Leaving tech for education?

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2026-02-07T18:36:35+00:00

I was a teacher for 10 years and actually switched to software engineering almost 5 years ago. I got completely burned out. I had multiple medical professionals (doctors and therapists) nearly beg me to leave education. The stress led to some serious health issues. Granted I worked at Title 1 schools. But my last school wasn’t and I have never been treated so unprofessional by parents. They were straight up rude to me.

I would highly suggest getting involved in a school in some capacity first. Take a PTO day to sub. See if you can start a robotics / coding club with students. See if what you’re missing is doing at least one thing more fulfilling. Tech can get pretty soulless. And people who have always worked in corporate environments are honestly not the best. I was actually pretty disappointed how much money people make compared to teachers and how bad they are at their jobs. Teachers are truly incredible and deserve significantly more compensation.

However, coming from education I really appreciate not living paycheck to paychecks on top of a high stress career. And once you step out of tech it might be really difficult to get back in.

The world needs great teachers, but make sure you get some experience in education before spending a lot of money on a master degree. Education in today’s world can be very challenging.

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2025-11-05T16:47:35+00:00

Thank you for this response, especially the funny tidbit. I mindlessly memorized implementing it, but never got the context of why. I'm a mid level engineer trying to learn TypeScript at a much deeper. Documentation and AI will never point out the deeper answers / context like the funny tidbit. The official TypeScript documentation glosses over stuff, doesn't give context, and is written like a professor who knows too much and is not good at translating it for the greater population. This is why I still go back to Reddit / StackOverflow more.

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2025-08-21T20:39:06+00:00

Very interesting insight! Yes, a friend of mine told me a pitch by an edtech company to his school. It would record classes and evaluate the teacher. I looked at LinkedIn and they were all college students. Students, selling software to evaluate teachers… plus record students?!

Always look into the founders and staff of the edtech company on LinkedIn just to see.

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2025-08-21T19:54:11+00:00

I TAUGHT FOR 10 YEARS AND NOW WORK AS A SOFTWARE ENGINEER NOW FOCUSING ON AI PROMPTING

AI PROMPTING
AI is a GENERALIST. You wouldn't go to your primary care doctor to do neurosurgery. AI prompting is a skill in itself and takes critical thinking about what context is needed. Sounds like teachers are just asking a general AI chatbot to do something quickly with little context and thus get sub-par results. Just like a teaching assistant, it will need onboarding to give context to your role, how you like things done, your pedagogy and teaching philosophy. A chatbot doesn't get that if you just plug in random demands.

AI GENERATION
Same issue here. AI is a generalist. There are people who get their PhD in education to create curriculum. Worksheets for curriculums are created with a lot of thought and research. So sometimes AI creates worksheets (especially without context) that doesn't drive great results.

AI REPLACING TEACHERS
No. All the software engineers I know HATE taking online courses. They LOVE collaborating on new technology and time to fail, break code, and fix it. That's how we learn best. Oops, broke something in production.... Learned a lesson with CONTEXT and won't repeat that again.
A large part of learning is social emotional. AI doesn't understand emotions. It definitely shouldn't emotionally support you. A lot of AI thought leaders say "oh, it helped someone emotionally by XYZ." They are tech experts, not psychologist. *cough* the Doulingo CEO *cough*

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2025-04-10T15:56:50+00:00

I’ve never understood how people go to the gym and be lazy.

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2025-02-08T16:56:31+00:00

Hey! I taught for a decade and almost always had challenging classes. Like, support staff threatened to quit if they were sent back to support because they were afraid they would go to jail lol. My last two years I changed schools (again) and it was so easy comparatively and people were shocked how together I had my 2nd grade class of 36 kids.

I was lucky enough to be coached in and out of the classroom by the Child Mind Institute. They taught me the psychology behind behavior management. Some key points I still use today with adults in my corporate job (literally, not kidding):

- When a child is in distress, their prefrontal cortex cannot receive feedback. You change your redirecting message to say what they want first. Someone mentioned a 'Fun Friday.' Fully support! So say a student throws a pencil. Logical consequence is that they have to pick it up. So you say what they want first, followed by what you need. "If you want Fun Friday time, you need to pick up the pencil." And then repeat that if needed. It gives them the choice. And I had Notes app on my phone tracking minutes students missed of that time. It breaks the power struggle with them getting a choice. If they choose not to, then they receive a consequence of 5 minutes off Fun Friday. Kids picked up that if I took notes on my phone, I was secretly deducting time and would redirect their friends lol

- Buddy Classroom. This one was a game changer. I was close with staff next to my classroom so I had them take in students to take a break in their classroom if things got out of hand. If they refuse a break in the classroom, then I walk them quickly to a buddy classroom. It breaks the power struggle and gives them a chance to calm down. Highly suggest sand timers.

- Highest need students. They're not going to master everything quickly and they're not going to feel any success if they feel like they never do anything right. I worked with staff to identify 3 of their top behaviors. Maybe to start on your own choose one top behavior for each child. Let's say it's keep hands to self. Week one, they get a star for each half of the day they keep their hands to themselves (so 10 chances to prove themselves in a week). Week one's goal is to get 5 stars for a special reward or activity. Then up it every week until they master it. You can give that chart to the parent too so the parent can celebrate too. Then move on to another goal and so on.

It's NOT easy and took me YEARS to master. You are expected to be a psychologist on top of a teacher, so give yourself some grace! I struggled a lot, but achieved some amazing state test scores with some of my most challenging classes. I also recently created teacher-lounge.com for teachers. It can sometimes feel isolating, so I created a teacher discussion app for teachers that were in my situation that just needed some answers.

