Monday, June 13, 2011

What to do, what to do?

I had always planned to go back to work one or two days a week in 2012. Lately, however, I've been itching to get back into some kind of paid work.

Don't get me wrong- I love being at home with the kids, but Elizabeth is such hard work mentally and I really feel that one day a week at work would do me a world of good. Sending her to day care is completely out of the question right now because she hates strangers, so I'm very lucky to have my mother in law around, who is more than happy to look after her (and Jimmy too, if another day of day care isn't an option).

This year I made myself a promise that I was going to rediscover the musician in me (ie. actually practise regularly, not just before a gig). I have (mostly) stuck to my resolution and the more I play, the more I want to play, and teach others to play and love music as I do.

I've been toying with the idea of registering as a teacher with the Queensland Government. As I have no education qualifications, I would only be able to teach on a temporary basis- covering for teachers who are on sick/ maternity/ long service leave. The work would possibly be sporadic, therefore with an unpredictable level of income, but I think it would be interesting to teach in lots of different schools. The one downfall is that any contracts I get will almost certainly be 3-5 days a week, which I don't want to do.

My other option is to try to get into a private school, which is the kind of work I've always done. The pay is very good (I think it's $65/hr now) and teaching one-on-one can be very rewarding. However, I'm kind of over spoilt private school kids and their attitudes, even if the snooty ones only make up a small percentage of the students I've taught.

Since I've started up my band, Funk Factory, I've been chatting to a lot of teachers in the public system (7 of the band members are public teachers) and it seems that they are so much more enthusiastic about teaching compared to the private school teachers I know. One of the band members, who was my high school band teacher, says he loves his job more and more every year- this is after more than 20 years on the job!

I think I need to chat to a few more people from both sides of the fence.

2 comments:

Stacey said...

Good luck with what you decide! I can definitely empathise, I would love to get some paid work but feel unable to get anything regular now that I know I'm gonna have another bubba at the end of the year! Gah! I love that music is still such a big part of your life :D.

Kat - TeamKitten said...

awesome dude! regular paid work, even just one day a week, would be awesome. but even better - one day a week break from kidlets would be ace! haha i know we love them - but hey - a little break makes the love even stronger i think!