S5E1 - Rebecca Gulka
This week’s guest is Rebecca Gulka, Founder of Teaching with Class, an online English learning school, and amateur comic. Like the host of this podcast, she is an expat as a Canadian based in France.
Rebecca studied theatre as an undergraduate and then went into teaching English internationally. Before living in France, Rebecca taught English in Korea, Thailand, Russia, Haiti and China. She taught at a private school in France before making the decision to found her own school.
We talk about why she struck out on her own, many of which will resonate with educators or others in service occupations. Amongst those are teacher’s wages in France, freedom in curriculum to teach and location to work from.
We also delve into the government’s role and responsibility for the education of children as well as the equity around technology in online learning. For those who identify as workaholics or find themselves burning out, we also talk about the culture of glorifying busy-ness and overwork and how people are challenging it by looking at what is really important and focussing on that.
It isn’t all serious. We also talk about Rebecca’s comedy and comedy writing practice. Having her own business has allowed her carve out the time and space for herself to write and perform!
Note from Rabiah (Host):
This was a particularly special chat because it was the first one that I have done in person since starting the podcast. It was a different editing challenge but really cool that the “studio” setup worked. I met Rebecca online in FB comedian groups on on the online circuit. Our chat extended beyond the podcast and we had some very good conversations around comedy, females in comedy and life in general. One of the positive things to come out of the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 was the opportunity to find connection with people online. When they then become in-person connections it is even better! I loved Rebecca’s insights and hearing about her experiences and am sure listeners will too.
Rabiah and Rebecca, in person in Rabiah’s flat for their recording session!
Transcript
Rabiah (Host): [00:04:13] This is More Than Work, the podcast reminding you that your self worth is made up of more than your job title. Each week, I'll talk to a guest about how they discovered that for themselves, you'll hear about what they did, what they're doing and who they are. I'm your host, Rabiah. I work in IT, perform standup comedy, write, volunteer and of course, podcast. Thank you for listening. Here we go!
Hey guys. So this is a really special episode. In fact, this is going to be the intro because I usually record an intro, but I'm going to tell you right now, this is my first one recording in-person with the guest.
I may have recorded everyone in person because I'm always present for my recordings, you know? But I have a woman on the show today that we met online doing [00:05:13] comedy during the pandemic. And that's how I met actually, most of the people I know over in Europe or the UK. And so it's Rebecca Gulka. She is the founder and owner of Teaching with Class, and she's an amateur comedian like myself.
So how you doing, Rebecca?
Rebecca Gulka: Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me to your home and to be on your podcast while I'm popping off to London for the week. This is so exciting.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, this is really cool. So you're here in London. Since nobody probably knows unless they're one of our comic friends, where are you visiting from?
Rebecca Gulka: I am a Canadian, but I live in France at the moment. So I started off doing a lot of zoom comedy. This is where I met Rabiah. And now I'm able to sort of leverage some of those contacts and friendships I made. And I came over to do a couple of gigs this week.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. And I guess, do you mind that I actually appropriate Canada is where I'm from sometimes, in comedy and even in real life?
Rebecca Gulka: You're allowed. Actually I know a lot of people who put the Canadian flag on their [00:06:13] backpack.
Rabiah (Host): Okay, great. Yeah. That's how it's going guys. So first of all, let's just talk about your business and what you do. What is Teaching with class?
Rebecca Gulka: So, Teaching with Class is a small online school.
I teach exclusively online, which means I can have students from all over. My network is largely in France at the moment, but I have a few students from other countries in Europe as well. And I'm expanding as quickly as I can. It's an extracurricular school. I do not replace regular school. I teach two kinds of classes.
I teach students who want to learn English, who don't speak English very well yet, or who want to improve. But I do it with a content and language integrated learning. I'm not ESL. My model is new in that I don't do any grammar, worksheets or spelling tests. And I also teach families of ex-pats and immigrants who don't want to pay [00:07:13] for expensive international private schools for English education, but also don't want to lose their English.
They come in for novel studies and writing, writing classes.
Rabiah (Host): Cool. Do you speak French because you grew up in Canada or do not speak French?
Rebecca Gulka: So I don't speak French because I grew up in Canada, unfortunately. I grew up in one of the Anglophone areas. I grew up in small towns around Toronto, which is very Anglophone and 30, 40 years ago French immersion classes just weren't an option in the small towns.
So I did the regular public school French at the time. It didn't start until we were nine years old and everything. I now know about language. It says that that's way too late to start if you want to be truly fluent. So my French is actually pretty crap. My French is getting a lot better since I moved to France.
I can communicate now at least. Yeah,
Rabiah (Host): yeah, yeah. It's tough. And then they know they're they know very specifically the accent is not native from France, right?
Rebecca Gulka: I know that I've graduated because when I first arrived in France and I started [00:08:13] speaking, everybody switched into English. And now when I start speaking, they asked me in French where I'm from.
Rabiah (Host): So that's good.
Rebecca Gulka: That's an improvement. That's a milestone.
Rabiah (Host): That is. So before you opened this school slash business, what were you, you were teaching, but what were you teaching at that time?
Rebecca Gulka: I am a classroom teacher, but I teach second language learners within a classroom environment. So again, not ESL. I taught some ESL classes at the beginning of my career.
I've been teaching in international schools for about 14 years in different countries. And most recently I spent the last six or eight years working in French international schools, meaning that I teach the French curriculum, but in English. So literacy reading, writing the science curriculum, the math curriculum, the history and geography curriculums in English to a group of mixed level students.
Some of the kids in my [00:09:13] class, French is their second language. Some of the kids in my class don't speak English at all and they have to learn the English through the medium of what I'm teaching them. So they're learning the English at the same time they're learning fourth and fifth grade science.
And some of the students, a lot of the students fall somewhere in the middle of their English language ability, but it's a full classroom. It has been a full classroom environment.
