Hey, all! Dove (or Lynn) here. As I think I mentioned, I’m looking to return to school for a teaching license in September. This was always financially precarious because it involves quitting my job and moving countries on little savings, and that was… fine? Well. It was “I can more or less make this work if the stars align, I have just enough buffer to get through the rough start”. 

And then Amazon moved into untenanble for ebook distribution. And that was... manageable, honestly. I'm set to pull all ebooks off them at the start of next month, which is terrifying, but I just can't. I already can't fix the issue where people assume the cover of The Ice Princess's Fair Illusion is genAI if I mention it anywhere. (It's not, if you're curious. It's been around like that, exactly like that save for the penname on it, since 2018. But it's also my second-best selling book, or was.) And that combo wasn't great.

And then work informed me they were docking a week’s pay from my final paycheck. I’m sure this is mathematically sound and fair enough, but I was counting on that income in my calculations. And then. When I finally got my nice “hey give us your payment details” email so I could go and pay tuition and not worry about that, turns out tuition had gone up from the calculations I’d made. And now my buffer is less gone and more completely atomised. 😭

So here I am, offering a sale to hopefully get the buffer I had back. And yes my buffer was this small. I’d have liked to quit a month later, but ngl my mental health can’t tank that.)

At the moment: Dutch and English. There’s a huge teaching shortage in Dutch-speaking countries, so getting subsidised for a degree/license is somewhat easier than for ESL, but it also lets me teach grammar in a way I really enjoy (listen, syntax is fun and I will not hear otherwise). Plus, I have an TEFL degree (which can’t be converted into a valid license 😭), and should be able to fasttrack English later, and I really would love to have the license for both. I also lack what I’d consider a solid theoretical basis in pedagogy and didactics, so I actually want to get that.

Aka: why assume a possibly random person you know nothing but this about would be good at teaching? Well. I keep being drawn into teaching or mentoring even when I actively tried to avoid it. It’s like breathing except less essential to being alive. (Ish.)

This isn’t me trying to be cheeky, if you’re curious. But practically speaking: I was a gifted kid, who was bullied and had an undiagnosed learning disability, which means I didn’t get the support I needed when I was in school and even though I could keep up that still messed me up much worse. The support I did get was, and I wish I was exaggerating, life-saving even so. A good teacher can change everything. I have had good teachers. I want to give back, both by sharing my enthusiasm for languages and by supporting students in developing the skills they need to grow into their best selves. 

Schools have gotten better at supporting kids like me, but for a variety of reasons they can still fall through the cracks. My tutoring lessons in core subjects was as much building my students’ self-confidence as it was the actual subject matter. I’ve made a difference as a tutor. I could do so much more and I want to.