📖Turn the Page📖Hi Reader, I know, I know. Here I am, sneaking into your inbox—and on a Wednesday no less! I’m just so excited to talk to you about this. Because for 17 years (!! that’s like a full grown teenager), I believed that the only thing I could do with my 1.5 + decades of teaching experience, my years of expensive education + multiple degrees and my specialized literacy certification was, well, Teach. Because when we commit ourselves to teaching, that’s often what we are conditioned to believe. Not always outright. Sometimes it’s implicit. A whisper. A suggestion. No one actually ever said to me, “You can only teach now for the rest of your (long) career!” But boy is that what I heard loud and clear. (have you felt that way too, Reader?) One particularly rough morning, after lesson planning until midnight, very low on sleep and general life force—I woke up with this question in my head: Is this it? Is this really what I’m going to do for the rest of my life?The movie playing out was bleak: —The adult bureaucracy —The overwhelm of noise and “never enough time” in the classroom —The nagging feeling that there was something else for me It was a FULL BODY NO.That was the moment everything changed for me. Not because I quit. Not because I flipped a table and stormed out like a badass. (We’ve all had that dream 😉) But because I stopped assuming teaching was the only place my skills could thrive.So what did I do? What could I do? I quietly, immediately changed the way I was showing up for myself. I started building something behind the scenes that I knew would carry me out of one chapter and into the next. And here’s the part I didn’t understand at the time: I wasn’t changing who I was. I was changing where my skills could be applied. One of the things you might not realize (I definitely didn’t until I started this work), is that as a teacher, you ALREADY HAVE what you need to be successful writing for education companies. You are a literal expert at:
You are probably thinking “Good story, bro. Not special. Everyone can do this.” WELL, Reader…
They can’t. This is a skill companies pay very good money for—because it’s the foundation of clear, convincing, authentic communication. When I realized that, everything inside of me just… shifted. I understood that I could use my teaching expertise to write for education companies—not just to make more money (but yes, I wanted that too!), but to change how my daily life felt. I could build something that would eventually offer me: ☕ slower mornings 💃 more autonomy in my day (I’m sorry but peeing whenever you want?? IT’S REAL.) 🔕 Quiet. Space. The ability to hear my own voice again. To know it was OK to make a change What most teachers don’t need is more information—they need a place to actually apply what they already know. If you have ever felt this way—restless and wanting change but also stuck—reply and tell me which feels more like you right now: more restless or more stuck? (You can literally reply with one word!) I’m on the other side, waiting to hear from you! More soon, Meredith
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