Rabiah (Host): So what other countries did you teach in?
Rebecca Gulka: I started out doing ESL in Korea and Thailand, the way so many people do when they just finished school.
There's a huge market for English teachers who are right out of school in Korea. Then I moved to Russia for two years where I stopped being an ESL teacher and moved into classroom teaching. And then I went to Haiti for a year.
Rabiah (Host): Wow.
Rebecca Gulka: And then China, for three years, once in a small town and then Shanghai, which was amazing before I settled down in France, which is now my home.
Rabiah (Host): Wow. Cool. And I guess you found, you founded the school for a reason, because one is you're doing comedy, so you needed more freedom, but also just because you weren't getting to do what [00:10:13] you enjoy doing, right?
Rebecca Gulka: Yes. And actually there was a third reason as well, which is a reason a lot of teachers don't like to talk about, but I've started talking about a lot in that, I wasn't earning enough. Now, I don't know. It depends where your listeners are from depending on which country you're from. You might find it difficult to understand why a teacher isn't making enough money. For example, if I was in Canada, money would not be an issue. We make a great wage. Yeah. In France, France is the only country I've taught in where I can't make it on a single income
as a teacher. I needed a second job. I needed to be in a double income household and I got tired
of that.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. Well and I'd say a good, like over 50% of the listeners are from the States I think just by virtue of me being from the States and there, you know, it's historically speaking public school educators are not paid very well.
Rebecca Gulka: I think it depends which state you're from. I don't know that much about the States. I do know, like I know in New York you're probably doing okay. I know if you're from the Midwest, you're probably not.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah and a lot of teachers will get second jobs or [00:11:13] they'll tutor or whatever to,
Rebecca Gulka: yeah, so I was in a position where I was working flat out at school and I was working flat out on a second job.
I was working through all the holidays. A lot of people think that teachers get paid for their holidays and it's just, that's a really, that's a big misconception. I do get 12 equal paychecks, but those 12 equal paychecks are based on the number of hours I teach. nobody, nobody gets paid for not working.
Rabiah (Host): Right?
Rebecca Gulka: So in France they only go to school 36 weeks a year, which essentially means that that's 16 other weeks, that's essentially four months of the year that I didn't, wasn't getting a salary from. That's a third of the year. And I just, it's just not sustainable, but you're working flat out and I was working 60 hour weeks.
So the real sort of straw that broke the camel's back for me was that I work for a private school. And I'm not qualified to work in the public schools in [00:12:13] France, even if I got qualified and went back to school and got my French qualifications, which is expensive, I would legally be allowed to work in the public schools, but it's very difficult to get hired as a foreigner.
So it's not really worth the time and money.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah.
Rebecca Gulka: And. So I'm working in the pub in a private school, which is for profit, which means that while I'm struggling to pay my rent, the, the parents were paying exorbitant fees and my boss was buying a second vacation home. And I think as we've seen, there's been a real shift.
I'm not the only one who's as an employee with skills, with talent who provides a service. Who's gotten tired of that. You know, if everybody was kind of poor and providing a service, but my boss was not
poor.
Right. Well, the,
Rabiah (Host): yeah, and I mean, we're seeing that in so many industries and it's interesting when you look at school as a business, the minute you get out of public school, public education, it is a business.
Rebecca Gulka: Yep. Absolutely. And even in the public sector, which I would love to be working in the public sector even in the public sector, we are [00:13:13] seeing schools starting to be treated like a business. We are seeing this pandemic was really highlighted that we have put all our eggs into one school basket. And then not paying the teachers to do that. So much work being done by the schools is being done because teachers love their jobs.
And I, and this is why talking about money isn't really a very popular thing for teachers to talk about. The teaching culture a lot of the time is about how much you love your job and you provide a service and you love your kids. And all of those things are true. I genuinely believe in public education as an equalizer, as a game-changer I just no longer believe that I need to personally be the collateral damage when the government doesn't provide that. I believe the government should be providing it. I believe that they should not be doing it off the backs of teachers, big hearts. I believe that there's programs, both for parents and for teachers to support kids that have just been cut and cut and cut, leaving teachers scrambling to pay their [00:14:13] rent and breaking their hearts.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah.
Rebecca Gulka: And I just, it's not sustainable. I couldn't put other families' children first while I couldn't pay rent for an apartment for my own.
Rabiah (Host): Right. Well, and I don't know if you heard the New York times on The Daily podcast, did a series about Odessa, Texas over the pandemic. And for anyone who hasn't heard it is excellent.
And it was about just when they, you know, Texas tried to keep schools open in a different way than others. Just the impact to the kids. Like a lot of kids, a lot of parents in that town lost their jobs. So a lot of kids were going to work to earn money and it was before the school stayed open when it was doing the Zoom thing, and then it went back and opened at a different part of the series. But, the kids were at work like in a smoothie shop or whatever, and trying to be on zoom and trying to juggle that.
And then the teachers are trying to keep the kids engaged and the teachers are losing kids just by not having that in person connection with them because there are people who, you know, they're already on [00:15:13] the edge because they're in these like financially difficult homes and stuff. Yeah. And it was really crazy because the teachers didn't get trained to do that.
Like there's a whole aspect to your job and actually a previous episode, if anyone wants to hear from another educator after this, Sarah Robinson was on the podcast before, and she talked about too, how, you know, kids will come- she tries not to be their friend because there's a boundary you have to set. And I don't know if you've experienced that with younger kids but,
I don't think you guys get trained necessarily to do the work you're actually doing.
Rebecca Gulka: No. So I'm going to address the financial part first and then the emotional part. The financial part. I think what we really learned. So, because I worked in a private school, there's a big disparity with the online education, online education works.
