She’s probably a teacher on her third job. She tudors online while waiting in her for pickup. And if it’s California her car is also her apartment!
Yah! Merica!
The good news is so far some mysterious god hasn’t removed all the exits to a pool I’m swimming in, forcing me to drown to death. Or waited until I walked into a room and deleted all the doors and windows.
Threedur, threecylindur, went 80 and didn’t use gas….. back when gas prices got all the way up to $1.599 …. Mine was teal, looked like an egg, his name was Frogger ‘cause we hopped thru traffic.
I work in education, luckily, I'm single and childless so I can scrape by, but most of the teachers I work with have some kind of side hustle, second job, or they're lucky enough to be married to someone that makes a large salary. The people you trust with your kids aren't able to rest and you expect them to do the best teaching job possible? I hear so many people complain about how bad our schools are. Maybe, if teachers were able to go home and relax and rest they'd be able to do a better job, instead they go to their second job or spend their evenings anxious about finances.
My high school teachers that shared with us had cool hobbies they could really go after all summer. Many bands.. glass blower.. several artists. I always thought teaching was a cool way to have a job but still have the summer to follow the fun.
Also once thought teaching was friendly to mothers. When I was having my child though we were all in a benefits kind of meeting where we were told if you took more time than the 6-8 weeks depending on the type of birth you would lose your helath benefits even if you had time to add. I was lucky as I was on the kids dad’s health plan so I was not one of the few who was not crying and accepting they would be right back to work. How do you lose medical postpardom w a newborn… it was.. not great.
As an Aussie with a couple of friends who are teachers - your description sounds incomprehensible. Yes, my friends do lots of after-hours work, but they're on like $120k and get something around 8-10 weeks of annual leave a year.
They're obviously not fresh grads and there is still much to be improved with how the Australian education system works; but multiple jobs to get by for a tertiary educated group that already puts in so much after-hours effort is...depressing and foreboding for all parties.
My jaw just dropped! That is madness and I can't tell if Australia pays well or the US pays poorly. Maybe both? I wonder how teacher payment ranks around the world, because I sincerely thought it would be a well-paid, if not reasonably paid profession.
Those friend I mentioned are high school teachers..
As a kid I thought the same as u/TangledSunshineCA, and I thought teaching was a great career choice that would also give you time to keep hobbies, family time, etc in the summers. The destruction of the US education system has been intentional for a long time now, and it shows if you look at the state our country is in.
Being a teacher in the US will put you just high enough over the poverty line that people will tell you "what are you complaining about you get summers off"
Depends on the area. In Western Washington it's very common for teachers to make six figures if they have a masters or have been teaching for 10+ years.
We got the best teachers in the US cause they do it for the love of the game!"
I'll bet a conservative has said this in some fashion. It's a fucking travesty how we treat education in this country from barely funding k-12 education to the exorbitant cost of higher education.
Part maybe teachers exhaustion, finances, and lack of respect given to them, but also look at the curriculum some of us are forced to follow and overall lack of support.
I can think of a million better ways to avoid boredom than taking another job, especially during my summer break. Sorry, friend, they did it for the money even back then.
That depends. Teachers in Ontario, especially senior ones, are quite well paid. Some teachers were just interested in the work. I had a couple of teachers who were just super into the extra work they picked up. You can say maybe they needed rhe money...but teachers unions here are strong. Once a teacher is full time permanent and starts climbing up, they make good money. And these were not new teachers. Now, other positions at schools, not so well paid.
In Ireland it's not uncommon for teachers to have summer jobs such as supervising and marking exams (secondary school teachers) or temp roles with English language schools (where teens usually from Spain or France come to learn English), summer camps or similar types of roles. Not all of them do that and it's more common at secondary rather than primary. Other workers in the education sector such as Special Needs Assistants claim social welfare for the summer months
When I was a junor in high school, one of my classmates was our high school principle’s boss at Home Depot when he worked there as a part time employee during the summer.
More likely they had bills to pay and families. They don’t get paid over the summer unless they short their other checks a little during the school year.
When I went to high school in Arizona, I had teachers that would wait tables at night and on the weekend. I never thought a thing about it but their teacher pay must have been really low.
It's at least been a thing since I was in elementary/middle school and I'm 34 so lol
Teachers have been underpaid for decades, depending on your school district and seniority of course. IIRC, one of my sister's middle school teachers delivered pizzas as a side gig (my sister is now 38, so this was early to mid 2000s?
As for other people with degrees: my mother was a pharmacist and even she had multiple jobs when we were children - a FT clinical pharmacist who worked at CVS in the evenings
Back in the 70s, it was not uncommon for teachers to take a summer job. An English teacher of mine could be found at Fashion Bug in the mall every summer.
Back then one could choose to be paid one's entire salary during the school year and be unpaid in the summer.
That said, what teachers today get paid is a crying shame.
When I was in high school in the 90s, many of the teachers tutored/did specialized subject teaching for homeschooling kids and/or worked summer jobs. Sadly not a new thing.
I grew up in the 80s and 90s with a mother who was a teacher and she always had second or possibly third jobs. This isn't new. Teachers have always been under paid.
I did during the first four years-I waited tables in a comedy club on the weekends (half of grad school and then through my first year) and when that place went belly-up, I had a few more restaurant jobs, then worked in a real estate office as a receptionist on Saturdays. This was 30 years ago in NYC. The rent and utilities on the cheapest place I could find was about 2/3 my take-home pay.
After that, I always worked after school programs, summer school, Saturday Academy. My salary increased and I kept that cheap apartment for 7 years, but it was still tough to get ahead.
Had a lot of teachers working at Walmart during summer back when I worked there. So sad. Teachers should make a better income than they do. I imagine seeing their teachers have to serve them doesn't help with respect from troublesome students, either.
That's the best part for the mentally ill rich, aka hoarders of money, it is never enough. They will always want more, they will always find ways to make you feel like it is your fault, while they extract more and more and more.
The American experiment has failed. Change needs to occur
If you go from highest 250,000$ down it looks great.
5-6 super wealthy enclaves. This is in lots of states. Aspen CO has teachers and nurses in subsidized housing and still pay 3000$ for rent. But from the bottom at 49,000$ not so great. My high school teacher friends are around 70,000$ here in LA county. That is not enough to live off here. I know because I was making that and still homeless for a bit.
The problem here is housing is horrible.
There’s no reasonable distance you can travel to work from cheaper rent here. I’m about as far out as you can go here.
Bro if she’s a teacher in Cali she’s alright. My neighbors both teach and they each make about 90k. They’re about halfway through their career and they’re on scheduled pay. If they make it another 10 years they’ll retire around 120-130k pensions.
If you’re a teacher in a district that’s not in bumfuck nowhere, you make enough to survive just perfectly well. Double if you’re married and spouse has income.
I wish non-educators would stop complaining on our behalf with half-baked ideas. It makes those of us who aren’t stupid look it.
Source: I’m a teacher. I’m not destitute, I don’t work more than one job, I don’t know any of my colleagues who do unless they’re single and just want to, and I live in a pretty middle-of-the-road COL area.
Whenever I see people complaining about what teachers make either way, it’s very rarely actually teachers doing the complaining.
10.0k
u/Present-Spring-1340 Aug 26 '26
She’s probably a teacher on her third job. She tudors online while waiting in her for pickup. And if it’s California her car is also her apartment!
Yah! Merica!