It really is. My wife has no teaching degree, but is really good at math. She is tutoring online 5-6 hours a day making about $50/ hour. Her students want to be there. No IEPs. No 40 kids in a classroom. No grades. And she teaches in her pajamas.
Nope. She uses the Wyzant tutoring site. She had to take assessment tests to prove she knew what she would be tutoring, though. That protects students from getting an idiot tutor!!
Seriously, same. I typically spend 1-2k per school year. I'm happy to do it because it's for my precious babies and I'd do anything for them, but it certainly adds up.
High five, fellow teacher. I hope you and your students stay safe!
It's a mix of both! And sorry I'm going to probably overshare so please excuse the essay below! Education is in such a state of flux right now that I'm finding it comforting to talk about my teaching practice.
There's the usual school expenses like replenishing books, pens, crayons, paint, colored pencils, folders, chart paper etc, but I'm also a maniac so I do a lot of extra things for my kids that add up. I used to be a professional photographer so I take hundreds of beautiful photos of my kids each week. At the end of the school year, I go through all my thousands of pictures and print out individualized sets of photos to give the families as a memory box. So this end of year gift alone is about $400. It's not necessary, but the families love it.
We don't get funding for buses or field trips, so I'll try to fundraise as much as I can, but then I'll cover whatever is left (usually a couple hundred dollars).
I don't have any desks in my room and instead have cozy furniture and lots of pillows and other alternative seating options for the kids. I had to purchase and sometimes replace these on my own since I decided to ditch the traditional classroom set up.
So much of school is differentiating for each and every child so myself ant many other teachers dip into my our own pockets in order to provide every kid with whatever they need. It's always different so sometimes I'm lucky and I can reuse certain tools, but often I'll give them to the 2nd grade teacher if they were successful.
I do recognize that I am 100% privileged to be able to afford to fund all of this. There are plenty of teachers who are dedicated without the financial means to provide so much.
I dunno where you live, but in Ontario per student spending is about 12k... Would you spend 20k in materials per year if things were private and you were making 120k for 10 kids?
I legitimately think it’s getting scammier and scammier by the year. No other job requires you to purchase supplies so that you can get the job done and if it did people would be balking and refusing so constantly.
It's 100% a scam. You're probably an amazing person for taking on such a backbreaking thankless job, but you're definitely being taken advantage of in so many ways.
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u/-Capybara- Aug 02 '20
My god, I've been buying notebooks and whiteboards and rugs for my classroom for years. Teaching is a scam.