It works really, really well. If everybody has the tech. Yeah. So I, I actually really love teaching online and that's a really unpopular opinion for teachers because a lot of the teachers who switched to teaching online were doing it with students who didn't have [00:16:13] the tech. And that meant that it was asynchronous.
Asynchronous learning means the teachers and the students aren't all working together at one time. And if you're working asynchronously and you've got, depending on whether you're departmentalized or not, if you have one class, you've got 30 kids, if you are a departmentalized teacher, you might teach English to each of 200 kids.
And if they're all working at different times during the day, you're never off. We were able, because we're a private school, we didn't have the issues that people didn't have a laptop or had to come on on, on zoom. So I was completely synchronous, which meant that for between four to six hours a day, I was online with my students.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah.
Rebecca Gulka: So I did have that personal connection. I was talking to them every day. They were talking to each other every day. And after the first two or three days of teaching their students, how to log on and use the Zoom, the parents did not have to homeschool them. And it was a game changer. And I, this, we are now at a point where there should not be a child [00:17:13] who doesn't have a Chromebook and a wifi connection. The same way there shouldn't be a child who doesn't have water and electric. The school should have been funded to send everybody home with a Chromebook.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. Yeah.
Rebecca Gulka: And it's a game changer in that case. Like for us online education worked really well. And then with the, the financial aspect of those of those students, we've, that's terrible.
I mean, we fought for children not to have to work. That's just such a step backwards.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. It was horrific to listen to just because. Just knowing how important school is and knowing that that was probably kind of an escape for some of the kids anyway, from certain aspects of home, and then they're just going and earning the money for the family.
And it wasn't really fair at all. And, you know, and then just knowing that whole disparity of some people with super fast, internet connection. Everybody in the house has a brand new Mac book or something versus like some kid's on their mobile phone, while they're at work, [00:18:13] trying to learn. It's amazing.
Rebecca Gulka: Absolutely not okay. And I'm sure that some of those parents who sent their children to work got really villainized for that. And it's easy to villainize an individual parent rather than a system which no longer provides the social network that used to happen to prevent that.
Rabiah (Host): Oh, yeah, exactly. I mean, it's just, it's a different level.
So with, with what you're doing now, and I think the thing I want to look at now is that you do love teaching. And so you've found a way to do what you love, but in a way that works more for you. So can you talk about other than the financial aspect, just what starting your own teaching business has done for you?
Rebecca Gulka: I mean it's made my life more balanced. So the thing the benefits to me are is that I'm earning more money. I've cut out the middleman. My business is still very small. I'm not earning a lot yet, but I'm earning enough to pay my rent and my bills without burning myself out or neglecting [00:19:13] my family. From an educational perspective, I've been teaching for 14 years. A wide range of schools around the world. I'm qualified in Canada. I'm going to continue to get qualified. I'm going to do my master's degree next year , Is the plan in policy and curriculum and second language learning. So, but I also know after 14 years that I'm not new and I'm good at what I do and I provide a good service.
And what I noticed when I was in the schools was that I was so constricted about what I could and could not teach and what I was being told to teach by the school and what I knew that my families, not just my students, but my students, families , and I do feel that I serve families, needed. So my school was saying, you need to get high test scores.
You need to do spelling tests. I need to come and check your paper to make sure there's red marks. Where's your grammar? And I knew based on the research, I've done based on my education, based on paying attention to what families need, that that's not how to get what [00:20:13] children need.
And again, that your, your mileage may vary depending on where you're teaching. Different curriculums. In Ontario, for example, where I'm qualified, the curriculum is better. I'm working in France. I know I've spoken to a lot of teachers in America who feel that there haven't been in the same way.
It's very much teaching to the test. I've spoken to a lot of teachers in Britain who feel that way. Incidentally, to go back to the Britain, the, to go back a little bit, the head of Offstead often upset. I don't remember her name. Offstead is the regulatory body that checks education in Britain, was actually quoted a little while ago as saying that education really suffered because the teachers were paying too much attention to the children who needed food during the pandemic. Isn't that appalling.
Rabiah: Well, yeah, and they did some things as students that were awful anyway, like with the testing and stuff. And,
Rebecca Gulka: but, but she really said the education system, it wasn't fair to all the children because the children who didn't need food during the pandemic, weren't being served as well [00:21:13] by the teachers who were too busy, bringing lunches to kids who needed food.
Now, imagine that is not teacher's jobs. This is what I mean by saying that things are being done on the big hearts of teachers. That's not their job. And teachers rallied around kids who didn't eat enough because they didn't have school meals. Yeah. And rather than fix that social problem, problem.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah.
Rebecca Gulka: They criticize the teachers who are doing their best. Like you can't teach hungry kids anyway.
Rabiah (Host): No, if they're, they're not fed, they're not their brain's not going to work as well for one thing. They're going to be distracted and, and just physiologically, you do as well. I mean, that's it, you know?
Rebecca Gulka: So I'm able now to actually meet students and families where they are, whatever their problem is. I can say, what are your goals?
Here's what I can build to help you reach that goal. Right? Their goal is never, I want to spell 10 words a week. That's never their goal.
Rabiah (Host): Words I don't even use.
Rebecca Gulka: Right. I have, I've also noticed that there's a real lack of education for families. Parents, parents. I spent, when I was working in the schools, I spent [00:22:13] almost as much time working with parents and educating them about education, as I did educating their kids. There's a real lack of that. We just expect parents to hand their kids over and trust us. And, and we are professionals and we should be trusted, but we should also be taking that knowledge we have in educating parents.
The number of parents I've had sat in my classroom, worried and stressed, and I'm able to just give them enough information to make them calm down. It's okay. You know, I've parents, who've, who've been so worked up by, by schools, scaring them that they think the fact that their nine-year-old is failing spelling tests means that their future is gone and they're panicking and they're freaking out and I'm able to work with them and calm them down and, and, and help them.
