PERSPECTIVES AND OPINIONS
What is Your Real Job?
Apparently, online teaching is not a real job
“What is your real job?”
I’ve been asked this question many times during my four years of teaching English online.
The question is not always delivered as tactlessly as that, sometimes it’s had a more subtle conveyance.
“Is this your only job?”
“Do you just work on [Insert Company Name Here] or do you have another job?”
Whilst it does sting for a second or two, I can’t fault my students for the harshly worded questions. After all, English is not their first language and the nuances of certain words are lost on them. Additionally, cultural differences mean that certain students have no issues with being direct, it’s culturally appropriate for them.
Lastly, some countries’ work culture doesn’t allow for the flexibility of working online, and as such, online jobs are considered less than.
There have, however, been a small handful of students that have asked this question in an attempt to diminish me. They all come from a culture that I’m not particularly fond of and do it to equalize the balance of the teacher-student dynamic, but that’s a conversation for another day.
Back to the question.
“What’s your real job?”
“Teaching is a real job,” I responded with a smile.
I could see that he felt bad about his question, suddenly realizing what he’d asked. This was not my intention, he was a sweet man and I simply responded to his question.
It got me thinking. Do many people feel that teaching is not a real job?
About an hour later, I recounted my tale to a Brazilian student living in Canada and she admitted that she, too, got that question when she was teaching back in Brazil.
We came to the conclusion that no one asks this question when you are teaching in a classroom. It is merely working online that elicits the response, “What is your real job?” We decided that teaching online represents not working to some, but why is this still so after a global pandemic that forced many to work online?
Is it that he thought I was a part-time teacher as opposed to a full-time one?
I do work as a full-time teacher. In fact, at the moment as I save for college I’m working around forty-five hours a week.
Irrespective, does working part-time mean that you aren’t working? Productivity equals meaning, doesn’t it? That’s what the wealthy love to think. If us plebs aren’t productive it means that they aren’t getting richer, right?
There’s nothing they hate more than ‘wasted time’.
But I digress…
My teaching hours are split between conversation and grammar lessons depending on the needs and desires of the individual student. Does having a conversation mean that it’s not a real job? Are psychologists and psychiatrists also pretending to work?
I will say this. I have worked in multiple industries in my life, from banking to website design, from recruitment to social services. I have worked eight-hour days and twelve-hour days, but nothing has exhausted me more than teaching English as a Second Language online.
The work is grueling, many of the conversations are the same, and it’s challenging to hold my tongue when I’m confronted with attitudes and ideologies that I fundamentally disagree with, but it’s my job.
It has also been rewarding. I have discussed quantum physics with a fourteen-year-old Turkish girl, had numerous students come to me for therapeutic help, learned about medicine, mathematics, and engineering, and made some lasting connections.
It has kept me in housing and food during the global pandemic and it will continue to do so until I move on next year. Forty-five hours a week sounds like a real job to me.
What do all of you think is a real job? Have you had anyone question the validity of your profession?
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