Growing up I often heard people saying: “if work were meant to be pleasant it wouldn’t be called WORK “.
Don’t know the origin of that saying but it’s quite easy to understand it’s meaning. Maybe it is inspired by the biblical curse God placed on man after he ate of the forbidden fruit:
“And to the man he (God) said,
“Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree
whose fruit I commanded you not to eat,
the ground is cursed because of you.
All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it
It will grow thorns and thistles for you,
though you will eat of its grains
By the sweat of your brow
will you have food to eat
until you return to the ground
from which you were made.
For you were made from dust,
and to dust you will return.” Genesis 3:17-19 (NLT)
Yes, mankind would have food to eat by the SWEAT of our brow. But despite that curse it does help to choose a job or career about something that you like doing. The curse can even become a blessing.
Working as a language teacher has many positive features: I can “select” my students; I can determine my hourly class rates/pricing; I can develop a curriculum that best fits my students’ needs; I love speaking other languages; etc.
But one of the hardest “bones to chew” refers to Class Cancellations.
One-on-one teaching leads the learner to take the teacher for granted, at their beck and call. So they cancel their classes, try to reschedule the rescheduled classes – I’ve had students who rescheduled three times the same class – and if they don’t effectively have that lesson they demand for a refund or discount. The fact that the student must pay for his class cancellations should serve as a deterrent.
So let me enlighten both teachers and students:
When you agree on a day and time, that time is sacred… both students and teacher have entered into a covenant and will do their utmost to honor it. Now, when there’s a cancellation, can you make that time come back? No? What makes you think that your class time can?! Or that you’re paying for 24/7 English? Of course, there are reasons and reasons for a class cancellation. You had to go to the hospital or a funeral? Let’s accommodate that. You only had that day and time for a doctor’s appointment? Hmmm. Your sister is visiting? Uh, nope. You’re not in the mood? Is it cold outside? Not good excuses. Got it?
I’ve always tried to present very simple rules:
1. Any cancellation must be informed at least 24 hours in advance.
2. Cancellations within less than 24h notices, classes will be charged and not rescheduled.
3. Make up classes will be rescheduled if / when teacher is available (let us say the teacher and student have agreed on four 1-hour classes a month. Student cancels once. Will the student be willing to pay for a 5th hour? Uh huh, I thought so. What makes him expect his teacher should work a fifth hour for free?
Simple. Isn’t it?
Last week I came across this blog post where the teacher even went on suggesting she would record a short video and send it to the student as a “make up class” so that the student wouldn’t feel left behind. She added:
“So here’s my thing and a lot of teachers’: we don’t want students to miss class. We love our job. We spend our time preparing what to do and want students to succeed. It’s not productive from an educational point of view and, at least to me, it means getting paid without doing what I like the most. I want to earn a living teaching, not sitting around. Bearing that in mind, I came up with an excellent alternate solution, which I am now calling “The Substitutive Class”; feel free to rename it.” . https://www.lbenglishteacher.com/blog/substitutive-class“.
I make mine those words.
Cheers,
Mo.
And no cancellations, please.😉
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