And now I have more freedom to do that. So that's also what it's done for education. I've reduced my teaching down to the parts that I actually think are useful and helpful for students. I coach students and I, [00:23:13] coaching is different from tutoring and the tutoring is focused on grades and content.
And with coaching, I actually have a few students who are not doing very well in school and I'm coaching them through not so much the content and not so much studying for tests, but the skills, they will need to be able to be good at school by themselves. Social, emotional learning, time management, confidence.
I'm able to coach them through that, which is much more useful than riding someone about their grades. So that's what it's done for education. I'm able to really work with individual families and meet them where they are and provide the services they need.
Yes, I'm more expensive than a public school. The government is not paying, paying me to do this. I think they should be. I think it's a services they should be paying teachers to do. They're not, but I am less expensive than paying for a private school. So I'm coaching a lot of kids who are in the public school system, but they can come to me for this little bit of extra curriculum.
Rabiah (Host): Right. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And it's just the part of the job that [00:24:13] you were kind of probably doing as a teacher anyway, but it was just, that was extending into your 60 hour work week and all that.
Rebecca Gulka: Yes. Because instead of what I did is I took out all the stuff that my boss was saying. I had to do the useless report cards that nobody reads anyway.
Now I give qualitative useful feedback. Yeah. The spelling tests that kids didn't need to be passing to learn. The, the stress over, fill in the blank tests that nine-year-olds don't need. Instead, I'm actually raising the bar. I'm, I'm having them read really challenging, amazing books. And I'm having them write really cool things.
And they're coming to me and saying, we didn't know our kid was this smart. We didn't know they could do this level. And, and the other problem I had with, with a lot of the public school Curriculums is that they do underestimate how smart children are. They stress them out over testing and grades, and then use bad test scores as an excuse, not to expose them to high level interesting ideas.
I just cut out all those bad [00:25:13] grades and expose them to the cool, interesting ideas. And they're all
capable
Rabiah (Host): well, yeah, and just because you don't test well, I mean, I know adults who don't test well, too. Like at work we have to do not have to, but I mean, a lot of times we do, you know, certifications and X, Y, Z. I am a very good test taker.
I always have been. I'm one of those people, people didn't like in school, but it didn't necessarily mean that someone who's not a good test taker, isn't smart. And there's this idea that here's your report card that shows how smart you are versus other things. It also insinuates sometimes while you're smart so you didn't work hard. That was what I was always resentful about. But then it also is used as a weapon at home. Like if you get one C you're in trouble. Okay, well, what's the person got the C in. And why? And why is that something they're being punished for? Cause maybe they're just never going to be good at pottery.
Rebecca Gulka: Right. Exactly. It's gate-keeping and the way we've the way we gatekeep things and what we've decided as gatekeeping. And I also, I tested really well [00:26:13] as well. I got A's on any test. I put any, any kind of. But actually testing well doesn't necessarily translate to understanding. I got A's in math because I memorize the formulas.
I have no idea what they mean. I have no understanding, but nobody cared that I didn't understand because I got an A on the test. I just trusted my teacher that those formulas would work, but I can't visualize why they do.
Rabiah (Host): No, no. And you hit a wall at some point. I mean, same thing with. I did exactly the same on the SATs, the big standardized tests in the U S for either the same exact on English and math.
I don't think my skills in both have the same whatsoever. It's possible that I just don't I've not realized my math acumen up till now, but yeah, so it's, it's cool that you get to do this in this way.
Rebecca Gulka: Well, that's, the other thing is, so I also decided that I love my job and I love being able to provide a service.
And I love working with my families and creating a [00:27:13] community, but it doesn't need to be my whole entire life or identity. And for a long time being a teacher was my entire identity and that's exhausting. So by reducing my job down to the parts that I think are useful and helpful and getting rid of the extra stuff, that has carved out space for me to be the other parts of myself, of who I am as well, because at the end of the day, even though it's a caring profession, and even though I'm creating community, it is a job and I need space for myself as well. So as it turns out, comedy is what I want to use that space for and being able to write. Because I work online, it means I can be really flexible now, too.
But to be, I really want to be clear about this. I'm not only teaching online because it's good for me. I know there's a lot of fears around too much screen time with. Or that being [00:28:13] online is very impersonal. Because I work synchronously. It's very personal. I'm I'm one-on-one with the kids or videos are on, we might as well be in the same room and not all, not all screen time is equal screen time.
It's very different being on zoom with your teacher for an hour, then being on, you know, scrolling through YouTube for an hour.
Rabiah (Host): Sure. Yeah. That's very passive.
Rebecca Gulka: And, and, and in fact it means that we've opened up tools that I can use that I can't use in a physical classroom, that make us more collaborative.
Rabiah (Host): Well, and also the accessibility thing. I mean, accessibility, meaning can someone commute from A to B or even physically, is there an accessibility issue they have? And now they can always reach your classroom.
Rebecca Gulka: Exactly. And, but also, and it's, it's really convenient for parents too, who don't have to drive there Saturday morning. They just have to yell upstairs, don't forget to log in.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, totally.
Rebecca Gulka: And there are, there really are some collaborative tools that I can't use in the classroom. So for example, when my students work on writing, we're using Google documents and I'm writing in there with them, which is really cool. [00:29:13] So, but the online thing makes it really, it makes it so I can be flexible too. For example, I didn't have to take any time off work to come to London this week.
Rabiah (Host): Right. Yeah. Which is great.
Rebecca Gulka: It's really great. So I can teach from wherever I am, which has just opened up my life because now I don't have to choose between the different parts of myself. I can be a teacher, and absolutely dedicated to that during the day. And I can go to a gig with some friends at night and I don't have to feel like I'm, I have to choose between them anymore.
And that's amazing. Yeah. And it makes me better at my job.
