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Career Coaching for Teachers & Educators

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Male Teacher with Students

You work your butt off to serve your students. Yet you aren’t sure it’s something you can or want to do long-term. This doesn’t mean you’re failing or that you’re not committed enough. It means you care about your own happiness and well-being in addition to that of your students. It means you’re curious about what other work is out there, even if you're not sure you're ready to make a career change to something new. If education doesn't feel like a fulfilling, sustainable career right now, I'm here to help you consider your options. 

I can help you:

  • Get excited about your career again

  • Make sense of your contradictory feelings about teaching 

  • Discover what's essential for you to feel fulfilled in your work

  • Identify and embrace your unique strengths 

  • Make connections between other career fields and your skills and strengths

  • Explore new career paths 

  • Conduct an effective, heart-centered job search 

  • Nourish your desires while keeping an eye on reality

  • Notice and work with your inner critic

Classroom teachers 

School administrators

Higher education

Experiential Educators

Coaching is for you if:

  • You are trying to decide whether to stay in education or move on to something new

  • You know you want to leave education but you don’t feel qualified to do anything else

  • You don’t have any ideas for work outside of education that get you excited

  • Your job search or career exploration feels futile - you're not getting any clarity no matter how hard you try

  • You're having a hard time making sense of all of your career thoughts 

About me as an educator

I have a long history with education. When I went to college, my intention was to become an elementary school teacher just like my mom. That dream ended after a short observation period in a local elementary school. It was not for me. Later, I focused my studies on Spanish and secondary education and completed my student teaching practicum at a high school in Chicago. I did not enjoy the experience but chalked it up to a checked-out supervising teacher and a tough school district. After I completed my student teaching and my undergraduate degree, I covered a 6 month leave of absence for a Spanish teacher. I had good colleagues and administrative support, and the students were great. I should have liked the job, but I didn’t. I’m an introvert, and the constant stimulation and classroom management exhausted me. I never felt satisfied with the outcomes of my lessons, and I took the constant feedback from students (e.g. falling asleep, talking to their friends while I was teaching, and failing my class) way too much to heart. It became clear to me that classroom teaching wasn’t for me. But I didn’t know what else to do. I decided to go abroad to teach English as a Second Language (ESL) in Venezuela. My primary goal was to improve my Spanish while I was there, so teaching was simply my vehicle for earning an income. By this point in my career story, it should not come as a surprise that I did not like the actual work of teaching! Yet there was something about education that just would not let go. I saw such value in my own educational experiences, especially the ones outside the classroom (e.g. study abroad, a semester in Chicago learning about urban life and culture, etc…) To keep a long story short, I’ve been creating meaningful learning experiences outside of the classroom ever since. I thrive on helping people learn new things about themselves, others, and the world around them, and career coaching has been a natural extension of this.

Why I like working with teachers and educators

Some of my favorite people are teachers and educators. For starters, I’m married to one! My husband teaches high school history. My mother taught second grade and special ed, and my father was a high school counselor and higher education administrator. Then there’s my aunt, cousins, neighbors, friends, and so many former colleagues who are classroom teachers, school social workers, study abroad directors, and college advisors. I like being around and working with teachers and educators because you’re smart, thoughtful, resourceful, hard-working, and creative. You want to make a difference in the lives of young people, and I admire that. For you, work is more than just a job you clock in and out of every day. This desire for meaningful work resonates with me, and I truly enjoy the process of helping teachers and educators enter the next chapter of a life of fulfilling work.

Leaving the classroom was a huge step for me, and even though I knew it was the right choice, I was daunted by finding a job outside of a school and skeptical that I would. Laura helped me to figure out what was important to me in my work and why I was drawn to certain jobs and tasks, including the parts of teaching that I loved. I left coaching able to articulate this clearly to myself and others, and I felt confident that it was based in truths about my personality, strengths, interests, and values. I also more clearly saw what I had to offer and how my teaching experience could translate to other roles or industries.

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Taryn

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