At 55, I became a rookie teacher after 3 decades in tech PR. Gen Z is teaching me a lot — and reminding me how to trust myself

Tech hires fast and churns faster.

After 30-plus years in tech PR, I made a change, recently becoming a rookie high school teacher at age 55.

It was the career upgrade I needed (I hope), and it’s giving me a front-row seat to the one skill this rising generation has that I’m still learning: radical self-trust.

It’s late July, and I’m sitting in a training session with and for high school teachers and instructional coaches and I am stress sweating like a champ.

I have the least amount of classroom experience and yet I’m the only greybeard in the room.

Nobody here knows or cares what I’ve built over the past thirty years.

Nobody knows the campaigns, the clients, the career.

My journey as I built a PR agency, tore it down, and built it again.

To the teachers in this training, I’m a beginner, a new teacher.

And I can’t help thinking about how, in tech, invisibility has a way of creeping up on you.

You get older.

Fewer people know your name.

Sometimes it feels like you’re slowly aging out of the room.

But then another thought hits me.