3 Ways to Leverage Your Education Expertise
As teachers, we often spend so much of our time around other teachers. In many ways, this is amazing. But when we are around teachers all the time, it can be hard to realize that we teachers are education experts. When you start looking at alternative jobs for teachers, it can be hard to see how your years in the classroom have prepared you to do anything other than teaching.
But it’s true! Our teaching experience and training means that we have unique expertise in education. Sure, we may not know everything about education (spoiler alert: that’s not possible), but we definitely know more than the average person.
This expertise translates into valuable and transferable skills for teachers that can help you land jobs outside the classroom. Still, if you’re applying to alternative jobs for teachers, it can feel different and uncomfortable to own this expert status.
Often, you might find yourself explaining the many roles that a teacher plays to folks who haven’t spent time in the classroom. But the more articulate you can be about the relevance of your teacher experience, the more you will be able to show that you are well positioned to take on new roles. Follow these three steps to leverage your education expertise.
How to Leverage Your Expertise in Education to Get Alternative Jobs for Teachers
1. Embrace It
The first step sounds easy, but it can be so hard. But when applying to alternative jobs for teachers, such as work at nonprofits or ed tech companies that may not have many (or any) teachers on staff, it is so important to own your expertise in education.
Just like other folks might have expertise in programming or marketing, you have expertise in education. Together, you can collaborate to make something amazing.
When embracing your teacher experience, it can be helpful to take a step back. Think about the general public and what they know/don’t know about teaching. If a programmer had to write a lesson plan about reading comprehension, would they be able to do it as well as you? Probably not. If you had to write code, would you be able to do it as well as a programmer? Probably not. We all have areas of expertise, and it’s important to own yours.
2. Practice Talking About Your Teaching Experience
Now that you know how important it is to embrace your expertise to find alternative jobs for teachers, it’s time to practice doing so. Take baby steps to start! One way to begin is by talking about your teaching experience to a non-educator. This could be a friend, family member, or someone you meet at a social gathering.
Who you talk to matters less than how you talk about your experience. Practice talking about the complexities of being a teacher and the many hats you wear. Try to make it your goal to show how multifaceted your job is and how many transferable skills for teachers you have developed from being in the classroom.
Even just thinking about your teacher experience in a new way can make a big difference. As folks share about their own experiences, make connections to what you have learned and done as a teacher.
By learning how to describe your time as a teacher and your subsequent expertise in education, you’ll prepare to land alternative jobs for teachers outside the classroom.
3. Pitch Yourself
After getting comfortable talking about your experience in non-professional settings, it’s time to practice pitching yourself. Apply to job listings for alternative jobs for teachers and write cover letters that highlight your invaluable teacher skills. As you share about your experience, notice what your mind does.
Do you start thinking about how you don’t have enough teaching experience? Or do you remind yourself that you have relevant experience and can learn anything you don’t know? Embracing your experience is a practice, so go easy on yourself. As you notice self-doubt, try and remind yourself that you have valuable and relevant skills that can easily be applied to jobs in education other than teaching.
As you apply for jobs and go on interviews, you will get more and more comfortable talking about your experience and your education expertise. And as you land jobs outside of the classroom, you will see how relevant and important your skills are.
Getting Alternative Jobs for Teachers
Sometimes we can’t fully realize the skills we have developed until we are in a new environment. Trust yourself and keep taking small steps to embrace your expertise in education and land alternative jobs for teachers. Your brilliance truly should be shared with the world.
If you want to learn more about how to leverage your teaching experience and skills into alternative jobs with a teaching degree, then be sure to check out our Beyond the Classroom course.
You’ll learn how to identify and leverage your expertise in education to find teacher experience jobs in fields like curriculum development, education writing, educational consulting, online coaching and more.
Have questions? Contact Educator Forever any time to learn more about how we can help you use your years in the classroom to get jobs in education other than teaching.