Starting Honest Conversations as a Former Educator

For those of you that have been following along, I just started an account with both Medium and Substack to try to push myself to write a bit more and reflect a bit more… so hopefully you will be seeing more of me, but if you have accounts there, would love some support there to keep me accountable.

To kickoff these new spaces, I wanted to re-introduce myself..

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Hello everyone, my name is Ted Kim and I am a former educator and technology coordinator, now working in product management at an early stage, EdTech startup in Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Beginnings are hard.

My very first official post begins with me staring at the recommended statement above, realizing that it holds a meaning far deeper than simply how I feel about creating this space.

Beginnings are truly hard. This is how I feel about most things, but leaving the classroom led me into so many “beginnings” all at once.

New career, new industry (kind of), new city, new apartment, new friends… the list continues, but the reason I felt compelled to begin here of all places through writing, really started from a strong sense of feeling lost. Not lost from a what am I doing perspective, nor from a fulfillment perspective, but a deep seeded anxiousness that felt familiar from my time working in the classroom. A good friend of mine told me that working in Product Management is lonely, and similarly, I have made so many connections to that same loneliness I felt as an educator.

In the past couple years working outside of the classroom, but still with classrooms, I found that there are so many lessons I have learned, but also so many great conversations and topics that I want to reflect upon. Difficult and challenging topics that really test my understanding of the education industry and the impact I want to have.

Ultimately, I hope that as I continue to reflect and share through writing, that we can help create a space to process and discuss all that is happening at the junction between education and technology. Additionally, I have met many transitioning educators that I want to bring validation to all the ways my skills as an educator have translated into the work that I do presently.

I currently hope to write minimally biweekly, and would love to hear from you all any questions, preferred formats, frequency, and all things feedback related. I will be the first to admit that I by no means have all the answers, but am nonetheless curious in trying to understand the world around me for all the new beginnings yet to come. This is our space now, thanks for keeping me company.

Ted.aily: I left my dream job...

It’s a funny thing, life that is, looking back, wondering how my collection of experiences had led me down this tumultuous, winding path to teaching. Years of training to be a student athlete, blood, sweat and tears left on the pitch, combined with a love for science and intensions of being an orthopedic surgeon. Work experiences in walking dogs, city event planning, setting tables and chairs for events, sweeping floors, taking out mounds of trash from campus events, laboratory research, stocking hospital cabinets, ambulating patients, leadership opportunities, musical endeavors, student government experiences and countless whispers and gazes of the highest expectations all combined to set me down this path of education.

My aunt recently told me that great teachers were unicorns, and that a teachers’ role consisted of a hundred different ones, only of which unicorns could perform. And as rare as I knew unicorns were, I always strived to be one.

Teaching was the most rewarding, yet exhausting and all-consuming endeavor I had ever embarked on. And not to say that it always had to be, but in order to truly excel in the way that passion drove me, it ended up being that way.

Over the years, I slowly developed my teaching style and philosophy (details for another time). And while some may disagree, it boiled down to simply always prioritizing my students’ needs over academic needs. I always saw myself as a teacher of students first, and science second. Because of this philosophy, I always encouraged my students to pursue their passions because I was a fortunate product of mine and the encouragement of those around me to pursue those passions. It was because of this that I fell deeply in love with K-12 education, and couldn’t help but give it my all. Soccer coach, check. eSports coach, check. Activities (ASB) director, also check. Educational technology coordinator. Technology department chair. Middle school science teacher. Elective science teacher. High school chemistry teacher. Advisory teacher, sometimes confidant, friend, and club advisor for students. Absolutely, check, check, and check.

I would not trade my experience in the classroom for anything in the world. The past 7+ years I worked day in and and day out, earning my stripes as a classroom teacher. And many times, when I felt like giving up, I was reminded of my students who showed up daily, ready to learn (often times not ready to learn…) needing me to also show up for them.

Without a doubt, many of my students probably never realized that while I was teaching them, mentoring them, advising them, and consoling them, I was in fact gaining far more from those experiences than they were as students. I learned how to be a better person, how to care more for myself, how to read the room and have difficult conversations around racial injustice, gun violence, political scandals, and societal inequities. I learned about advocacy, patience, and unconditional love and care.

After years of giving it my all, on August 26, 2022, I finished my last day at my dream job, teaching first-generation, college-bound students at The Preuss School, UC San Diego.

I had always dreamed of having bigger impact in education. I wanted to help students far beyond the 800+ students on our campus. I found ways to reach more students through extracurriculars, but always felt this urge to want to do more. And while constantly telling my students to chase their dreams and take care of themselves, I realized that I was in fact failing to do just that. I had ambition to do more in education, but was failing to care of myself. My mental health, my relationships, my financial health, all took backseats because I prioritize becoming the best teacher I could be.

And the day I decided to leave the classroom in pursuit of accomplishing more all while taking better care of myself, I was gifted encouragement and grace by my students. My biggest fears of leaving my students and feelings of betrayal, all replaced with words of encouragement and affirmation. 

September 1, 2022 - I started my first day as a Product Manager at Kyron Learning - taking with me the lessons learned and experiences gained from all my classroom experiences. Taking with me the same passions that drove me to want to become a unicorn teacher, to being a change maker in the space of conversational AI in education.

Cheers to new beginnings - and never a goodbye, but a see you later to all those who helped me grow my passion to want to do better and be better each and every day.