Hello everyone!
Let's cut a long story short - I'm a High School teacher, and this is my 7th year of being one. For a few reasons I'm sick of my job and don't want to do it any more. At the end of this year (Christmas) I'm quitting and taking some time off.
What I need help with is working out what I could do next.
I've always been a teacher, most of my friends are teachers (or are still in the first jobs they landed after uni) so I don't have much perspective on other fields, what I could transition into or what might be an up/down grade. So I'm asking everyone and anyone who has advice, opinions, hot takes or controversial comments to chime in.
I am happy to try almost anything - I always try to find ways to enjoy, learn and experience things differently, so I tend to be pretty happy as long as I'm working on something (sitting bored is awful). Which is exactly why I'm asking for help - there are so many options.
What I like and am good at doing:
- Working with larger groups of people
- Working with a longer term professional relationship
- Writing/Speaking - communication skills
- Trying new tasks
- Proposing, implementing and evaluating programs, changes, solutions
- Working in teams on just about anything (I've done everything from team work around disability services, curriculum writing, planning teacher training, etc, etc, etc, always a small team)
- Being generally competent at basic stuff like emails, organisation, efficiency, asking questions, not being a noob, etc
- Mentoring/Coaching
Things I'm bad at:
- Repetitive tasks requiring a high level of attention to detail and/or methodical thinking
- Working for people I don't trust
- Work that stays with me when I go home (affects sleep and mood too much)
- Blood and guts
- Faking it
Other random information
- Quite happy to re-train or go back to University
- Quite happy to downgrade in terms of pay
- Quite happy to drastically change type, conditions and style of work
- Not particularly ambitious - no real desire to climb to the top, be ultra competitive, or be a shithead to get the job done
- I doubt I'm going to FIRE, I'm more using MMM to reduce consumerism, stay balanced and find a more consistently happy adulthood
Jobs I've thought about:
1. HR - I like working with people and helping them become better/happier at what they are doing
2. Working in a University - I have skills around education (and would happily teach Uni students (but I wouldn't mind trying administration
3. Working as a Public Servant - entering the Education Department and working on policy and policy reviews. Benefits my experience, potentially quite interesting, probably insanely red tape, etc.
4. IT/Web Design - my gf wants to (at some point) move overseas (again) to work and live. A job that's a little bit flexible/not that tied to here and now makes some sense with this in mind (otherwise I could go back to teaching for a year or two :) ). I have never done any IT or web design classes, projects, etc, I have no skills.
If you're still reading you're a fucking gem - please feel free to tell me:
a) what you think
b) what I haven't thought of
c) what questions I could ask
d) extra things that might help me think about the future