When Stephanie Dungan graduated college, she had her heart set on joining the Peace Corps as an educator. There was just one problem: She needed teaching experience first. So she began leading after school science programs until she was ready to apply as a math and science teacher with the Peace Corps in The Gambia. 

From there, her teaching career has taken her to three countries and three U.S. states. As an educator, she’s had the opportunity to explore, travel and grow. 

“I accidentally became a teacher,” Stephanie says. Those early Peace Corps years led her to keep teaching STEM. When she returned home, she pursued her master’s degree and a teaching license through an alternative licensure program in New Mexico. Then she landed a Colorado teaching role; Stephanie says, “I got a really awesome job teaching K–5 science, which is pretty unheard of.” 

She loved her job, but several years later, another school was built near hers. Amid changing enrollment numbers, Stephanie's unique role was eliminated. She had to shift course, and she longed to head back overseas. That’s when she decided to freeze her Colorado teaching license.

What does freezing a teaching license mean? 

Many people don’t imagine teaching as a particularly adaptable career—but it can be. In Colorado, teachers need to renew their professional teaching license every seven years. “Freezing” your license means you can put it on hold if you take time away, essentially pausing the seven-year clock. “When I pause it, if I had three years until my expiration date,” Stephanie explains, “whenever I unpause it, I’ll still have those three years.”

Once she froze her license, Stephanie ventured out once again. This time, her adventures took her to Guatemala, where she taught for three years. But even after she returned to the United States, she wasn’t done exploring. She reinstated her teaching license and transferred it to Vermont to teach for another year.  

As she witnessed the strengths and struggles of each place, Stephanie gained a new perspective on teaching. “It’s been really interesting to see what challenges are in common, and what challenges are specific to each school,” she says. “And you get more interesting ideas for your classroom or for your systems.” 

After her time in Guatemala and Vermont, Stephanie returned home to Colorado, ready to keep exploring her interest in education. She now leads educational programs at her local public library and returned to school to earn an MFA in creative writing. 

“I’m definitely not done with teaching,” she says. At the library, she teaches kids’ programs and just started teaching adult English Language Learners. Her education experience is a major asset in her library work: “I have a huge love of kids’ books and read-alouds; I have piles, bookshelves, of kids’ books that I loved. Being in the library means I get to share that.” 

With her adult students, Stephanie can provide a safe place for new Americans to practice their language skills. 

“I love that there’s a need in this community for language learning, and that I can help with that. It’s a way that I can give back to my community.” 

Stephanie’s travels helped her discover what matters most to her as an educator. “In schools, we talk about ‘growth mindset’ a lot, but then we make kids have grades, we give them rubrics and tell them it’s either this or it’s failing,” she says. She points out that truly inclusive education is hard when we hold all students to the same district or state standards. “I remember having students who, the fact that they got up and came to school at all was like, you get a gold star. The fact that they were just sitting in a classroom was enough for them.” 

She likes that teaching at the library is different. She focuses on validating and building up her students: “It’s so fun to watch people who have never been told that everything they’re doing is amazing.”

“It’s not about doing something right or wrong, it’s about that curiosity for learning and then validating voices,” she says. “Those two things for me, moving forward, will be embedded in everything that I talk about and do.” 

Taking time away from the traditional classroom has helped Stephanie to grow into new frontiers and forge her own path as an educator. 

“Throughout the United States, we don’t have a national licensure system. Every single state has different requirements,” she explains. Licensure tests are expensive, and depending on your subject, “you could take multiple tests at $200 a pop. But if I can keep my license while I go somewhere else, then I’m not worried about paying the money and meeting those requirements again.” 

Options like Colorado’s licensure freeze gives teachers career flexibility and makes it easier to pursue things like higher education, caretaking responsibilities or other interests. 

“It made going international easy,” Stephane says. “It felt safer to go out and try new things, because I knew I could always come back.” 

New teachers sometimes worry about committing to the classroom forever. But as Stephanie knows, teachers go all kinds of places, from business and industry jobs to university-level positions to the local library. And more! 

“Being a teacher is what helped me get the library position,” she says. “And being a teacher, what you learn how to do is figure stuff out. You learn how to find answers. Once you do that, you can do anything. It doesn’t end in the classroom.” 

Maybe Stephanie will stay at the library or even return to the classroom one day. Maybe she’ll start her own after school program or something else entirely new. One thing’s for sure—she isn’t done exploring. The only question is: Where will she grow next?

Curious about more career options for teachers? Visit our Career Paths page to see more of the many directions an education career can take you!