Welcome to the very first episode of Your Win-Win Teacher Business. In episode #1, I’m sharing the story of my teaching career so we can get to know each other. I’ll share about seasons when teaching was a win-win for me, and seasons when it wasn’t. This is my teacher story.
Why Am I Sharing My Teacher Story?
My teacher story is personal and I’m grateful that it will always have a home here in my corner of the internet. I work with teachers every single day. I love getting to know the stories of their teaching careers and I want there to be a place where someone can learn about my teacher story before we get a chance to meet and work together.
I stand by my decision to become a teacher and I have so many happy memories from this chapter. The fact that my teacher story ended after 12 years of service does not mean I didn’t enjoy being a teacher.
Some days it seems like every person who went to school themselves feels like they are an expert on what it’s like to be a teacher. Even as I graduated from college and entered the workforce for the very first time, I can honestly say there were surprises at every turn – both good surprises and bad.
Teaching Stories Connect Us
Personally, I never get tired of hearing teachers share teaching stories. Every school community is unique and with new administrators coming and going frequently, no two school years are alike.
When I chose to leave teaching, many people wanted me to share one big eventful story that summed up the reason I drew my line in the sand. Others asked about my salary, as they have heard teaching stories where educators loved their roles but just couldn’t pay their bills. Questions came my way about my commute . . .and I’m sure all of the questions came from a place of kindness.
Teaching is an important job. We need teachers. So it’s hard for those outside of the teaching world to understand when a teacher steps out of that role and chooses a different role. The questions come from a genuine place of wanting to understand I’m sure, but they are also exhausting.
I have no interest in sharing teaching stories for the purpose of convincing others that I made the right choice. The internet has added many new options to the career menu that just weren’t in the mix when I chose to become a teacher. I’m sharing my teacher story to connect with others.
Stories About Teaching Have A Time and A Place
This podcast won’t be filled with stories about teaching but I do think this one episode is a helpful way to get to know me better so that we can connect and bond over things that were common about our teaching stories.
I’d love to hear your stories about teaching – the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Every single day I’m cheering for teachers. I love to help connect them with resources that can make it easier to finish lesson planning so they can return home to their families. Troubleshooting technology so their lesson can get back on track – it’s an honor.
I get to work with teachers pay teachers sellers who create resources for busy teachers. Whether I’m writing emails to their customers, editing a helpful message to be shared on a podcast, or managing projects shared by many team members I’ll always be connected to the world of education.
My stories about teaching will always make me smile, but also I’m grateful to serve educators and students in a new way. I hope you enjoy this podcast episode where I share my teacher story.
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Read the transcript:
Janice Cook 0:00 Welcome to the very first episode of Your Win-Win Teacher Business. In episode number one, I’m sharing the story of my teaching career so that we can get to know each other. I’ll share about seasons when teaching was a win-win for me, and seasons when it wasn’t.
Janice Cook 0:18 You’re listening to Your Win-Win Teacher Business, a podcast for teacher authors who want to make a big impact in the world for teachers and students and have fun doing it. I’m your host, Janice Cook, here with a pep talk to start your week off strong. Some seasons of running a business feel hard and sticky, but it shouldn’t feel like that all the time. Let’s make your business a win-win together.
Janice Cook 0:43 I’m so grateful to be having this chat today. I’m Janice Cook, and I was a music teacher for 12 years. So while it may feel random at first, the right starting spot for the story of my teacher journey is the second grade. I was living in Massachusetts at the time with my Nana, who is still alive today, by the way, at age 99 – shout out to Nana. In the second grade, my music teacher started to talk about opportunities to learn instruments. They shared about the different instrument choices and invited us to dream about which one was a match for us. I went home and shared my thoughts with Nana, who informed me that I was welcome to try an instrument, but that it would be the clarinet because she already had one from back when her kids took their test drive through the instrumental music hallway. Nana lived through the Great Depression, and she wasn’t spending money on anything that she didn’t have to. And I have to say, I can respect that. It is really expensive just to breathe air as an adult these days. So she gave me a little workbook and a play along cassette tape. Ooooh, I’m dating myself here. And I sat outside on the steps with a little boom box and played along to that tape. I taught myself to play the clarinet until I was old enough for my official entry into the school music program. Knowing how much I love taking online courses now as an adult, I smile when I think about these days of learning via play along cassette tape.
Janice Cook 2:08 When I got to middle school, the band director offered some additional instrument choices to balance out our instrumentation. He mentioned we would be using school owned instruments so there would be no additional cost to families. My hand shot up, and I finally found my ticket out of that front row clarinet section, that I never wanted to be in in the first place. I moved to the back row in seventh grade and learned to play the tuba. That tuba opened up so many doors for me. I performed in amazing concert halls, attended prestigious camps and studied under some incredible musicians along the way. It also came with some pretty tough injuries in high school, and I rotated through a few seasons of percussion and color guard while finding a treatment path for those so that I could stay connected and cared for in the music wing. The music department was a win-win for me. I had consistent teachers and peers every year. I had a structured schedule that left no room to get into trouble, and that tuba was a ticket to a college scholarship anywhere I wanted to go. So while there were a few moments that were hard along the way, overall, my public school experience was a win-win in music for sure.
Janice Cook 3:21 So when it was time to go to college, since music was what I knew best, I applied as a music education major. That tuba was a great ticket to scholarship opportunities galore, and I enjoyed my undergraduate experience two hours away from home in Connecticut. Those four years were an incredible deep dive into the world of music. I student taught at a middle school first and then an elementary school for the second half of the semester. I loved that elementary school so much, and was honored that the cooperating teacher let me continue to come, one day a week, for the rest of the school year, to experience a full year with those students and get even more experience under my belt. College was a win-win season in my book.
Janice Cook 4:06 I was able to land an elementary music position right after graduation. The job was in Massachusetts, where I grew up, and I stayed there for two years. The learning curve was steep, but I was feeling pretty successful, overall. My hard work in college seemed to have prepared me well. I had incredible colleagues. The job was a win – until it wasn’t. There were some financial things going on at the administrative level that I wasn’t comfortable being too close to, especially so early on in my career and pre-tenure. And my job was a strange hybrid of W2 work through the district and freelancing 1099 style work in an after school lesson program. Nothing had prepared me for how that would all shake out with taxes and by the end of the second year, I realized that the health care costs of that district, combined with the complex tax situation, meant I really wasn’t going to be able to make ends meet if I stayed in that position. My two years there were a win-win, until they weren’t, and it was time to move on.
Janice Cook 5:20 Luckily, there was a retirement in the district that I student taught in, and I was offered a job back in Connecticut, the place I still call home today. This middle school is where I spent my next 10 years of teaching and my last 10 years of teaching. I have so many incredible memories of courses I got to teach, guests we were able to bring into school, field trips we were able to take, and wonderful colleagues along the way. I got to meet hundreds of students and families and be an important part of their story as they found a place for music in their hearts and in their lives. I had two wonderful classrooms, an office, and even a bathroom in our music hallway. The school was four minutes away from my home, so I couldn’t complain about the commute, and I’m not one of those teachers who had complaints about their salary either. My husband worked at the university where we both did our undergraduate degrees, so my master’s degree was free, and that allowed me to move up on the teacher salary schedule pretty quickly.
Janice Cook 6:20 On paper, this was a great job, but I was miserable. The workload set me up to fail. The schedule set me up to fail. It didn’t matter how hard I worked or how creative I got, I could see that I was just spinning my wheels. It was taking a toll on my health, and once I became a parent, my perspective really shifted. My tank was empty at the end of the day when I got home to see my own children. I was spending my days pouring my best energy into other children, and there was nothing left at the end of the day for me to enjoy, and I couldn’t show up for my own children. So that job wasn’t a win-win, after all, and it was time to make an exit plan.
Janice Cook 7:11 Why am I sharing this story today? I think we all have a story like this one, a story where everything was working well, until it wasn’t. A moment when we realized something was wrong, but we didn’t know what to do about it. If you’re anything like me, serving others is a core value. It’s just part of how teachers are wired. And as we transition into the world of business, things sometimes get tricky for teachers. Some character traits and habits serve us well in our entrepreneur eras. Other habits might have to be relearned so our battleships don’t sink. Through these podcast conversations, we’re going to practice examining situations in our life to make sure they are a win-win. I hope this episode inspires you to reflect on the seasons of your life and identify moments when they stopped being a win-win. What did you do? Did you stay stuck? Did you take a step to bring things back into alignment? I invite you to get curious about how you tend to react in situations that are similar to the ones I shared in my own story today.
Janice Cook 8:22 The story of my 12 years in public education is a happy one. It was a chapter I’m eternally grateful for. But I’m also thankful that I took the brave leap into the world of teacher business to connect with people like you. We’ll chat about my teacher business story in the next episode.
Janice Cook 8:41 Thanks for making this podcast a part of your day. I’d love to help you find clarity with your next step in business. Go to cookfamilyresources.com/hiring-guide. I’ll also leave that link in the show notes for you. This guide is packed with good news for those days when you feel like you can’t possibly do it all. It might be time for you to invest in paid support, but the truth is, there are a lot of free steps to explore first. After you dive into that guide, I’ll be in your inbox every Monday morning with more actionable tips to help you enjoy running your business again. See you in the next episode.