Rabiah (Host): Sure. Yeah. I couldn't see that. I mean, I know for me just starting to do something outside of work just changed a lot of things for me. It also changed my time management a little bit cause it was like, well, I can't work till 8:00 PM because I have to be somewhere.
Or I have to leave at six, so I can't sit here and do some project plan till eight. I have to actually do it, you know, cause part of the thing for me and I don't think it's the same for teaching was just like, well I have 12 hours available to work [00:30:13] and I'll complain about how long my day is, but also could I be more efficient? And yeah, you know, when I was doing something else that was valuable to me, I could so
Rebecca Gulka: yes. Yeah. That's it it's helped with setting boundaries as well because I have my job. And I love my job and I'm very good at my job, but I don't need my job to be everything for that to be true. Although this is, I will admit this is the first podcast I've been on -
I usually keep my teaching and comedy personas very separate. It's the first time I've talked about putting them together like this, because as a teacher, people do sort of expect that it's your whole life. You know? I've heard people say a lot of the time and I think that's true of a lot of caring professions.
I think that's true. If you're a nurse, I think that's true. If you run a daycare, I think that's true. If you're any kind of caregiver, we wouldn't say that about a mechanic. A mechanic who wants to leave his shop at five o'clock. We don't say well, but don't you love my car or maybe you're a mechanic for the wrong reason.
We do say that about the caring professions. So this is the first time [00:31:13] I'm actually mixing them in. I'm wondering if I'm going to get any pushback from people who think that my desire to put boundaries around my work as a teacher will think that that makes me less dedicated or less of a teacher or caring less about my kids.
And I, I, I want to, it doesn't, it does mean that I've carved out specific time to give to these, to my community and specific time to myself. But I am also like one of the things I can sell to is that I'm incredibly flexible and available to families. But it is, it is the first time I'm mixing these two personas because there is it's in there.
It's, that's, that's a big pressure. A lot of teaching culture can sometimes be toxic as well, you know? "What do you mean you want a higher salary?" "You're not in it for the right reason," or, "Nobody teaches to be rich." And, teachers aren't the 1%. A lot of us are struggling to pay rent for our kids.
We're not hoping to go to, you know, we're not Elon Musk.
Rabiah (Host): They're not going to go to space. You're just trying to...
Rebecca Gulka: we're talking about a basic living wage. Like I said, if you're from New York, if you're from Ontario, you [00:32:13] you're fine. And people aren't going to understand that, that problem. My, my friends in Ontario, wouldn't understand that.
But you know, if you're a teacher who's, who's in one of the states that pays $30 grand a year in France. I netted 20K last year. And that's another thing we don't really talk about, but 20K's not a living wage. Wanting more than that doesn't make me selfish.
Rabiah (Host): No, and there's a whole thing about that anyway, with just the living wage and then actually is the living wage is still not even enough anyway, and then it's, it needs to be relative to where you're living because.
Say you're teaching. I don't know. I don't know what they get paid here, to be honest, but say you're teaching in London. So you either have to commute an hour and a half in, plus spending money on the commute anyway, so an hour and a half each way to be able to afford a house or you should get paid, what would be okay for you to live in London.
I mean, cause it's different to live here and it's more expensive here than it is outside of here. And I, you know, [00:33:13] I just think too the idea that you can't have a job that's in service but then also do something of service to yourself isn't really fair.
Rebecca Gulka: No, it's not. It's really not fair. And I, I, I have gotten tired of the, well, you have to be in it for the right reasons.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah.
Rebecca Gulka: For me, that feels like it's a given. Of course I'm in it for the right reasons, but who gets to decide what the right reasons are and who gets to like...I'm not a martyr. Teaching is a profession. Caring professions or professions. We're not martyrs and we do get to have a life. And I think the pandemic we're seeing this happen all over the place.
There's a big societal shift here. Some of the caring professions are the last ones to change. Nurses particularly are having a really hard time with this. They have a terrible schedule.
So, I don't think the pandemic caused this big societal shift. I think it was happening before. Somebody who studied economics would probably know more than me. I do think the pandemic hurried it up people. Yeah. That shift was already starting to come. I think also what happened with the pandemic is people have [00:34:13] realized how short life is and that it doesn't have to be
all about work. And the glorification of busy, we're getting tired of the glorification of busy. I used to find myself engaging in competitions with people about who was more tired. And I don't have, I don't want to do that anymore. Why are we doing that to ourselves?
Rabiah (Host): The podcast I published this week yesterday, it was with a younger, well person that's younger than me, which a lot of people are now, but she was talking about how, when she come home, her and her husband and her husband would say, how was your day? And she would just basically all the things she did that day and realized they both realized that wasn't answering the, how was your day question.
That was just saying all the things you did that day. And I thought, oh man, that's true. Because even me and my best friend will talk him sometimes. And he doesn't do as much as me, but I'll just be compelled to list all the things I did. So I guess it didn't say if I had a good or bad day, it just says, oh, I I'm trying to show everything I did.
And I think, how about, we talk about what was good and bad about our day,
Rebecca Gulka: right? W what were you proud of? What were you happy [00:35:13] today? How are you doing? Yeah, yeah. I know two weeks, like, I've engaged in like, those sort of one-upmanship conversations where people say, oh yeah, you worked Saturday. Well, I worked Sunday too.
And like, it's some kind of badge of honor, and that's not okay.
Rabiah (Host): And it's weird when you don't do that. Like, I've shifted a lot and I work really hard at it, but now, I mean, some of my weekends are horrible in some are okay. But off I'll have one friend in particular who will always say how busy she was and how much she had to work.
And, and, oh, I have to work on Sunday. I have to do this. And I, I used to feel like guilty almost that she had to do that. And I didn't. And I thought, no, because part of it's a choice, you know, and part of, and it's required of her job, not mine. So why would I work on Sunday? I don't think my boss wants me to work.
