Ali Parrish was a teacher for seven years of grades 4-6, but she knew she wanted something more. She just wasn’t sure how to make it happen. She went through the methodical process of self inventory on her skill sets and strengths then applied that to finding a job doing those same things she loved, but outside of the classroom. She’s been an educational technology trainer, a consultant, an instructional designer, has worked in educational sales, and taught at the university level. She now runs her own company, Teacher Transition.  She and her team help teachers identify and go after opportunities outside of the classroom.

Summary

If you’ve ever thought about leaving the classroom for the corporate world, today’s episode with Ali Parrish of Teacher Transition is a can’t miss. Her business is all about helping teachers transition from classroom to corporate. 

A lot of teachers come to Side Hustle Teachers with the intent of building a business that can help them leave the classroom, but what if you don’t want to wait? What if you just want to see what else is out there beyond education, now?

Now that’s a tricky road because we’re trained as teachers, so who would want to hire us as anything other than a teacher? Well it turns out a lot of people. Teachers have crazy high levels of abilities, skills, and talents that lots of companies are begging for.

Ali noted that the saying teachers often use is, “I wear a lot of hats,” but what that means is that teachers have crazy loads of skills. The first step is just identifying what those skills are and what that means for work outside the classroom. When Ali got into the business of helping teachers transition out of the classroom, she knew she found her passion. 

Ali helps a lot of teachers interested in instructional design. Instructional design is perfect for someone who loves creating a scope and sequence and planning how to accomplish learning objectives with different learning experiences. With her experience, she created a course to help teachers make the transition to instructional designers called From Teacher To Instructional Designer. If you are a teacher who wants to create resources for other teachers, this is a perfect profession for you. 

The first step for someone who wants to make the transition from teacher to the backside of the teaching industry is to look inside of yourself.

Identify what you want and need, and what jobs correlate with that. She has a quiz that can help you find out what that is at teachertransition.com/quiz. 

It took Ali two years to figure out what to do next. She loves having a plan, she likes a methodical approach and so she came up with a process of how to figure it out with her course called Find Your Next Dream Job- For Teachers. It walks you through all of the things she recommends starting with what are your strengths, skills, interests, needs, and then use research based assessments to identify the fields, jobs, or roles you would like and enjoy the most. It also has so many other resources to help you on your journey like help on how to find success with the job you want. 

Knowing when it is time to transition out of the classroom can be hard. There is a big period of growth when you first start your teaching career. However, after five years or so, it can plateau and leave you feeling stuck and unsure of what to do next. Growth in your work is so important. The book Well Being by Tom Rath and Jim Harter explains that one of the essential elements of wellbeing is happiness in your career. it is important that if you are not feeling happy, it is time for you to make a change.

You can check out Ali’s courses by visiting sidehustleteachers.com/transition