The Slavery of Teaching English
Wow.
I guess the game in Spain is lame.
I am not an ageist, not at all, but the article does ring a bell in reference to age and the type of work you are doing. The main issue is simple, the teacher game at the start of your career is good money, especially if finding another job is close to nill, but you will hit a ceiling pretty fast. When you hit the ceiling, it won’t be able to sustain a growing family, or even investing in your own future. As a career, and certainly if you do not walk the academic ladder. You get stuck in a catch-22 like problem where you don’t make enough money to invest in your growth and are stuck in playing the same game over and over again.
One way out is to start your own school and hire other teachers, isn’t it. That will require capital, of course.
One issue is that we often see a lot of teachers complain about the difference between the revenue generated and the pay a teacher receives. In a way, the teacher is so close to the revenue stream and they make the calculations, that they start to think that they should be making more money, who doesn’t.
Let’s give an example. A teacher teaches 6 hours, every class has 6 students and each students pays $200. 6*6*200= 7.200. How much does he make …. Let’s say 2.000.
Being business illiterate, the teacher comes to the conclusion he should get more money. Disregarding the added social costs, the real estate costs, the operational costs, etc …..
In business we often look at the “Wages to turnover ratio“, a business where the wages to turnover ratio are over 33% will get into trouble very fast. Therefore, the reason why wages are stuck is because the market decides that that is your value.
A company is willing to pay you a higher wage if the value added is represented by that wage. It’s perfectly normal people want to earn more, the question that you should be asking is, are you worth it?
