Success Story: Natalie Cataldo, Professional Learning Specialist
Natalie Cataldo, former teacher turned professional learning specialist with Paper, emerged from the Classroom to Boardroom course in 2022 ready for her next step in her teacher transition.
In my latest podcast episode, I sat down with Natalie to recount her journey out of the classroom, through the course, and into her latest role in EdTech.
Years in the classroom
Natalie began her career in college with a strong passion for studying education. Attending Boston College, she earned her first degree in secondary education in English before earning her master’s in curriculum and instruction. Throughout this time she taught in Boston public schools to gain experience.
After earning her master’s she accepted a new job in Chicago with a small private school.
“I had five different preps, and I got hired like two or three weeks before school started. So, really baptism by fire into classroom teaching there, but I had a great experience,” Natalie said.
One of the highlights of this role for Natalie was the chance to redesign a lot of the curriculum with her team.
In addition to teaching, she also served as the girls and boys soccer coach as well as the debate coach. Consequently, this meant many late nights and many weekends spent working to juggle these responsibilities.
After six years, Natalie made the difficult decision to leave teaching to find better work-life balance and better pay.
“I think a huge part of it for me did have to really do with my mental health. That's kind of where I reached a point where I said, ‘okay, I need to take a break,’” Natalie said.
A day as a Professional Learning Specialist
“I'm part of a team that is responsible for all of the teacher training and development for Paper,” Natalie said.
As a professional learning specialist, Natalie works on a team of seven to build out teacher development trainings for the EdTech tutoring program.
“Another big chunk of my day is spent leading some of those trainings. We do a lot of virtual training. We also do a lot of onsite as well, so it does involve a decent amount of travel,” Natalie said.
Other responsibilities in her job include developing resources and activities for teachers to use in the classroom and performing social media outreach.
“We're trying to reach as many students as we possibly can and support teachers so they don't have to make new materials to use in their classroom,” Natalie said.
Imposter Syndrome & Selling Yourself Short
“I think there are really two big areas that I feel like I've grown professionally. That would be in my confidence and then leadership kind of goes hand-in-hand,” Natalie said.
While she felt confident in the classroom, she struggled to deal with imposter syndrome even as a seasoned teacher. This followed her throughout her teaching career and into her first role outside of the classroom.
“I think just the environment really helped push me to become more confident and really take ownership of a lot of the stuff that I was doing,” Natalie said.
As Natalie mentioned, teachers have and hone so many tangible and intangible skills highly relevant to positions inside and outside of the school setting.
Natalie’s Advice
Natalie’s top points of advice:
Keep going,
Have a community of support,
Remind yourself that you have value.
“I think we sell ourselves short as a population a lot of times,” Natalie said. “We say ‘oh, I was just a classroom teacher.’ Like, no, that means you have so many skills that so many other people don't. So value yourself and just be confident that you'll also add value.”
Looking for more?
Listen to my latest podcast episode featuring Natalie Cataldo to catch her full story.
