Most people know that a teacher’s salary is not all that great. This sometimes causes teachers to have outside jobs. High school English teacher, Michael Yeakey, however, does not have outside jobs because he needs the money. He works in his own “hobby shop,” repairing bikes, doing tuneups, and even rebuilding some bikes. He also works for the College Board one week during the summer grading AP essays. He has been working on bikes for 12 years now and has worked for the College Board for 13 years.
Michael began working on bikes because one he owned the tools and it became cheap
er to do the work himself rather than take them somewhere to be repaired. Once he had children who also owned bikes this became an advantage and he had the experience to comfortably work on others bikes as well. The College Board job came after he had been an AP teacher for three years and consistently had student with an above average pass rate . Michael was a reader (or grader) for 11 years and has been a table leader for 2 years, which means he now manages the readers at his tables. In total there are around 1,400 readers and 150 table leaders.
Michael enjoys both of his outside jobs. In his bike shop, he enjoys the finished product and the the change from mental to physical work. During his week reading AP exams, he enjoys the people he works with and has met people from across the US. He has also learned a lot about teaching from scoring.
When asked if he would choose either of these jobs over teaching, Michael responded, he could see himself working in a bike shop. He has worked in a bike shop before and working in a bike shop means you get to meet all sorts of people from day to day.
~Carissa Woolace