Tracie Gabelman, an Ooltewah mom, wakes up some days at 3 a.m., grabs her coffee mug, lets the dog out and pulls on an orange shirt, her company uniform.
Next, she fires up her laptop computer and connects with children in China, whose parents pay dearly for 25-minute, one-on-one English-language tutoring sessions.
"Hello!" Gabelman greets the children with a wide smile. "How are you? I'm happy to see you."
Gabelman, 41, says she is one of about 20,000 private contractors in the United States who work for VIPKid, an online learning company specializing in the vast China market.
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For the kids in China, who take on American screen names such as "Randy" and "Dolly" and "Charlie," it's early evening. They seem hungry to learn.
Gabelman says she can make a couple of thousand dollars a month, before taxes, working part time this way, which allows her to be a stay-at-home mom for her two daughters, Mollie, 10, and Madelynne, 8. Her husband, Matthew, travels several weeks each month for his job, she says.
"The nicest part is I don't have to work when my children are awake," she says, noting that she is done with online teaching in time to get her girls off to school in the morning. "I feel like this is the Holy Grail job for moms with school-age kids."
Welcome to the 21st century global economy.
According to its website, VIPKid, headquartered in Beijing, "provides an international learning experience to children in China between the ages 4-12," using a curriculum based on U.S. Common Core state standards.
Gabelman says the average base pay for teaching a 25-minute session is $7-$9 with a $2-per-class bonus for teaching more than 45 sessions a month.
She does a few minutes of prep work for each online session, and clearly relishes her high rating - in 400 out of 404 recent classes she got a five-star rating, the highest attainable. With thousands of tutors available, a high rating helps her attract and keep students, she says.
Teachers for VIPKid must have at least a bachelor's degree and some teaching experience, says Gabelman, who home-schooled her children when the family lived in Georgia. She has a bachelor's degree in psychology from North Carolina State University.
The VIPKid classes feature "full English immersion," which means there is no Chinese spoken. For many Chinese parents, the sessions are an expensive sacrifice. Still, in a nation of 1.4 billion people, you do what you must to give your kids a leg up.
"Education is incredibly important in China," Gabelman said. "Having authentic pronunciation in English [instruction] is much sought-after."
Each lesson is customized to the student's skill level and includes vocabulary and practice sentences. Gabelman makes her own props - teaching aids such as puppets and dolls -to animate her sessions.
"I love the kids," Gabelman says. "I grow relationships with these families. You get to know people across the world."
The extra income allows Gabelman and her husband to provide enrichment activities for their own children. Mollie takes Mandarin Chinese lessons, and Madelynne is into gymnastics.
International relations, especially U.S.-China trade policy, will likely be a big topic in 2018.
Meanwhile, under the surface, technology is knitting together cultures in ways that transcend geo-politics.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645.