I don't know. I don't know if he ever listens to any of these. So I sometimes worry about saying things or I know some colleagues do. But I think they would all agree like no one wants any of us working on Sunday. So why would we just because our friend is at their other job or whatever, you know? And so, but I know [00:36:13] that feeling of, of thinking either thinking we have to compete with someone for that or whatever, and it's, it's not healthy.
And I think having something to do outside of work, and it's interesting, you haven't looked at both of them together cause I think it's really important. And maybe there, maybe there's an educator who will listen to this, who goes, "oh yeah, you know what? That's true. You know, I can be a full person without..."
Rebecca Gulka: and there is a movement towards that in education as well, as well as the people who are still glorifying that.
And that's a lot of the time coming from admins. You'll see some terrible things coming from Edmond. There is a movement around teachers to do a 40 hour work week. So what we have to fight against, I think to where some of that defensiveness with teachers comes from is that our contracts are based on teaching hours.
And so my contract last year was based on 27 teaching hours a week. What, when people say that they say, oh, so you only worked 27 hours. And now we feel the need to defend that. Actually no, 27 teaching hours is not 27 work hours, but there is a movement to [00:37:13] like in, in schools and with, and with teachers to say, look, no, like if I teach 20 hours, I'm still gonna, if I teach 25, 27 is actually quite high.
Depending on where you are. If, and if you're in primary and secondary, it's different, but 27 is quite high. I think before the school I was at last year, 24 was my highest. And when I taught in secondary, I've taught middle school as well, that a full, full workload is 18 teaching hours.
And people are saying, well, if I'm teaching 18, if I'm teaching 27, I'm going to manage my time and I'm going to triage and I'm going to find out what's important and I'm going to work on a, on a 40 hour workweek. And if that means, you know, that my students get a Microsoft Word worksheet instead of a beautiful, well, formatted Pinterest worthy then that's, that's what they get. And because let's like, let's bring our work down to the core of what's important and get rid of the extras. I think there's a real, there's a lot of teachers now who are pushing for that, who are saying, I get paid for 40 hours a week, that's enough. Yeah. And I remember when I was a new teacher that was really tough for [00:38:13] me. And I remember learning the hard way because I just burnt right out. No one wants to feel that their job's are unimportant. But I also remember thinking the stakes are not that high.
If I close my books at five o'clock tonight and go have dinner with my husband, my students are still going to learn to read. Yeah. Yeah. They will still learn to read. And if the goal is that my students learn to read, rather than that I look like a good teacher, what can I get rid of to still do that and still hit that goal? And which things can I get rid of?
And so. I think both of those are happening in teaching right now, both of those sides, the people who say, well, if you love it enough, you'll do whatever. And the people are saying, I do love it, but a 40 hour work week is enough. And I think there's a shift coming where the people who are saying a 40 hour work week is enough or becoming the louder voice.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. One thing I recall just I'm a very much a fan and student of Brené Brown, and one thing she had said was just about compassion. I think that applies here too. You [00:39:13] can't show that and I'm, I always mess up how she says things, but you can't show that to someone else if you don't have it for yourself and it's the same, like you can't provide the service to students and give them a caring and full service if you're not doing that for yourself because you're just going to be empty. And how are you going to do it?
Rebecca Gulka: When I'm burnt out? When I'm too tired, I'm a bad teacher. And I start to resent, I get resentful, I get irritable and that doesn't help anybody, you know? And so if, if, if it's five o'clock at night, if it's six o'clock at night, and I have a choice between, you know, working all night on, on marking some papers or going and having dinner with my husband and a beer and relaxing, I mean, which one of those two things is really going to serve my students in the morning?
Rabiah (Host): Yeah.
Rebecca Gulka: We've been told a lot of the time that the first one would. That if you're a good teacher, if you get all that bits, those. Do you remember when you were a kid, how many bits of paper that your teacher handed back marked up in red? Did you actually pay attention to?
Well, I
Rabiah (Host): just remember wanting my mom to look at my papers and she, I mean, she had three kids and was working full time and then [00:40:13] taking us to different stuff.
She didn't have time.
Rebecca Gulka: Right.
Rabiah (Host): So like, even if I was kind of one of those nerds who was, I was like, obsessed. My mom didn't have time for it. And then like, if you look at my brother and sister, they were different. They were not going to pour over. And so, yeah, it's either way. It's just not.
Rebecca Gulka: And not to mention that if you do, if we're talking to you about to go back a little bit about what's important in education, I create that stress.
If I hand back four pieces of paper this week, all with red marks and little numbers in the corner, not only have I created a whole lot of work for myself, but I'm creating that sense that those grades are what matters. If I focus on community work and building and skill building during class time, and then mark one piece of paper at the end of it, I've reduced my workload
and I've created a community where kids aren't freaking out about their notes and their grades.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, that's true.
Rebecca Gulka: And so I think a lot more of us are trying to look into how do we- and I think this is broader too, not just teaching- but I think a lot of us are saying,[00:41:13] " How can I do my job well, without it taking over? How can I reduce the stuff that's not necessary?" Let's look at the core aspect of what doing a good job means and then get rid of the rest. I think a lot of us are doing that.
Rabiah (Host): Oh, for sure. I mean, I see it and, or I saw it when I was doing my other job and I mean, some people want to create process for the sake of process and create documents for the sake of it, but it's like, let's create what's going to be used and useful and do that.
Rebecca Gulka: I think a lot of that has happened with work from home as well. Because when you were at the office, you had to be there at your desk, performing work for eight hours a day. Now nobody knows what your, if your work's getting done, nobody knows that you got up and spent 30 minutes having a nice lunch, but your work's still getting done.
