Teaching and money question

[Anonymous]

Is it okay to be money motivated as a teacher? I'm finding a disconnect at times. I entered later in life and I'm married to a high earner. Some of my co workers are not.
I brought up the fact that I like to lesson plan at home because I have 2 monitors. This was apparently offensive and there were all these emotional comments made to ease the pain of me stating that fact towards my co workers. This is just a small example.

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure what you mean by money motivated. Are you saying that because you married someone rich and they didn't it's because they weren't motivated?

[Anonymous]

Are you saying they felt bad because they can't afford that setup on their low salary?

[Anonymous]

I think teachers who have been in the profession 10+ years do get salty. My spouse went from corporate to teaching, I’m the higher earner. Spouse loves teaching but we could not afford our lifestyle if it weren’t for my salary. I guess the teachers make comments made about our cars, our house, our town, etc. Not in a bad way, more envious I guess.

[Anonymous]

Nobody wants to hear about your financial excesses. Use a filter before telling people who might be struggling financially about your wealth.

[Anonymous]

I am a teacher and have saved over a million dollars even though my spouse and I are not well paid. I don’t tell anyone (work, friends, extended family) except to give advice to new hires to start saving early and efficiently. Even direct family doesn’t know my exact numbers, but I do tell them my goals for retirement.

Talking about anything related to money is usually a bad idea. It typically only triggers two feelings: pity or envy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it okay to be money motivated as a teacher? I'm finding a disconnect at times. I entered later in life and I'm married to a high earner. Some of my co workers are not.
I brought up the fact that I like to lesson plan at home because I have 2 monitors. This was apparently offensive and there were all these emotional comments made to ease the pain of me stating that fact towards my co workers. This is just a small example.

You have 2 monitors? I’m not sure I understand. I am a career teacher and I like to plan at home because I can think better there. I do it early in the mornings on weekends when my kids are asleep/allowed to watch TV. I chose this profession because I find it fulfilling in a lot of ways and I’m not super money motivated.

[Anonymous]

Monitors are not expensive. They must know about your husband and financial position and don't want to hear anything money related.

[Anonymous]

I’m a single teacher in the DMV and every mid career teacher my age has a much better paid spouse and lives a more expensive lifestyle than I can afford. I could not care less.

I also do not lesson plan at home.

[Anonymous]

I used two laptops during online school during Covid. One was mine and one was the district’s. It doesn’t make you seem wealthy unless you flaunt it. “Guess that I bought last weekend? A second monitor for lesson planning at home.” You will hear crickets.

[Anonymous]

Money has nothing to do with other teachers reacting to you working from home.

Veteran teachers often try to set firm boundaries so that work doesn’t take over their time at home. When other teachers invest a lot of out-of-school hours into grading and planning, the fear is that this sets an expectation for all teachers to work long hours.

Teaching can also be a back-biting, mean girl profession.

But there are a number of teachers in the DC area with affluent families of origin and/or well paid spouses. Frankly, it’s one of the more common ways folks manage to stay in the profession. You’re not unique, and no one wants to know about or discuss your financial status. Learn to be discreet.

[Anonymous]

IME, the teachers who are most upset about money are those closer to retirement. They’re unmarried or married to a LMC/working class guy and they’ve just realized that their retirement won’t be as nice as they were expecting. Or it’s farther away than they’d hoped. They might have parents who were in elder care and reality is coming crashing down. If this describes your audience (and of course I’m guessing a bit), then It wasn’t about you. It was about their savings.

To those of you who said monitors are cheap, you are very much in a bubble. Many families do not have $200 for a single monitor, much less two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it okay to be money motivated as a teacher? I'm finding a disconnect at times. I entered later in life and I'm married to a high earner. Some of my co workers are not.
I brought up the fact that I like to lesson plan at home because I have 2 monitors. This was apparently offensive and there were all these emotional comments made to ease the pain of me stating that fact towards my co workers. This is just a small example.

There are times that I regret not pursuing teaching as a career, then I read things like this and I know I could not have survived a work environment where my colleagues get emotional over the fact that I might have two monitors at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:IME, the teachers who are most upset about money are those closer to retirement. They’re unmarried or married to a LMC/working class guy and they’ve just realized that their retirement won’t be as nice as they were expecting. Or it’s farther away than they’d hoped. They might have parents who were in elder care and reality is coming crashing down. If this describes your audience (and of course I’m guessing a bit), then It wasn’t about you. It was about their savings.

To those of you who said monitors are cheap, you are very much in a bubble. Many families do not have $200 for a single monitor, much less two.

. Monitors are cheap nowadays. You can get one for less than $100. People also get rid of them frequently on marketplace or Buy Nothing groups. I can’t begin to imagine begrudging a co-worker a second monitor at home. Should teachers also never go on vacation or to a concert because their co-workers might be jealous?

[Anonymous]

I am a teacher and have no clue what you are talking about. Are you motivated by money or are the other teachers? I’m just not understanding it. Either way, I am a teacher and my spouse makes more than enough money for me not to work. No one knows this because it’s none of their business. Something’s you just don’t talk about in a work environment. Money, sex, religion, etc.