The Freelance Educator is the definitive resource for K-12 teachers who are ready to utilize their skills outside of the classroom and embark on a fast-paced, highly rewarding entrepreneurial journey.
Author Tinashe Blanchet, who has launched and managed two educational businesses, provides all the details you need to get started as an independent educational consultant. She uses a blend of her own experience, thorough research, and interviews with over 40 freelance educators to provide you with step-by-step advice. Topics covered include making the transition, finding your vision, establishing a legitimate business, branding and marketing, communicating with clients, making and managing your money, and growing your business. Each chapter is filled with interactive features to help you pause, reflect, and apply what you are learning.
With the helpful suggestions in this book, you'll be able to launch your new career, helping schools improve student outcomes, traveling around the world, meeting new people, and learning all along the way!
The purpose of this book is to inform and empower K-12 educators who are interested in working independently as educational consultants, i.e., free-lance educators. Educational consulting can be very rewarding, especially if you enjoy traveling, presenting, offering advice, and meeting new people. Most powerfully, independent educational consultants can expand their potential impact way beyond their own classroom, school or organization by using their expertise to empower educators, near and far, to improve their practice.
According to the Indeed Career Guide,
An educational consultant is a professional with training and relevant degrees who offers feedback and suggestions to other education professionals like teachers and administrators, as well as parents and children. As an educational consultant, you will work to become an expert in your field and then use that expertise to assist others in the field with improving their performance as educators. You may work with K-12 schools or universities or the students attending those schools, depending on your area of expertise. Many educational consultants have a background as a teacher or other educational professional.
(Indeed Editorial Team, 2021)
College Board consultant Carolyn Fruin also writes:
Educational consultants do many things. They advise K-12 school districts on how to integrate technology into the classroom. They design and manage higher education and professional development programs for K-12 teachers at universities and colleges, [a]nd they help companies design products for teachers.
(2015)
Do Now: Begin With Your WHY
Educators often begin a lesson plan with a list of objectives to answer the question: âwhat do I want my students to learn?â Similarly, your educational consultancy should also be driven by a strong sense of purpose. The most important first step you can take on a path towards starting any endeavor, but especially a business, is to really search your mind and heart to answer a very simple question:
WHY Am I Doing This?
Spend some time thinking about your response to this fundamental question and record your answer in writing, preferably in a digital format, so you will not misplace it. Think of writing and editing your WHY like writing âstudent-friendlyâ objectives. Your WHY, which can also be referred to as your businessâs mission statement, should be written as clearly and succinctly as possible, so that it is easy for you to communicate it to prospective clients, colleagues and other stakeholders. Your WHY will inform every facet of your consultancy, so take your time and do not hesitate to revise or rewrite it. As your consultancy evolves over time, so will your WHY.
Check for Understanding: Quitting Your Job Is Not a Good WHY!
There are many reasons why people choose to start a business. Many folks have a very clear vision of the kind of entity they want to build. Others may not know exactly what they want to do with their new enterprise, but they know that they are done with their current job or position. To be clear, quitting your job is neither a purpose nor is it a compelling reason to invest the time and significant effort required to build a successful educational consulting business. Instead, you may want to add leaving your full-time gig to pursue your business to a list of secondary goals or anticipated milestones.
Additionally, your WHY should not simply list your skills and/or services. While these can be included, be sure to stay purpose-driven with your mission statement. What will motivate you to keep doing the work even when you are faced with the inevitable challenges of starting and running a business? For example, if you have a passion for working with preschoolers, make sure your WHY reflects this. Perhaps you love figuring out ways to help students with behavior issues or special needs. Find a way to incorporate that into your mission statement.
Your WHY connects your skills and services to what you love to do or what you really believe in â your passion. Donât know where to start? Check out the following list of mission statements, with the WHY italicized, for some inspiration:
I help people and organizations create, build, and expand high quality early learning environments for young children. I specialize in professional development, organizational administration, and leadership development. â Eboni Walker, Learning Matters LLC
Susan Fitzell, M.Ed., CSP, knows how to bridge the organizational learning gap. Susan provides unique solutions that transform performance by teaching people how they learn. She helps leaders understand how to motivate and engage their employees.
Educator Alexander Consulting, LLC empowers educators to actualize becoming innovators and leaders.
Positive, proactive solutions for working with challenging behaviors: I work with educators of all grade levels, parents, legal professionals, and businesses. â Kathryn Phillips, Total Behavior Management
WHY âThe Freelance Educatorâ?
The author of âThe Freelance Educator,â Tinashe Blanchet, is a former high school math teacher with over 18 years of experience in education. She is a freelance educator in her own right, who has worked independently as an educational technology consultant since 2013, training thousands of teachers as a Google-Certified Innovator and Trainer in more than 70 cities in over 40 states and abroad. Surprisingly, the question she was asked the most is totally unrelated to the topics on which she trained educators: âHow did you get into this?â Whether she was training teachers in Hawaii or Canada, New Orleans or New Jersey, she was almost always approached by someone who wanted to know how they could break into a career in educational consulting.
The authorâs research revealed that there are many resources available for individuals to learn more about educational consulting, including books, articles, and videos. There are also lots of books and other resources available for starting a small business or even a consultancy. However, what she did not find was a step-by-step, how-to guide written particularly for K-12 educators who are interested in working independently as educational consultants.
About This Book
Based on her own experience and a great deal of research, the author has written what she hopes to be a powerful, easy-to-use resource for teachers who want to learn more about starting an educational consulting business. She also had the privilege to interview over 40 freelance educators, who graciously agreed to share their experience and expertise with the readers of thi...
