I’m starting something new. Except, if I’m being real, I think I started it years ago.

Maybe it started when COVID slowed the whole world down long enough for me to write. I was still doing all the teacher things, plus writing curriculum for my district, but suddenly there was this strange pocket of time where everybody was home and online and connecting with people they might never have met otherwise.

I wrote five nonfiction supplementary readers for kids. Then I wrote Finding Your Blind Spots: Eight Guiding Principles for Overcoming Implicit Bias in Teaching, which went on to win a national award. I was writing articles, showing up in conversations online, meeting educators all over the world and building a network without having the slightest idea that I was “building a network.”

I was just talking to people.

Turns out, that was one of the smartest things I ever did.

Because while some of us were online trying to figure out sourdough starters and how to teach through a screen without losing our entire minds, other people were reading those same threads looking for writers. And speakers. And consultants. And people who knew things. Pro tip: they still are.

Maybe Teacher in Transit started there.

Or maybe it started a little later, when I moved from my campus into a district role the same year my son left for the Army. I went from having one kid at home plus 186 kids at school to having exactly zero.

ZERO.

Y’all.

For the first time in a very long time, nobody needed me to make dinner, find a missing assignment, answer a parent email, grade something, drive somewhere, fix something, sign something, or remember that tomorrow was Crazy Sock Day.

And somewhere in all that quiet, my life started getting bigger.

The Bridge Was Already There

Moving into district edtech didn’t mean I suddenly stopped being a teacher. I took what I knew from the classroom with me. I trained teachers, worked with technology, wrote curriculum, helped people figure out how to use tools without making the tools the point. Google training, anyone??

At the same time, SmallBites was growing. Writing led to speaking. Speaking led to consulting. Connections led to projects I couldn’t have predicted when I made them. Eventually my work stretched beyond the district office into edtech, organizational culture, communications and nonprofit work. And helLO, Blind Spots. Organizational culture wasn’t exactly a new neighborhood for me.

And as my work expanded, so did my life. I traveled. Then I traveled some more. Apparently being home nightly for dinner is more of a suggestion than a requirement.

The funny thing is, the work and the travel and the relationships were never really separate things. Those connections I’d made online became colleagues, collaborators, opportunities, and, in some cases, real friendships. One of them became a travel bestie and one of my favorite partners in crime in this new chapter (looking at you, Kecia).

And somewhere between trips, conversations and watching me piece together this increasingly unconventional little life of mine, Kecia started sending me retirement videos. Dull retirement videos, but great information and an incredible following. And her basic response was, “You could do this waayy better.”

Now, giving people the benefit of what I know has never exactly been a problem for me. But putting career-coaching-type info together intentionally, for people who might be trying to figure out what comes next? That was different. OR was it? I’m the resume girlie in the friend group. The AI go-to guru, the job board link sender, the writing mentor. So maybe I was on my way here too, and Kecia saw it before I did!

The more I thought about it, the more I realized: I have learned some things. Some very valuable things.

I know how to turn teacher skills into paid work before leaving the classroom. I know what it looks like to build a side hustle beside a full-time job and single parenthood, and I know that some of those little side things can eventually become very big things. I know how relationships made years before you need them can open doors you didn’t even know existed. I know how classroom skills travel into curriculum writing, professional learning, edtech, consulting, communications, nonprofit work and places that don’t have “education” anywhere in the job title.

And I know that building options while you still have options feels very different from trying to build them when you desperately need one.

That part feels worth sharing.

Introducing: Teacher in Transit

I’m launching a new YouTube series called Teacher in Transit.

Some of it will be about what comes after—or beside—the classroom. We’ll talk about transferable skills, resumes, writing, consulting, edtech, networking, side income, finding opportunities, heading into retirement and all the little moves that can help you build a bridge before you need to cross it.

Some of it will be my own backstory, because none of this happened in a straight line. I went from classroom teacher to district edtech, from writing on the side to published author, from consulting around a teaching job to working in education and communications, and now I’m figuring out what comes next while traveling enough that Teacher in Transit became less of a brand name and more of a factual statement.

Yuppers, you are seeing more career information from me. It isn’t a swerve.

SmallBites has always been about helping people communicate, teach and connect. This is an addition to that work: helping educators recognize how much they already know, how far those skills can travel and how many ways there are to build a life that fits who they are becoming.

Because leaving isn’t the only option. But staying isn’t the only option either.

You can write while you teach. Consult while you teach. Build something while you teach. Move into another corner of education. Move beyond education. Stay in the classroom and simply enjoy knowing you have choices.

You can build a life beside the classroom before you ever decide whether you want one beyond it.

That’s what I wish more teachers knew, and that’s where we’re going with Teacher in Transit. Not with a 47-step plan to reinvent yourself by Friday. We have jobs, lives, laundry and limits.

But we’ll start with just a little curiosity. A few possibilities. Some things I learned the easy way, plenty I learned the hard way, and practical things you can actually do with the skills you already have.

One smallbite at a time.

See you Tuesdays!