Many teachers decide to enter the profession based solely on the fact that within a few years they will most likely become millionaires. Oh, wait. Just kidding.
No teachers enter their profession because of the money. It’s common knowledge that pretty much wherever you live, teachers are underpaid…and under-appreciated, to boot. Sad, but true.
Tales abound of excellent teachers who were poised to spend decades enriching the lives of young people, but were forced to change their profession because of stagnant wages and no hope of meaningful monetary raises.
I’ve heard them in heaps. My guess is that you’ve heard a few, yourself. Maybe stories like these even have you considering a similar move.
Let’s take a zoomed out look at the people who did leave teaching for another career. Imagine what might have happened to the world if they hadn’t had to leaving teaching to find the freedom they needed and the financial rewards they desired.
Sting
A winner of 16 Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe, an Emmy and three time Academy Award nominee, Sting began his young adulthood at St. Paul’s First School in Cramlington, North East England, teaching English, football and—would you believe it?—music.
J.K. Rowling
In the early ’90s, before conceiving of a young British wizard who liked to fly around on a broom, J.K. Rowling taught English as a foreign language to residents of Portugal’s second largest city, Porto. One can only imagine how well she could have taught youngsters to use their imagination while writing creatively, had she remained a teacher.
John Adams
Before becoming a Founding Father of the United States of America, not to mention the country’s second president and major contributor to its Declaration of Independence, John Adams taught school in Worcester, Massachusetts. Interestingly, it seems that even in late eighteenth century America, teachers were not getting the respect they deserved. John Adams, in reference to his leaving his teaching position, is quoted as wanting “more deference from his fellows.”
Sir William Golding
Often teachers are inspired from within the classroom. Such was the case with the author of Lord of the Flies, a book perennially ranked as one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. Sir William Golding, who began his professional life as a teacher, once allowed his students to debate a subject with “complete freedom.” The ensuing downward spiral of disorder helped inspire what would become his life’s greatest work.
Robert Frost
Arguably the greatest American poet, Robert Frost was an English teacher at New Hampshire’s Pinkerton Academy as well as the former Hampshire Normal School in Plymouth. Later, he taught at Amherst College in Massachusetts, where he taught his students to pay attention to the sounds of the English language in their writing.
Frost could truly be described as a revolutionary instructor. If we treated current teachers the way they deserve to be treated (with fair pay and the regard deserved by such a necessary and vital position), one can envision an education system that could give school children the nourishment their young minds crave from year to year.
She expounded on what a great profession teaching is and it once again made me think of how teachers are so underpaid.
UK comedian Greg Davies said of teaching, “I had a great time as a teacher, but I was just treading water, as a lot of us do.”
He can now look back with fondness on his time in the classroom. “I always seem to be slagging it off and talking about it as if I was manically depressed for 13 years. Admin and forward planning were not my forte, but I loved the actual teaching.
Romesh Ranganathan, another popular UK comedian said too, ‘I did really love teaching’
But Teaching needs to be more than just a stepping stone on the path to greatness for so many talented individuals across the world.
There’s no reason people should have to give up the vocation they love just because they can’t earn a living wage.
I’m here to tell you it doesn’t have to be that way.
It’s funny, when you read an interview or profile of someone who was a teacher, how does it make you feel?
If you’re anything like me the feelings are mixed.
Teacher suggests respectable, dependable, likeable…solid.
But then there’s a sneaky part of you that thinks …how did they manage to get away, to create a new career for themselves with a high profile to boot?
That’s strange because there won’t be one of us reading this who doesn’t still or didn’t at one point think that teaching was the career for us,
Because there’s no doubt that teaching itself – actual teaching- is hugely rewarding.
But for sure it’s not financially rewarding and of course we don’t go into vocational professions like teaching for financial gains.
Or at least that’s always been the way. But now that technology is on our side and governments everywhere are starting to see just how this can play out, it doesn’t need to be this way any more
I recently read a Guardian article about teachers working two and three jobs to make ends meet.
The article’s author talks about a friend who works as a history teacher, but moonlights as a forklift driver at a warehouse in order to make ends meet.
The article goes on to tell stories about teachers paying their way through graduate school, and the many others who simply can’t find “enough hours in the day” to carry on a normal life in addition to fulfilling the demands of their job.
Ahhhhhh! It’s so frustrating to hear, yet it’s a refrain I hear over and over again from teachers everywhere.
You can make the money you want to make and still stay in the field of education.
You can. I promise.
The answer is online tutoring. Not only online tutoring is one of the fastest-growing ways people are learning across the globe, it’s the future of education, both primary and secondary.
You have the opportunity to get in at the ground level and reap the financial awards most ‘brick-and-mortar’ teachers can only dream about.
Sign up for my How to Tutor Online course
When you teach online, there’s no limit to what you can earn!
In no time you’ll be on your way to owning and running a successful online tutoring business where you’ll set your own hours, work from any location you want and make the kind of money that can keep you doing what you love as long as you like.
As many of you know, I was once a teacher. I made the same move you can make by enrolling in this class. It takes guts, but once you have a successful online tutoring business up and running, you’ll feel better than ever.
Plus, I’ve made the rookie mistakes that come with starting an online tutoring business, and by taking the How To Tutor Online course, you can avoid them and look forward to smoother sailing.
I look forward to working with you as you make 2020 the year you become an even better you!