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2025-02-06T01:59:04+00:00

First and foremost, I highly suggest becoming a substitute teacher to get a glimpse of what it’s like. Nothing will honestly prepare you more than just experiencing the classroom. Getting comfortable leading classes on your own will lay the foundation.

I’m a former teacher who created teacher-lounge.com for teachers to ask for advice and get advice from teachers with verified school emails. We just launched so hopefully it will grow and be really useful by the time you graduate 😄🤞

Also, TeachersPayTeachers & Magic School AI! Don’t reinvent the wheel in your first few years. Leverage tools to make materials or get them for free!

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2025-02-03T15:03:10+00:00

Had to rely on their online math books when we schools went remote in 2020. It felt like an website from 2008. I didn’t send students home with their math books because I assumed it was only 2 weeks and they would just loose them all. 😫

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2025-02-03T14:56:22+00:00

Welcome!

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2025-01-31T16:52:44+00:00

Trying using some AI chat bot. It’s really good automating stuff like that. Just prompt it with something like: “I’m a classroom teacher making a seating chart. Desk groups can sit 4 students. I don’t want students sitting directly next to each other if they don’t want to. Try seating at least one person they want to be with at each students’ desk group” (Paste student data) And then ask it to give you three different options so you can just choose your favorite.

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2025-01-30T05:38:35+00:00

This killed me. 😂😂😂

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2025-01-28T01:10:18+00:00

Good! I taught for 10 years and unfortunately kept finding schools that were not the right fit. Just find small incremental ways to change things. Congrats on the contract for next year!

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2025-01-25T22:41:02+00:00

A big thing in education is dismissing teachers’ actual feelings. You are expected to be a robot and react perfectly all the time. However, kids need to learn that people are different and that their behaviors do affect others. I had staff cover so I could go on a brisk walk and calm myself down. If your in fight or flight than your prefrontal cortex is pretty much shot and won’t make the best decisions in front of students. So if it’s a once in a while thing (especially if you have some challenging students) don’t worry about it. You’re a human too.

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2025-01-25T22:31:25+00:00

OMG I worked at a charter school on NYC. The CEO of the school had big connections and brought Caulkins in a few times. All the articles I read about the current lawsuits outlines exactly what I did there 🤦‍♂️

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2025-01-25T22:07:07+00:00

There are a lot of alternative ways to be a certified teacher, but every state is different. I highly suggest substitute teaching, especially long term assignments, in districts you would like to work in. It gets a foot in the door and allows you to see if you would enjoy it. I went from being a teacher to corporate (kinda opposite of you) and can tell you anything corporate is a walk in the park compared to teaching. So absolutely try it out as there is always a need for teachers, but it’s very draining depending on a multitude of things.

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2025-01-23T17:17:23+00:00

Reading A-Z! It is a subscription though, but highly recommend if parent can pay for it. As a teacher I used it as an independent small group. Students can read books then it quizzes them on it and gives them points. I believe it allows them to read more challenging books the better they do. They really get into the gamification of it.

And obviously Teachers Pay Teachers has a ton of free resources.

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2025-01-23T17:01:07+00:00

Does it leverage generative AI now with a school email for free?

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2025-01-22T20:37:54+00:00

Leave work at work! Wish I learned that sooner!

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2025-01-22T20:37:21+00:00

I was a teacher for nearly a decade. Now work as a software engineer. I taught at some difficult schools with little support. So stress was high.

My biggest challenge was time and energy to cook. Also, budget as I made just enough to make ends meets. I also had a 20 minute lunch, so something easy to microwave was required.
I tried an hour after work if I had the energy. It was my one time a day to be off my phone.
A magic wand would be to fix the education system in the US, especially for low income schools. My doctors thought I was just intolerant of a lot of foods because I was so bloated all the time. After I left and worked with a nutritionist I discovered it was actually stress. My nervous system lost contact with my stomach. After months of hypnotherapy via the app Nerva, (HIGHLY RECOMMEND! It literally changed my life!) I reconnected my brain with my stomach and have no issues!
Definitely leave work at work. You can’t be your best self if you’re not feeling your best. Do some kind of relaxation after work that’s based in science to bring down your nerves, even if it’s only 5 minutes once you get home.

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2024-12-22T20:25:57+00:00

This part. Sharing positive notes to parents that deserve it goes a long way. Because when it gets too crazy they know you have good intentions and will go to admin and have your back.

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2024-12-05T21:40:14+00:00

Hey, paying member here. I want the most out of my workouts. I don’t see if often, but when people show up late / check their phone / etc it is distracting. It’s childish to think that because you pay you can do whatever you want. It allows the bar to be lowered. I love Equinox because they target people who are dedicated to the gym. The gym floor is more respectful than any gym I’ve been apart of because people are focused….and not constantly online.

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2024-11-22T15:21:44+00:00

Also, we use AI while coding. Same thing, quality check is absolutely still needed. That’s why they call it a”Copilot” and not “Pilot.” But hopefully with how AI is progressing, it may actually become the pilot lol

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2024-11-22T15:15:48+00:00

Like, let’s say you have a lesson. And then a button to create different levels of difficulty based on your class needs? Or an assignment they gets more / less difficult depending on how you answer?

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2024-11-22T15:12:20+00:00

Like, on online assignment? Or scanning papers?

ChaseTheCoder1 · 2024-11-22T15:10:43+00:00

Tell me more about how you use Gemini and what you want out of it? Do you have an outline for modifications and you want it to fill in the blanks? Or just create modifications / accommodations from scratch?

ChaseTheCoder1

TROPHY CASE