This is a shout-out to all classroom teachers: In the age of AI, your skills—the ones for which you aren’t compensated nearly enough—have never been more in-demand.
So have you considered becoming an AI trainer? Have you thought about teaching people outside of the K-12 classroom how to step confidently into the future?
This is the exact pivot I’m making to capitalize on my teaching and training skills—skills that come naturally to me because I’ve practiced them under intense circumstances for years.
Soft Skills for the Win!
According to the World Economic Forum’s “Future of Jobs Report 2025,” the top fastest-growing skills for 2030 include:
- creative thinking
- resilience, flexibility, and agility
- curiosity and lifelong learning
- leadership and social influence
In the Age of AI, the technical skills will be covered by our tools. Instead, we will need to rely like never before on our human being-ness.
And as an “educator,” you certainly lead many of your peers when it comes to practicing these exact skills.
I taught sixth-grade social studies and language arts for five years, which is how I know that no one practices these soft skills on a daily basis in a more intense way than classroom teachers who are in-person with their students.
Yes, I’ve worked as a corporate trainer, too. But trust me when I tell you, the demands of teaching K-12 public school students are not rivaled by the demands of the corporate world.
Or, let’s just say, public school teaching is an entirely different beast.
Teacher Burnout
Day after day, teachers juggle competing learning needs while also handling all the social issues that each child brings into the classroom.
These might include helping students as they deal with the loss of a parent, food insecurity, or a mental health problem. I remember one student called me at home one evening from her apartment rooftop as she contemplated making the jump that would end it all.
Trust me, the job doesn’t end with the school bell..
If you’re a public school educator, despite how much you love your students—and no matter how hard you work to help them—you are doing so while contending with:
- low pay
- large class sizes
- behavior issues
- inadequate administrative support
- shortages of staff
Is it any wonder that 44% of all new teachers leave the profession within five years?
If you are a teacher and you still love the K-12 classroom, by all means, please stay there. Our kids need you and you are most definitely my hero.
However, today, in the Age of AI, the entire world has suddenly become a classroom.
If you’re a teacher looking for an exit ramp, why not pivot to use your soft skills outside the school?
Making the Pivot to AI Training
Over the past year, I’ve been learning to apply my teaching and corporate training skills to help those fearful of AI cross the bridge to the future with full confidence.
I have taken many courses about how to become an AI trainer. In these, I’ve learned that the demand is high across all industries. Those of us with teaching backgrounds have a natural advantage in helping learners overcome their fears and resistance to new technology.
Just as an example, in a recent training, we talked about teaching the skill of prompting through a scaffolded approach. The idea is to let learners build prompting confidence, by taking on more and more of the task, one step at a time.
We also talked about differentiating education. In other words, a trainer’s approach to teaching a team of corporate marketers to integrate AI into their workflow must be vastly different than teaching the same skills to a team of doctors.
Scaffolding and differentiation are not new principles for teachers; instead, these are methodologies educators use every minute of every work day.
I love using my teaching expertise in service of helping those who think outside the box create like never before.
Starting an AI training business, however, is just like starting any entrepreneurial venture. It takes time to build clientele and trust. I’ve been listening to “The Impossible Entrepreneur” podcast by Anna Carina Berkman (Architect Anna), who gives a great behind-the-scenes account of what it’s like to build this kind of business.
So if you’re a teacher, don’t quit your day job just yet. Develop your AI skills—you’ve got the rest—and know that when you’re ready, the next chapter could be quite exciting. This is your time!