And we're realizing that, that, again, that glorification of busy, the fact that I'm performing, that you can see that I'm sitting at my desk.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. Or people would want to beat their boss to the office and then they would like, I remember having one boss where you didn't want to leave before. Even if he had nothing to do, or even if you were done [00:42:13] or you were burnt out or you're tired or sick or anything, you did not want to leave your desk or leave the office before they did, because they saw that as a negative. And it was
stupid.
Rebecca Gulka: And it doesn't, it doesn't actually, we're learning that, that kind of busy-ness the glorification of that busy-ness, the performance of good work is not actually related to the product. The, the good work you do and the amount of time you spend sitting at your desk are often not correlated. We can all still do a good job.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, totally. So as for why you got into comedy, I mean, performance wasn't that wasn't the first time you performed was just when you did comedy.
So you can talk a little bit maybe your background and how you got into comedy?
Rebecca Gulka: So interestingly, my undergraduate degree is actually in theater. I did not intend to be a teacher. But I started, I went abroad to teach English because it was an adventure to go abroad and it turns out I'm just, I love teaching and I'm good at it.
And it was hard to stop doing a job that felt useful and that I'm really good at. And, and that allowed me to travel. And I became more and more [00:43:13] passionate about teaching, but no, I'm not one of those people who thought, who knows, you know, I didn't grow up dreaming of being a teacher, but I did find as time went on that I missed the performance.
I don't regret that teaching is my profession and not performance, but I did miss having the performance in my life. Yeah. And comedy was a way to do that in a way that I was in control. I write my script. I choose what shows to go on. Yes. I have to get people to put me on their shows and things, but I'm not, I'm not performing somebody else's script.
I'm very much in control of what I'm writing. And I love that aspect. It also comedy saved my relationship because I had just moved to France. I didn't speak the language. I was going through a rough time personally. And at the time I didn't have any friends in France. And my husband was my only friend.
He's a great friend. He's an excellent friend. We're very good friends actually, but it was putting too much pressure on him and on the relationship and on me for that to be my only social outlet and suddenly comedy had me... I had to get out of the house. I had to go to a bar. I had to talk to [00:44:13] people. And I had to be creative and, and write at least something where I was going to embarrass myself.
And it, it saved my brain. It, it reminded me that I'm creative and smart. It reminded me. Like it was amazing. So, and now I have back that part that I gave up to be a teacher. I don't have to give that up anymore.
Rabiah (Host): Nice.
Rebecca Gulka: Yeah.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. So with comedy, I just like to talk to people about their process, I guess, with writing,
Are you one of those who has a very set schedule and writes like at a certain time, or...?
Rebecca Gulka: I need the deadline of a performance. I do. I need the deadline of a performance. Because I, I am a writer more than a performer. And I stopped for a long time because there was no urgency.
And now I'm getting up on stage. I have to write something or I'm really going to embarrass myself.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, no, I know. I'm, I'm very much like, oh, you write every day now I should. I guess I should to meet some sort of expectation or whatever, but no, [00:45:13] I'm the same.
Rebecca Gulka: Yup!
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. That's funny. .
Rebecca Gulka: I guess I, right. This is going to sound very pretentious. But I guess you could say I write every day and that I'm always, always writing in my head. I do have a writer's brain and that I can often detach myself from a situation while I'm in it and I'm thinking about how I would tell it. A storytelling brain, so by the time I take pen to paper, a lot of the time the story is pretty well formed, but no, I don't take pen to paper every day.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, no, I don't either. So one question I'd like to ask people just before we get to a series of questions I have that I ask everybody is just, do you have any advice or mantra that you just want to share that you kind of like to reflect on yourself?
Rebecca Gulka: I learned in the last two years that it was time to stop asking for permission. That I have to stop waiting for somebody to give me the chance to do something I want. I used to wait for a promotion. I used to wait for a boss who saw something in me and I don't anymore. Comedy is another one for that. I don't wait for auditions.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah.
Rebecca Gulka: I don't just stop asking permission. If there's something you want to do, you [00:46:13] can make that happen. It doesn't always work out. I'm finding that the more often I, you know, I get more of what I want.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. Cool.
Rabiah (Host): All right. So this is a set of questions called the fun five.
The first one is what's the oldest t-shirt you have and still wear?
Rebecca Gulka: Oh, I move so often and I throw stuff in the garbage. So actually I don't really have, I guess my, my princess Leia, t-shirts probably about four years old.
Rabiah (Host): Nice.
Rebecca Gulka: Yeah.
Rabiah (Host): That's cool. And the pandemic kind of killed that question because a lot of people cleaned up. So it felt like Groundhog's Day for awhile. I know you were able to slash had to go in to teach earlier than some people had to go back to work, but it felt very Groundhog's Day anyway when we were all at home. What song would you have your alarm clock play every day if it was Groundhog's Day?
Rebecca Gulka: I need a little time to wake up, wake up. Hmm. I think that's the Oasis song. What's the story morning glory? I remember that. I need that chorus the little time to wake up, wake
up. Yeah.
Rabiah (Host): Okay, cool. Very good. Coffee or [00:47:13] tea or neither?
Rebecca Gulka: Oh, I'm a coffee junkie.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, we already had coffee.
Rebecca Gulka: Yes. So, I actually, I use a French press and I just bring the pot up to my desk while I'm working. It's bad.
Rabiah (Host): Nice. No, I'm well, yeah, I've done that, believe me.
I actually
Rebecca Gulka: have a pretty bad coffee addiction if I forget tohave coffee, the next day. I mean, I'll have a debilitating headache and I'm like, I'll be really lethargic.
And I forget why. And since I've been in France, I've actually switched over to drinking the really thick, strong espresso, which is terrible. It doesn't taste good, but it's convenient. You can, I don't leave cold cups of coffee
around anymore.
Rabiah (Host): That's true. I've turned it into this re heater, you know, and I never was like that but I'm not going to make coffee over.
