What Jobs Are In Education That Aren’t Teaching? Roles You Might Overlook
I was sitting on a scuffed plastic chair outside my 8th grader’s social studies classroom last month, waiting for my parent-teacher conference, when my neighbor Mia slid into the seat next to me. She was twisting a crumpled conference reminder in her hand, and after we asked after each other’s kids, she admitted she’d been thinking about quitting her 10-year corporate marketing job. She’s always loved working with kids, she said, but the idea of standing in front of 30 middle schoolers every day, planning lessons and grading papers until 9 PM every night? It didn’t fit her at all. “Isn’t that the only job in education, though?” she asked. “Be a teacher, or nothing?”
I’ve worked in my district’s admin office for six years, so I was able to tell her that’s far from true. I see all kinds of people doing critical education work every week who never lead a whole-class lesson as the lead teacher. The first person I thought of was Kara, the occupational therapist who worked with my son last year. When he entered middle school, he started coming home with crumpled, half-finished worksheets, saying his hand hurt too much to write and he couldn’t keep up with notes from the board. We met with Kara twice a month for almost a year, and she didn’t teach him history or math. She tested his fine motor skills, showed him how to adjust his grip on a pencil, got him a set of weighted pens that made writing less tiring, and talked to his teachers about letting him type his notes instead of writing them by hand.
She meets with 8 to 10 kids a day, one on one or in small groups, and collaborates with teachers to make sure classrooms work for kids with all kinds of needs. She never has to grade a stack of essays, and she doesn’t need a traditional K-12 teaching license to do her work—her OT certification is all she needed. It’s still education, just not the kind most people picture when they think of school jobs.
Next I told her about Javi, the family engagement coordinator at the elementary school down the street. I met him last year when I helped organize a back-to-school supply drive. Javi didn’t become a teacher because he’s always been more interested in working with whole families, not just kids. On any given day, he might be packing 60 bags of non-perishable food for kids to take home over the weekend, leading a workshop for Spanish-speaking parents on how to navigate the district’s special education process, or connecting a homeless family with a local shelter that can take them in. Last semester, he spent three days calling around to local optometrists to get a free eye exam and pair of glasses for a second grader who couldn’t see the board but whose mom couldn’t afford the copay. None of that is classroom teaching, but none of those kids would be able to focus on learning if those needs weren’t met. Javi has a bachelor’s degree in human services, but he doesn’t have a teaching license, and he’s never been responsible for a full class of his own.
Then there’s Rae, an instructional coach I work with at the middle school. Rae taught 4th grade for 8 years, but she burned out after years of increasing testing requirements and taking home grading every night and on weekends. She got her instructional coaching certification two years ago, and now she supports 12 new teachers across the school. She sits in on lessons once a week, helps teachers adjust their plans when kids aren’t grasping a concept, and role-plays tricky parent conversations before they happen. She uses all her experience as a classroom teacher to help new people grow, but she doesn’t have her own class to manage every day. That’s a great fit for people who love education but don’t want the day-to-day load of leading a classroom.
Other common overlooked roles include curriculum designers (people who write and test learning materials for entire districts), school librarians, after-school program directors, speech language pathologists, and district tech coaches who help teachers use new tools in their classrooms. All of these roles center on helping kids learn, none require being the lead classroom teacher.
A lot of people assume education equals classroom teaching, but that’s just not true. Kids need all kinds of different people to support them, and there’s a role for almost every skill set and preference. If you’re thinking of switching into education, or your teenager is exploring career paths and loves working with kids, there are a few concrete things you can do to explore these options. First, send a quick email to a couple of people in roles you’re curious about at your local district—most people are happy to chat for 15 minutes over coffee to tell you what their job is actually like, the good and the bad. Second, check your local district’s public job board: most list all open roles, not just teaching, so you can see exactly what qualifications they’re asking for. Many roles don’t require a full teaching license, just a bachelor’s degree and specialized training in your field. Third, if you’re already a teacher who’s burnt out, you don’t have to leave education entirely to get a better work-life balance—districts are desperate for experienced teachers to move into roles like coaching or curriculum design, and your existing experience is a huge asset.
After our chat in the hallway, Mia wrote down three roles she wanted to look into: family engagement, after-school program coordination, and special education instructional assisting. She’s going to reach out to the district HR department this month to ask about part-time openings to test the waters. Last week, I saw Kara in the grocery store, and she told me she got into OT because she always knew she hated public speaking and large groups—one-on-one work with kids fit her perfectly, and she can’t imagine doing anything else. There’s no one right way to work in education, and the field doesn’t only need people who want to stand at the front of a classroom. For every teacher leading a lesson, there are half a dozen other people working behind the scenes to make sure every kid gets what they need to learn. It’s still education, it just looks a little different.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » What Jobs Are In Education That Aren’t Teaching