Regardless of where they teach, the sad fact remains that most teachers earn less than contemporaries with backgrounds in similar fields. School holidays provide prime opportunities to earn more money to save for a house, travel, pay down bills, or stash away into a retirement fund. The following list includes ideas on how you can parlay your teaching skills into viable income whether during school breaks or school terms.

Sell Your Materials

You’ve created and taught lessons, curricula, and activities. Why not upload those plans to Teachers Pay Teachers or another online marketplace where teachers can purchase and sell their creations? Once you start, everything you sell generates passive income.

Write Curricula

In addition to education giants like Pearson, Houghton-Mifflin, and others, many companies who employ in-house curriculum writers also hire contract writers to pick up the slack. Some of these companies, who write curricula designed to be taught in different countries, occasionally hire experts familiar with a specific country’s culture and customs to advise on curriculum projects.

Teach Anything Online

Qualified to teach levels other than those you’re teaching in a traditional classroom? Hook up with an online course. Many school districts offer online classes, and there are other online education sites seeking teachers in the primary and secondary school levels. Consider teaching higher education online, too, or connecting with an online tutoring service.

Take it a step further! If you’re teaching ELL abroad, you can also contract with various online platforms, like VIPkid, to teach English.

Blog

Love to write? Create a blog about your experiences teaching, living abroad, or any number of topics. You can partner with advertisers or affiliates, even sell products and services, and parlay a fun hobby into something that generates steady income. Or, you can write an eBook and share your expertise with others.

Start an Edtech

The global investment in edtech is set to reach $252 billion by 2020. You’ve already got your finger on the pulse of education. Why not contribute your observations to developing solutions that incorporate technological processes and resources to improve education?

Become a Test Scorer or Grader

Whether you live in the States or abroad, you can pick up side work for grading district or state exams and standardized tests. The Higher Ed remote job board is a good place to start.

Work at a Museum 

If there’s a museum with exhibits in which you specialize, reach out to see if you can work as a docent or guide or perhaps collaborate with their staff to create and teach a class or two.

Write City Guides

Live in an area dependent upon the tourist trade? Travel and tourism and real estate businesses often contract writers to write neighborhood/city guides, information about amusements and entertainment, restaurants, transport, accommodations, and more.

Join Airbnb

If you’ve got the space to rent a room or you’re traveling for a month and don’t want your home untended, become an Airbnb host. It’s a neat way to generate income and meet new people.

Translate

Are you multilingual? Consider translation work. You can work with translation agencies or for a multinational company. Check out websites like Gengo.com for job listings.

Creating the Perfect Home Workspace

If your side gig includes working from home — or you’re looking for a better atmosphere for grading papers and lesson prep — make sure you have a workspace carved out where you can work without distractions. Set office hours so your family knows your schedule, too.

A good, usable workspace should have proper lighting, a solid table or desk, laptop or desktop, a comfy chair, and printer. If you’re working from multiple documents or have many tabs open at once, splurge for a second monitor to save your eyes and sanity.

Extra Credit

Whether you’re looking for a second gig related to your career or something completely new, there’s a wide variety of options available. You’re blessed with a skill set that lets you explore many opportunities — whether you want to expand your current knowledge or learn something completely new!

This article was submitted by guest author and ISC Member, Jenny Wise. She created Special Home Educator as a forum for sharing her adventures in homeschooling and connecting with other homeschooling families.

Photo Credit: Pexels.com