In 2021 I found myself newly solo, never married, no kids, and working from home in my sweatpants. Post-Covid, I had landed a job creating educational videos, a gig that, if you have been following along, fit very nicely into my life's repertoire. There may have been some divine timing when I found VLN Education, a Pittsburgh-based "provider of virtual learning solutions for K-12 schools and educational consortiums for over 15 years." My teammates and I were each assigned various topics from elementary math and science, to introduction to forestry and the history of Broadway. We would create visuals and voice over tracks according to the script provided. The workflow was as streamlined as it had been when I worked for Handmade TV- stock footage and cookie-cutter results.
Unfortunately, working from home does not keep my creative juices flowing. The problem I found was that working from home limits the ability to exchange and grow ideas. So, nothing truly creative came from this salaried gig and it was getting more difficult to put on actual shoes and leave the house.
Eventually, inspiration came! What sparked my interest was learning about Richard Mayer, an American educational psychologist and Professor of Psychology. (THANK YOU, ERIC!) "Mayer has made significant contributions to theories of cognition and learning, especially as they relate to problem solving and the design of educational multimedia. His best known contribution to the field of educational psychology is multimedia learning theory, which posits that optimal learning occurs when visual and verbal materials are presented together simultaneously" (source: Wikipedia, sorry-not-sorry). And there I was making educational multimedia without a care in the world, then suddenly I did care.
With this newly sparked interest in education (remember I earned my A.A. in Education way back in 2009), and living an essentially joyless life devoid of working with young learners, I devised a five-year plan to do just that, and accomplish other cool things along the way.
Unfortunately, working from home does not keep my creative juices flowing. The problem I found was that working from home limits the ability to exchange and grow ideas. So, nothing truly creative came from this salaried gig and it was getting more difficult to put on actual shoes and leave the house.
Eventually, inspiration came! What sparked my interest was learning about Richard Mayer, an American educational psychologist and Professor of Psychology. (THANK YOU, ERIC!) "Mayer has made significant contributions to theories of cognition and learning, especially as they relate to problem solving and the design of educational multimedia. His best known contribution to the field of educational psychology is multimedia learning theory, which posits that optimal learning occurs when visual and verbal materials are presented together simultaneously" (source: Wikipedia, sorry-not-sorry). And there I was making educational multimedia without a care in the world, then suddenly I did care.
With this newly sparked interest in education (remember I earned my A.A. in Education way back in 2009), and living an essentially joyless life devoid of working with young learners, I devised a five-year plan to do just that, and accomplish other cool things along the way.
The Plan
- Earn a Master's in Education
- Get a full-time teaching position
- Travel new places far and wide
- Buy a truck
- Do other cool things
You may have noticed that this blog post rant began in 2021 and it is now 2026. Well, I'm happy to share that I have accomplished my first five-year plan successfully. I will be back-logging the steps I took along the way- apologies to those who don't like nonlinear story telling or Quentin Tarantino.
