but the algorithm is feeding them people and views. And so, that’s an addictive feeling for some people. And so, they just kind of keep saying things, regardless of whether or not those things are necessarily based in fact. So yeah, I would just say, use your best judgment. All the tips you give people usually are really good of how long have they been in the field, what kinds of things are they saying? Anybody who is advising you to pay them thousands upon thousands of dollars or to lie about being a teacher or. . . Just use your critical thinking skills, teachers. Just do your due diligence.
Again, I didn’t use any of these programs, so I can’t fully vouch for them, but I’ve always appreciated Daphne’s. I know people personally who have used Daphne’s program, because it is very affordable and it’s also not so prescriptive. I think these academies and these different role specific courses and things can get themselves into a bit of a dangerous territory, when they’re sort of creating an illusion of promises that, after X number of months, you will be an ID, you will be a customer success manager, when, A, maybe that’s not even what you want to do, because there’s other options out there, but B, they can’t truly promise you that. They can probably set you up for a good situation, to maybe make that happen for yourself, but you’re going to be the one doing that. And I just wish there was a little bit more transparency on the individuality of that journey.
Daphne:
And we have a whole podcast episode, it’s called, I think, Sorting Through the Noise and Vetting Career Advice. So if you have not gone back to listen to that, we give our best advice on how to check people’s qualifications or how to see if something feels off or who’s a really good person to follow, who’s going to be a subject matter expert in specific things. Because if you asked me any questions about being a data analyst, there’s a lot of stuff. . .
Sarah:
I got nothing for you.
Sarah talks about what she learned about herself through the transition process
Daphne:
Sarah, this has been so fun. My absolute favorite question to ask former teachers, and I know you probably have done a lot of reflection over this, is, what did you learn about yourself during this process?
Sarah:
Oh man, I think what I learned about myself is really more of what I learned about the teaching profession, which is that it’s very trauma bonded in a way. And I say this because my wife and I were both teachers, so most of our social circles and our friend groups were our fellow teachers. And so, when we left and removed ourself from that environment, we’ve kind of lost a lot of friends, not really directly. It’s not like people are mad at us. It’s not like people just don’t want anything to do with us, but it’s a proximity thing. And so, people we used to see every day and be really good friends with, that we don’t see every day now, we just don’t really keep in touch, which has kind of been a bummer. But it’s been a good, I think, self-efficacy lesson for both my wife and I, of like we can do things outside of teaching.
I think teaching is a profession that is very tunnel visioned and leads you to believe that that is who you are and that is the only thing you can ever do. And that’s really what makes that transition so scary, I think, is that idea. Because my wife, for example, when she was looking to get out, she already had 18 years of experience and three degrees. She was making a salary, that we were not at all confident that any new employer in a new profession was going to be able to match. It got to the point where her mental health was so bad that I told her, I was like, “We will refinance the house and you can quit without having a job lined up. We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do.” And thankfully, lucky for us, she ended up finding a job that paid her more than she made as a teacher, but that was a huge risk that we took, not knowing how things were going to work out.
And so, I think having gone through this twice now basically of taking big risks to leave a profession without knowing what’s going to happen was a really good lesson for us that we can do hard things. I feel like it’s such a cliche. I’m quoting Glennon Doyle. I love Glennon Doyle.
Daphne:
I know. I know you’re a fan. I’ve seen you. . .
Sarah:
Yeah, we can do hard things and we can get through decisions as a couple and we can support each other through big life changes, big scary life changes, and that things do work out and that we can figure it out together. And so, even though there are things that we lost from teaching, we’ve gained so much more, and we’d still look at each other sometimes. And we’re like, things like taking our son to the dentist together or sudden doctor’s appointments or he was running a fever on Sunday, so we kept him home yesterday. And my mom came over and helped.
We wouldn’t have ever been able to do that as teachers. Our kid being sick would’ve been a crisis, because we’re commuting 45 minutes. Now, it’s just like, “Okay, well, we’re going to have the kid at home, and we’ll get done what we can get done at work today. And it’s not a big deal, because our fellow coworkers also have kids and we both have unlimited PTO. And so, we’ll get done what we can get done today, and that’s just what our day looks like today.” Totally different life. And so, I’m grateful we went through it all. I’m proud of us that we did all of these hard things. Obviously, we make a lot more money than we would’ve ever made as teachers, but that’s not really what it’s about for us. It’s just showing ourselves that we could do this. And I think a lot of teachers, when you get there, and you will get there, you will feel that sense of pride of like, “Wow, I did a really hard thing by changing my career.” And that alone is a really good feeling.
Daphne:
You are so inspirational, and also, I’m just so happy for you and your family. And just everything that’s happened for you is so well deserved.
Sarah:
Well, thank you.
Daphne:
So congratulations. And also, thank you so much for coming on, for sharing all this with the audience and just for being here. And I knew having you on was going to be really inspirational, but I could not have anticipated how beautiful you would’ve articulated that ending. And I’m just so grateful that you’re here, because so many people are going to be touched by that.
Sarah:
Yeah, no, I appreciate it. And again, I’ve been in therapy for the last two years too, which I highly recommend to every teacher getting out. It’s a process. It’s a process of getting to that place of understanding how your work life influences the rest of your life and how toxic that can be and also, how to sort of see the forest through the trees of, yeah, what we went through and why we left teaching was really bad and not pleasant and traumatic even, but it gave us everything that we have now. And I wouldn’t want to go through what I went through again, but I also, I would do it another 10 times over if it means that I have the life that I have now. I think you just get there with time. That’s really all it is.
Daphne:
It’s really hard to see it when you’re in the middle of it.
Sarah:
Yes.
Daphne:
But for sure, every poopy thing that’s ever happened to me is because something really cool was on the other end. So 100% can confirm. Sarah, thank you so much.
Sarah:
Thank you.
Daphne:
I really appreciate you and your time today, and congratulations again.
Sarah:
Well, thanks, and likewise. I’m excited for you.
Mentioned in the episode:
- Our career path quiz at www.teachercareercoach.com/quiz
- Explore the course that has helped thousands of teachers successfully transition out of the classroom and into new careers: The Teacher Career Coach Course (If you are a Teacher Career Coach Course member, you can also sign up for our one-on-one Career Clarity calls.)
