Teachers Are Moonlighting as Instagram Influencers to Make Ends Meet
buzzfeednews.com
buzzfeednews.com
Reporters and editors are people with a knack for language. They understand that for this phrase, the gap between denotation and connotation is a chasm. That we see this particular phrasing constantly anyway suggests a certain malfeasance.
I'm really tired of having to read my news adversarially.
This is significantly different than your average instagram influencer who generates revenue by finding advertisers and convincing them to pay based on reach.
Poor news judgement, Buzzfeed editorial team. You've taken a handful of wildly successful and unverified samples to make it seem like this is a trend or widespread occurrence among professional teachers.
These two quotes stood out in particular:
School administrators have largely been supportive, too
Henry said her Instagram can help students and their parents connect in a more natural way and have more meaningful conversations about what they’re learning in school.
Really? Administrators have no problem with school facilities being used for this purpose, and parents think sponsored Instagram content is a "natural" way to connect?
I have kids in our local public school system and follow teachers and administrators who use social media channels to share events and special learning experiences. I am also well aware of the struggles to pay for supplies, and have paid the extra fees and donation requests when they've come up. But using these channels as a personal side hustle would be really disappointing, if I learned it were taking place at my kids' schools.
This article does a disservice to the profession, IMHO.
Wow. That's some serious cash.
Why:On the order of a few thousand a year for a big account, why is that surprising? It's not a career, even for most of the people making money off of the platform. It's more on the order of youtube videos. Yeah, a few people might make a living from it, but that's a vanishingly small percentage of the people pulling in some sort of income from it.
They also hire an influencer to run a promo or booth as a brand ambassador.
The why is obvious: it makes them more money than they pay.
IG influencers might be most cost-effective way of getting your product in front of potential customers.
Example: If you sell novelty beer mats and there's someone on IG with 500,000 followers who posts images of novelty beer mats, you might consider paying them a decent chunk of cash to talk about your business.
That's a salary better than the national average.
I mean, I respect the hustle. Get paid and all that. No shame in the game. But pretending that you already aren't doing better than most people is kind of being dishonest.
The woman I wound up marrying said much the same. She heard other teachers complaining about the pay and how they need summer jobs, etc. She was like, "This already pays better than any other job I've had, if I could survive off of that, this is no problem".
In an absolute sense I'm well paid and I'm happy with my situation. If I were to engage in a keeping up with the Jones' attitude then I'd probably be bitter. I don't have kids so my need to keep up is greatly diminished from those who do have kids.
This is the real issue with inequality. Seeing so many other people have it much better than you despite relatively the same level of education and intelligence makes people angry. It's hard not to compare but it's much healthier emotionally not to compare.
If I found myself continually grousing about my low pay relative to other professions, and all of the indignities and hardships I suffered, I'd find another job.
That's another thing as well, there's the line that teachers have to provide their own supplies. But the degree to which is left up to the teacher.
And then there's the months off.
I'm pretty orthogonal to it now considering my wife is an elementary school teacher. And there is a degree of truth to the complaints, but they are often exaggerated as well. She still complains about how much I work.
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p... https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p...
I understand that teaching isn't a highly paid profession, but when you only work ~75% of the year, that doesn't seem so terrible...
Not only that, but that assumes single income, with mandatory union membership and three months of vacation a year, during which time one can pursue higher education, work a side job or relax. That's a better deal than most others get at the finger-chopping factory or slaving away in a call center.
Thanks to recent education initiatives over the last few decades everything is about teaching to a handful of standardized tests so the job is automated to the point of being glorified babysitting anyway.
It's a cushy gig with benefits most would kill for. I don't have sympathy for teachers anymore.
50,000 * .65 = 32,500 / 12 = $2,708.
$700 for health insurance, dental, life insurance.
Home in a neighborhood where you feel reasonably safe : $900 month. Hopefully in an OK neighborhood, because you can't afford a private school.
$300/month for a car that actually starts reliably in the winter for the next five years.
Child care for a couple of small children ($500/mo per child).
You won't teach in the state of Nebraska without a four-year degree. $18,000/year*4, $72,000 of debt.
Let's hope nothing major comes up.
While it's only for a few years that's still off by 3 times in my experience.
$300/month for a car? Really? You can get a decent car cheaper than that.
In state tuition is going to be closer to $6k - $7k a year.
Nebraska's average salary is $36k.
[1] https://financialaid.unl.edu/budget.html
[2] http://www.collegecalc.org/colleges/nebraska/university-of-n...
Why would a public school teacher not send their kids to public school? A private school will typically offer tuition discounts for the children of employees.
"The average annual pension for a retired Illinois teacher in fiscal year 2017 was $54,180"
https://www.trsil.org/news-and-events/pension-issues/teacher...