Tonight I worked until 9. I have worked until 9 once a week since the Fall of 2006. I adjunct. I also used to teach two online classes for our school district. I did this for the past ten years and resigned in December. I coached track, volleyball, cheerleading, and flag football during my first ten years of teaching. I taught summer school one summer. I have worked as a consultant during the summer teaching teachers. I have worked many hours to supplement my income. In
every job that I have held, however, I have become more informed about myself as a teacher. But I have never solely taught, never solely focused on the teaching of just the students I had assigned to me during the day. One teacher I spoke to the other day said that he would be bored doing just that. I haven't missed the jobs that I quit. I can easily find plenty other activities to do, but I know just teaching would keep me extremely busy. But I am wondering about the other jobs teachers have done to supplement their income? What salary would it take for you to be compensated well and just teach? What trade-off do we make when we work more than one job outside of teaching?
I coached before I started teaching, and only did both at the same time for one year. The money wasn't worth it for me. If I divided the number of hours I actually put into coaching by my salary, I'm sure I would have been earning pocket change for every hour. Teaching takes up so much of my energy that I don't want to give any more if my life to other jobs. If I had to supplement in order to stay afloat I'd do something mindless like Half-Price books or a movie store. I
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I'm always awed and impressed by teachers like yourself who can find the time to do so very many things. Once upon a time, I was right there in the thick of it too. For me, the reasons for scaling back were more personal than professional. My husband is also a teacher and coach - he finds that it really helps to already "know" the kids and that the coaching relationship almost always positively impacts the classroom as well.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing!
~Amanda -ELA 101
Congrats on resigning from the virtual school! It is interesting in this district because teachers don't have to have a second job here. In fact, I can't immediately think of anyone (and I'm thinking of the teachers who have a shorter schedule than I do) who has a second job. Yet, they find all kinds of things to keep them busy. I will say, I think they have much more time to focus on themselves - exercise, go out to dinner (not fast food), watch movies, etc.
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