Rebecca Gulka: Yeah. I had to teach myself to drink my coffee black in the classroom because I would just leave it overnight.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. Can you think of either a time you laughed already cried or just something that kind of gets you every time you think of it? You just start cracking up?
Rebecca Gulka: Well, lame jokes, lame jokes, every time, lame jokes.
What's the difference between a cat and a comma?
Rabiah (Host): I don't know. [00:48:13]
Rebecca Gulka: One has claws at the end of it. And one is a pause at the end of the clause. Every time there just isn't one for you. What's the difference between a dirty bus Depot and a lobster with implants? I don't know. One of them is a busty crustacean, and one of them is a crusty bus station.
Oh my God. Yeah. Every time. I just
Rabiah (Host): nice.
Rebecca Gulka: I'm so lame.
Rabiah (Host): No, that's not lame. I mean, that's actually good because one of my friend's kids always ask me, like, tell me a joke, write me a joke, write me a kid's joke. And I'm like, no, I'm an observational comic.
Like none of my jokes are going to be funny to you until you're about 25. And you were observing these things. So, all right. And the last one who inspires you right now?
Rebecca Gulka: Coming up through comedy, it's just, it's all these amazing women that I'm meeting. And in teaching as well. I've been really lucky to work in a, in a women dominated field because I work in primary.
It would be [00:49:13] a different story if I worked in secondary. For example, my mum is a, is a math teacher. She was one of the first female heads of a Maths department in Ontario and so that's pretty cool. That's, that's a pretty big inspiration actually. I work in primary, which is very much female dominated and I think I've been spoiled a little bit by that. And in comedy now I'm just watching all these really strong women. And in teaching these strong women who just get stuff done. They just see what needs to be done. They see, they care. The way primary teachers moved heaven and earth to care about their kids. The way comedy women are just, they're just waiting through the shit.
And I've got stories on stories. I'm sure you do too. I actually think we should start a hashtag on Instagram. Things men said to me at comedy shows. We all have stories and we're just getting, and we're still just, we're still here. We're still just getting,
getting
And we're like open
Rabiah (Host): mic slash very amateur comics, both of us.
Rebecca Gulka: Yes.
Rabiah (Host): I mean we're not on the pro circuit.
Rebecca Gulka: Oh no, I don't make money at comedy
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, me neither
Rebecca Gulka: This is a hobby for me.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. And it's amazing what you [00:50:13] put up with and
Rebecca Gulka: Yeah.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah.
Rebecca Gulka: I think let's get that. Let's get that hashtag started everybody hashtag things men said to me at shows.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. And the thing is not all, like I was on a show last night, the like, well, we would say MC in the States, was awesome.
He was so cool. And he was good to everyone and it was really balanced bill. And he was awesome, but that's so often not the case.
Rebecca Gulka: My scene in Paris has actually really lovely and most of the promoters are really. The showrunners. It's actually, I don't know about the French comedy scene in Paris. The French comedy scene is much bigger than the English one.
The English one was actually a really, I feel like it's a really nice community. But there's always somebody, even if they're not the hosts, even if they're not the showrunners, there's always somebody, you know. And we've all got a story. Most of us had been assaulted at least once at a comedy show. I have been. We've all got a story about somebody who thought they were funny and just crossed the line.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah.
Rebecca Gulka: And sometimes that's just [00:51:13] annoying. And sometimes it's really dangerous, especially since if you're an amateur comic, you're not in theaters, you're in bars, which is just an inherently dangerous space for women. And we keep showing up and we keep showing up together. One of the things I've really loved about the, the, the comedy network that I found is, is how
the whisper network. I'm sure we've all called it something, but we all know what it is. The whisper network of women who are whispering to each other. You know, I came to London and there already, there's just a group of women who I was on, you know, quietly on the comms with, is this one okay? Is this one not okay?
Yeah. Keeping each other safe. That inspires me. Not a specific person. Just women getting shit
done.
Rabiah (Host): Cool. Nice. All right. So if someone wants to find you and I'll have show notes, but where would you like them to go?
Rebecca Gulka: In the spirit of putting my two halves together, if you are interested in my comedy and my content, and right now you'd have to come to a show to see most of my content, but that's going to change soon.
I'm going to be doing some [00:52:13] funny writing as well. The kind of writing that doesn't necessarily transfer well to speech. You can find me at Rebecca Anne Comedy on Instagram and on Facebook with either periods or underscores. You'll find me if you do a search for Rebecca Anne Comedy,
Rebecca Gulka: if you are looking for me as a teacher, you can find me at www dot teaching with class dot com (www.teachingwithclass.com).
That's also, it's "Teaching With Class" on Facebook as well. And on Instagram it's at yes you can teach that (@yesyoucanteachthat). And actually there's a lot of overlap between the two jobs
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, well, you have to be entertaining.
Rebecca Gulka: I have to be entertaining for the kids. And the kids sure do provide some good jokes. Some of them are really funny.
Rabiah (Host): Great. Well, thanks so much for being here, both on the podcast and in my home, and I really
appreciate the chat.
Rebecca Gulka: Well, thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed this.
Rabiah (Host): Cool.
Rebecca Gulka: Thank you.
Rabiah (Host): Thanks for listening. You can learn more about the guest and what was talked about in the show notes. Joe Maffia created the music you're listening [00:53:13] to. You can find him on Spotify at Joe M-A-F-F-I-A. Rob Metke does all the design for which I am so grateful. You can find him online by searching Rob M-E-T-K-E.
Please leave a review if you like the show and get in touch if you have feedback or guest ideas. The pod is on all the social channels at, at more than work pod @morethanworkpod or at Rabiah Comedy (@rabiahcomedy) on TikTok. And the website is more than work pod dot com (morethanworkpod.com), While being kind to others, don't forget to be kind to yourself.
