What Education Jobs Are Available Outside Of The Classroom? A Former Teacher Breaks It Down
Last month, I ran into my former college roommate Sarah in the frozen food aisle of our local grocery store. She’d been a 4th grade classroom teacher for 8 years, and she twisted the top of a carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream while she talked, her shoulders hunched like she was still carrying the weight of the last school year. She’d spent all the previous Sunday crying over a stack of ungraded math tests and a district mandate to rewrite all her reading lessons for the new curriculum. She said she didn’t know if she could walk back into her classroom in the fall. “But I got my entire degree in education,” she said. “What else am I supposed to do? Leave the field entirely?”
I get that question all the time, from burnt-out teachers and from parents whose teens say they love working with kids but don’t want to stand in front of a classroom every day. I left my 8th grade English classroom 5 years ago, after 7 years of early mornings and late grading nights, and I still work in education— I’m an instructional designer building online professional development for new teachers. I don’t have to take attendance or respond to parent emails at 10pm, but I still get to contribute to the work that made me want to go into education in the first place. Over the years, I’ve gotten to know dozens of people who built satisfying education careers outside the four walls of a K-12 classroom, and their jobs run the gamut depending on what parts of education they love most.
My cousin Lila taught high school biology for 12 years before she switched to writing K-12 science curriculum for a nonprofit that serves low-income rural schools. She works from home three days a week, and she shuts her laptop at 5pm sharp every single day. Two years ago, she started a weekly hiking group after work on Wednesdays, something she could never fit in when she was grading 150 lab reports a week and chaperoning science club after school. She still gets to create materials that make kids excited to study plants and ecosystems, she just doesn’t have to manage classroom behavior or navigate district testing mandates anymore.
An old special ed coworker of mine, Mia, left her classroom job 10 years ago to work as an independent IEP advocate. She works directly with families who can’t afford a lawyer to help them prepare for IEP meetings, understand their legal rights, and push for the services their kids need. Last month, she told me she met a family at the McDonald’s off the interstate, because that was the only time the mom, who works two back-to-back retail shifts, could meet after her kids got out of school. They walked into their district meeting a week later and got the two hours of weekly occupational therapy the family had been denied for two years. Mia caps her caseload at 10 families at a time, so she doesn’t get burned out like she did when she was responsible for 50 kids on her district caseload.
My former teaching partner Jake now leads youth programs at our local city history museum. He plans field trips for local schools, runs weekend heritage craft workshops, and organizes the annual summer history camp for 8 to 12 year olds. Last week he sent me a photo of a group of 10-year-olds covered in glue and paint, standing next to the mini replica of our town’s 1800s train station they built out of recycled cardboard. He said the best part of his job is that when the museum closes at 5pm, he locks the door and goes home. He doesn’t get emails about missed homework or playground conflicts on Saturday nights.
The biggest myth I’ve encountered is that education equals classroom teaching. If you’re a burnt-out teacher, you don’t have to choose between staying miserable or leaving the work you care about. If you’re a parent of a kid who’s interested in education but doesn’t want to lead a classroom, there are far more options than most people talk about.
From my experience, there are a few concrete, low-risk steps to figure out what fits. First, if you’re a teacher thinking about switching, grab a notebook and write two short lists: three things you love most about your current job, and three things you hate most. If you love breaking down hard concepts but hate endless staff meetings, curriculum writing or instructional design is worth exploring. If you love helping families solve problems but hate district bureaucracy, IEP advocacy or family engagement work at a nonprofit might be a good fit. This isn’t a big fancy exercise, it just takes 10 minutes, and it helps you narrow down options instead of scrolling through hundreds of job listings blindly.
Second, test the water before you quit. If curriculum writing sounds interesting, sign up to write a couple of supplemental lessons on a teacher freelance marketplace, or apply for a part-time content role with an education company. If museum education sounds fun, volunteer to lead a few weekend workshops first. You don’t have to upend your entire life to see if a new role fits.
For parents with kids exploring education careers, encourage them to ask for a shadow day. Most people working in non-classroom education roles are happy to let a high school or college student sit in for a few hours to see what the work is really like. Jake has had three students shadow him in the last two years, and one just got hired for a full-time entry-level role at the museum after graduating.
Sarah texted me last week. She wrote her two lists, and realized she loved creating reading activities for struggling readers but hated mandatory testing and constant behavior management. She signed up to write three supplemental reading units for a small education publisher on the side this summer, and she’s going to see how it goes. She’s still not sure what she’ll do next fall, but for the first time in a year, she doesn’t feel like she only has two bad options to pick from.
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