Right now I happen to work part-time as a student teacher at a music store, teaching piano. The job isn’t officially competitive, but the nature of the pay makes it competitive. The more students I have, the more money I make. Lots of things can be done to augment my income- the more days I am available, the more students I can take in. I could have monday completely off, but that won’t mean shit if 90% of my potential students can’t make it on monday.
But the toughest part of it is that the other student teachers will actually go out of their way to make my job difficult. I’ve only been doing this for a few months, they’ve been doing it for a few years. The more student teachers there are, the less students each one teaches because it tends to get spread out among all of them (this is assuming all the teachers have the same availability over the week). I feel like they view my presence as a threat. They’re all friends with each other, they all go to the same school and have this insular little clique going on. I am definitely an outsider to them, they don’t talk to me unless it is to try to swindle me, they’re not really interested in engaging me in conversations.
I’ve already gotten ripped off once, and came close a second time. Because this is still new to me, some of the other student teachers take advantage of this. For example, one student teacher asked if I could cover for her one week. I jumped at the chance, because it meant I’d make more money. She would simply pay me for the amount of work I did for her. It was supposed to be the SAME money she’d make doing it herself. But she stiffed me, by a LOT. She basically paid me HALF what she would have made. I realized she did this because she could make money off me working for her on days she couldn’t work. Our boss sorted it out, and she chalked it up to a ‘mathematical error’ but I was pretty suspicious. Another student teacher tried to claim I owed him money because I had a student for 1 week, collected the tuition, then the rest of the month the student changed days and was taught by the other student teacher. But the thing is, I don’t pocket the tuition money- it goes to my boss and she pays me based on an hourly rate. At the time, I was confused and was about to write the guy a check before I came to my senses.
Newer student teachers (me) collect tuition, then hand it over to the master teacher (boss). The master teacher pays the student teacher based on the hours worth of lessons they taught that week. If they have a student that didn’t pay or didn’t show up, the student teacher gets nada. We only get paid if we physically taught a paying student. The more experienced students (the clique) get paid directly by their students. When they have someone cover for them, they compensate the substitue teacher by paying them what they would have made that week. So if another student teacher had 4 students, each payed $100 tuition for the month that had 4 weeks, and I substituted for them on one of those days, the student teacher is supposed to pay me $100.
Before anybody starts howling about labor laws, the thing about this job is that its kind of like babysitting- we get paid in cash, no taxes or anything are deducted. I think the pay is pretty good considering how flexibile it potentially is. I just wish the other student teachers wouldn’t be so mean spirited about all of it.
So the boss only gets paid from the new teachers (you) and not the more experienced ones? Weird (unless I’m not understanding something, which is most likely the case).
The way I see it, you have 3 options:
Quit and tell everyone to ‘get bent’
Figure out what it takes to become one of the more experienced teachers who makes the money directly.
Go out on your own, start teaching your lessons independently (you may be able to get some of you students to go with you, the parents and students probably have more loyalty to you as an instructor then they do to this music store). If you do this, you can charge halfway between what the students pay the music store and what you make there as a teacher, and both of you will come out ahead.
It’s a shitty situation you’re in, but that’s kind of the nature of the beast when you’re paid based on the number of students you have. (Just think of how bad your situation would be if everyone was paid the same no matter how many students they had… then you’d be having problems with instructors who slack off and don’t teach their ‘fair share’ of students).
I know I have to pay taxes on what I make; I have kept very careful track of how much I make that way I can report it on my taxes. Because I don’t make that much yearly income, taking the honest road is easier because even though I WILL have to pay taxes and social security on it, the IRS won’t take that much (I make less than 10k a year).
Back when I was curious about what the other student teachers did, I approached one student teacher and asked her “Do you report your earnings for taxes?” and she looked at me blankly and replied, “What taxes?” :eek: That sounds kind of scary, considering she works there full-time and makes a heck of a lot more money than I do at it. Frankly I’d rather not risk getting audited or something over having to pay what would amount to no more than a few hundred bucks a year (if even that much).
Unfortunately, I can’t really strike out on my own, because I don’t have any musical credentials. Right now my selling point is reputation- having people know me well enough that they trust that I can teach their kids beginner piano. My own skill level also limits the types of people I can teach- I can’t teach something I don’t know myself, and don’t feel comfortable teaching a child a piece I haven’t gone over inside and out myself. Working for a master teacher (my boss) is nice because she brings the students to me. If it was just me as the sole student teacher, with students that were reliable, it would be heaven (of course, so would any job under the most ideal circumstances )
There is some light at the end of the tunnel, however. I talked to some classmates at school about my predicament, and one girl mentioned she teaches at another music school. She has about as much experience doing this as I do, but at the place she works at she earns 25% more than I do right now. So I am seriously considering applying to work for that music school, with the hopes that it will be a better situation for me. As it is, I feel like for every new student I get right now, two more quit/flake out. Its a downward spiral, and I’m running out of students to teach! :mad: