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Opening New Doors: Meet Teacher Edison

By VIPKid  |  February 25, 2019

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We are continually surprised by the countless different ways that online teaching affects our different teachers. For Teacher Edison, VIPKid has opened a few doors he never even knew existed.

Day in the life with VIPKid

Looking after a family business always presents its own unique challenges (the least of which is, of course, working with your family). For Edison, the nature of his business has meant the absence of a regular, predictable paycheck. Through teaching with VIPKid, he has supplemented his already successful family business, with an element of stability in the times between hunting down clients to cough up.

Not only has this meant there is less need to prematurely call in the muscle to deal with stalling clients, but VIPKid has also allowed him a new approach to his own life, one in which he can fund his hobbies, and begin considering investing in a house.

“It gives me liberty, it gives me that extra income to splurge on my expensive hobby. To save towards buying a house”

But there have been other, less obvious doors opened to Edison through his teaching. Since forever, Asia has had a strong draw on him, but only once he began teaching with VIPKid did the notion of moving to Asia as a teacher occur. The freedom and flexibility afforded by his role as a VIPKid teacher have allowed him to actively start imagining eating dumplings between classes in the heart of Beijing or munching on an edamame bean before starting class in Kyoto.

“I’ve always been attracted to Asian culture in general, and I’m actually planning on moving in a year or two to teach. I never thought of moving as a teacher because I hadn’t been a teacher before, so it opened up this door.”

Of all these new open doors, maybe the most heartwarming is a new level of engagement with children. Edison does not consider himself a happy-go-lucky-teaching-with-puppets type of teacher and prides himself on his stricter approach to learning. But even he has found himself more than a little susceptible to the charms of VIPKids. He shares a story of an encounter with a 4-year student which exemplifies the unique connections developed between students and teachers. Warning: if you don’t have kids yet, this might make you want one … proceed with caution.

Edison’s account is paraphrased for this article below:

“There is this girl, Molly. She is four-years-old, and the youngest student I teach. I usually teach kids around five or six years old and above. I guess teaching young kids isn’t really my forte. But somehow this 4-year old Molly snuck into my schedule. She’s really advanced for her age and learns Level 2 with me. Part of the lesson means singing a song together at the end of each class.

Usually even the five or six-year-olds struggle with this song. But not Molly. It’s obvious she’s studied every song in the Unit and knows them all by heart. So, when the time for our song arrives, she doesn’t just sit there and listen to me sing. Instead, she hops up and runs to the back of the room, where she can show off her big flowing Frozen dress in all its glory (she’s always decked out in Elsa gear).

Then she begins dancing like a seasoned ballerina while singing our song with all her heart. On the side of her room, her parents sit and clap, and together we enjoy a private performance sung by a four-year-old superstar.

I mean, if you know me you’d know I’m not one to use flowery words often (or even ever), but honestly, it’s adorable. She’s amazing.”

Stories like this give Edison even more motivation to get up every morning. As he says, “I wake up eager to see what they bring to the table.”

And stories like these are the reason we love learning about every one of our teachers’ personal encounters with their students.

Join Teacher Edison and start earning $15-22/ hour


More Day in the Life articles:

Read how VIPKid started as a part-time job that ultimately became pure bliss for Teacher Martha.

Flexible, financial freedom and fulfillment are what Teacher Lori found with VIPKid. Read her day here.

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