No More Vlogs.

welcome back to my channel I don't want to waste any time because I know that a lot of you saw the title and you're already wondering if its clickbait unfortunately it is not clickbait I am still in the classroom I am still teaching fourth grade but I will not be blogging in my classroom this upcoming school year I am obviously going to elaborate and talk about why but I do want to start by just saying that this is a difficult video for me to film and I am gonna get fairly personal with you all I know a lot of you are going to be disappointed and that's hard for me because I am the type of person that hates letting other people down personally I am very sad for lack of better words that I won't be blogging this year because for me vlogging has been something that has allowed me to grow so much within my field having the ability to record my thoughts and my feelings and my lesson ideas and then being able to look back on them at the end of the week or a month later or a year later has been tremendously beneficial honestly there's a lot of things that I now look back on that I wish I hadn't done or I no longer agree with and while that's difficult to admit it's also empowering because it helps me to realize how much I've grown and improved and all of the learning I still have to do I also love just being able to genuinely show you my life as a teacher because I feel like the number one reason that new teachers leave within the first five years of teaching is because they are not prepared for the realities of teaching vlogging has allowed me to open up about my experience as a teacher and share how it's not all butterflies and rainbows it's hard it's demanding but at the end of the day it's so unbelievably worth it and it's what I love more than anything in the world tied with Billy how're you feeling about it I believe it's powerful not only for new teachers entering the field but also for motivating veteran teachers who may have lost sight of their why and education I know this is a little bit of a ramble but I just want to get across that for me vlogging isn't about showing off my new classroom decor or about making it seem like I have it all together because I don't it's about authentically sharing my ideas and my shortcomings and everything in between because I'm not perfect I don't have the answers to everything I make mistakes but I am so unbelievably passionate about teaching and education and I want to be able to share that with anyone who will listen so I know there's gonna be a lot of speculation as to why I'm not logging and rather than you all assuming why I would rather just be able to be honest and talk to you all about it so it comes down to the fact that my district is no longer allowing vlogging at school and one of the elements of that is the fact that it's profitable obviously I've always been very open with you all about the fact that I do make money from selling products on TPT and making youtube videos but I wanted to talk about this a little bit further because I feel like it's important a simple Google search will show you how many teachers have to seek second jobs in order to supplement their income most statistics hover around one in five teachers or 20% I actually found a survey by the American State Education Association it was conducted last year in 2018 and it revealed that 41 percent of Maryland teachers have to seek second jobs in order to make ends meet and even more interesting 61 percent of Maryland teachers under the age of 30 have to seek second jobs to make ends meet in my opinion if any of those statistics are above 0 percent then it's too high the fact that teachers have to get second jobs to supplement their income is absurd and should not be a reality I initially started making products for TPT because I wanted to make supplemental income so I could purchase things for my classroom because my salary alone wasn't enough for me to have the funds to do that no if you do I just genuinely wanted a platform where I could share my ideas because goodness knows I had a ton of them in my head and I wanted to establish a community of like-minded individuals who could support each other and give each other additional ideas the fact that I could make money from it was an afterthought but over time it's actually proven to piece such a vital part of my life now here's where I'm gonna open up and get a little bit more personal with you all those of you who have followed me for a long time may remember that Billy and I moved from the Eastern Shore of Maryland to the western shore of Maryland about two years ago now that was a decision we had made early on in a relationship like when I first started teaching we knew that we were going to be moving because ultimately we just didn't want to stay on the Eastern Shore of Maryland now in order to make that move we both did have to quit our jobs I personally was quitting my teaching job and fortunately I was able to secure another position once I moved Billy had just graduated college so he was technically only quitting his like college job it wasn't a career salary type position but unfortunately his journey to try to get another job has not been so easy now I have not really opened up about this with you all because it is very personal and it is very difficult to talk about but Billy and I have lived here for just over two years and he's been unemployed for over a year of that time when he first moved it was hard to get a position and then he got temporary positions but they would end and then he would get hired somewhere and they would restructure and they would let him go because he was the most recent hire and it has literally been a rollercoaster currently he was laid off in April due to restructuring he has been working so hard to try to get hired since then and it just hasn't happened I want to be clear that I'm not sharing this for sympathy anyone who knows me knows that I do not want nor do I need sympathy but I do want to be able to be open and talk about it because it is something that people go through and it's almost shameful to share in addition to making things hard financially it's also put additional stress on a relationship and it's mentally exhausting to deal with so as hard as it is to talk about I do feel like I need to bring it up and put it out there because I know at the end of the day we're not the only ones going through this so if you are in a similar situation just know that I hear you I understand how hard it is but know that you're not alone so often we see people especially on social media and we just assume that they have it all together and they live this perfect life but in reality we have no idea what's going on behind the screen I also wanted to open up about this because if it were not for my additional income through TPT and YouTube we literally could not pay our bills the reality is my teaching salary alone barely covers our rent which means if I didn't have additional income from TPT and YouTube we would not be able to pay our electric our gas our groceries our insurance and all these other things that you have to pay for as an adult so literally the hours I put making YouTube videos and creating products for TPT has allowed me to continue doing what I love doing which is teaching instead of having to leave and pursue another profession where I could make more money personally if I need to make supplemental income I would much rather it be directly related to what I'm passionate about which is education rather than finding some other job that's unrelated so ultimately I just wanted to say thank you to all of you who have supported me watch my videos purchase my TPT products because you have given us peace of mind during this time and you've allowed me to continue doing what I love doing which is teaching I honestly don't think I say it enough but I am genuinely so grateful for all of the opportunities that have come my way and from the bottom of my heart and so thankful for all of you for allowing that to be a reality so with that all these ahead and being put out on the table I do want to just quickly talk about where my channel is headed and what you can expect from me in the future even though I will no longer be filming classroom vlogs I am still gonna be putting out weekly videos I'm gonna still continue my EdTech made easy' series because personally I love making the videos and I know that they are really helpful for a lot of you I'm also just going to continue to share my ideas my organizational tips everything related to teaching it's just gonna be here at home instead of at school I also will still sprinkle in some vlogs from my personal life so you all can kind of see how I balanced things at home and you can still see the kitties and you can see Billy and honestly it will be easier to work in those types of vlogs since I won't be vlogging Monday through Friday at school honestly I just want to be able to help other teachers and I feel like I can do that through more than just vlogs I also have some really big and really exciting things in the works that I can not wait to share with you all but until then I just hope that you will understand this shift and continue to support me through it if you were only here for the vlogs I get it I understand but at the end of the day I'm still mate and I'm still gonna share my ideas and I'm still going to do as much as I can to make your life easier and I want you to stick around for that because I truly love having you here on my little corner of the internet so if you plan on sticking around please go ahead and give it video a thumbs up hit that subscribe button and the notification bell so you do not miss future videos as always thank you for watching if you all come so much don't forget to put your positive pants on and I'll catch you in the next one thank you so much for watching all the way to the end of this video and for supporting my youtube channel if you want to check out any of my older videos you can use the two links right down here if you want to subscribe to my channel so you don't miss any future videos you can use like right up here the links to all of my social media sites my teachers pay teacher's store my merchandise store and my amazon store are in the description box and I'll catch you guys in the next one

Channel: Pocketful of Primary

Views: 200,206

Rating: 4.9384251 out of 5

Keywords: teacher, classroom, vlog, 4th grade, pocketful of primary, tips for new teachers, tips for teachers, new teacher tips, teacher tips, classroom vlog, vlogger, teacher vlog, teacher vlogger

Id: xyCHRM2e2JA

Length: 9min 4sec (544 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 25 2019