International school educators live more adventurous lives than their peers back home. Why not you too?
1.2 Top Three Reasons to teach overseas
1.3 Identify Your Personal Motivations
Why I Want To Teach Overseas…
“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware. ”
Before you make this huge leap into the exciting world of overseas teaching, you must be brutally honest about why you want to go.
So take out a pen and paper or your laptop and do the six exercises that follow. Nobody needs to see the results, so you have no reason to lie or dissemble.
Exercise #1 - What’s MY Crossroads?
Which way?? Sometimes it seems almost impossible to decide.
Since so many international school teachers come to this life because they are at a crossroads of one sort or another, a useful first step is to figure out what that fork in the road looks like for you.
Describe the situation that prompted you to think about teaching overseas. How was the seed planted? Write it down. _____________________
Exercise #2 - Elevator Speech
Answer as honestly as you can:
“I want to teach overseas because…” This is the place where you produce what is known as an elevator speech (30-seconds tops.) Write it out, hone the prose, memorize it, try to distill the essence of your rationale. __________________________________________________
Enthusiastically deliver this speech to a person who knows you well and won’t be fooled by any of your wishful thinking or evasions. If this elevator speech makes sense to your listener and rings true, you’re on the path to a happy experience.
Emotional Factors Which Influence a Decision to Teach Overseas
“Every action needs to be prompted by a motive.
”
Next let’s think about some deep-seated personal motivations for teaching overseas, those less likely to impress friends and family, possibly even a bit embarrassing i.e. I’m bored.
Work further through the decision-making process to answer the question “Why teach overseas?” The more honesty at this stage, the more likely that teaching overseas will be a memorable, positive experience.
Disclaimers First.
You may misidentify your actual reasons for teaching overseas, even if you think you’re being completely honest.
Or you may put a particular reason at the top of your list (travel) and it turns out not to be your favorite reason after all (stimulating expat community.)
Or you may make the leap for a particular reason (money) and then another motivation (adventure) takes its place once you’ve settled in.
It is perfectly fine to change your mind; just do the work of thinking deeply about why you really want to go overseas.
Personal Inventory Continued
“Know thyself. ”
This is excellent advice from nearly 25 centuries ago. So let’s proceed with the work of analyzing whether you are likely to be happy teaching overseas.
Exercise #3 - Travel History
Briefly write your personal travel history. Be particularly attentive to how you actually dealt with culture shock, frustrations and the inevitable disorientation. Were you constantly overwhelmed? invigorated?
Once a traveler returns home, the painful parts of the experience tend to fade. Try to remember it all; dig out any journals or photos to jog your memory. Be honest. Nobody else needs to read this. Write down a summary.__________________________________________
You might want to start a journal as you work through this process to help you focus. But be careful about posting a public blog, as things don’t ever really die on the Internet and your musings could come back to bite you.
Exercise #4 - Stress
Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale is a well-known scale to predict how the amount of change in your life might lead to illness. Note that even good change like Christmas or marriage can be stressors.
The resulting insight might make you wary of how much extra change like moving overseas you ought to load onto yourself without danger of implosion. It might be best to wait for a better time. Write down the results of the Stress Scale________
Exercise #5 - Personality
Your personality and grit will make all the difference whether you are happy or unhappy overseas. Take one of these (not very rigorous) self-analysis tests and reflect. Write down the results. ______________
1. Big Five Personality Test (Psychology Today - AM/PM Personality Profile)
2. My Personality Test – 100% free (and rudimentary) personality self-tests.
You just need to be a good sport, not necessarily ‘perky.’
Do not despair if these analyses reveal you to be grumpy or a bit of a loner. If you’ve been teaching long, you know perfectly well that not every good teacher is perky, organized, or outgoing; the good ones come in all configurations.
However, the one crucial trait for a successful overseas teacher is the cluster of adaptability/sense of humor/congeniality/coping skills.
At this point, exercises #1-5 should have helped you develop a truthful self-portrait. Now let’s continue further the work of identifying exactly why you want to teach overseas.
Running Away, Or Running Toward?
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.
”
Would you say that for you, teaching overseas comes under the heading (a) running away from or (b) running into an experience?
The away part can cover multitudes of negatives while the into part is largely positive. Just be honest with yourself. This is a profoundly emotional decision, but do not attach judgments to your motivations; just acknowledge them.
Impartial Critique
Regardless, I suggest you sit down with someone who truly knows you: most frequent travel partner? childhood best friend? colleague who worked with you under pressure? mom?
Explain why you want to teach overseas to someone who will not put up with your crap. You might even consider asking a person who does not exactly think the world of you.
A brutally honest critique should help you identify your chances of a happy experience, before you step off the plane for that new job in Ecuador or Ethiopia and are stuck for two years.
Exercise #6 - My Reasons To Teach Overseas
On 3 X 5 cards, write down as many of the following reasons why you want to teach overseas that apply to you. Add others if you think of them. Then shuffle the cards into priority order.
Running Toward…
1. I’ve come to a fork in the road and feel ready for a change.
2. I feel intensely alive while traveling and I want more of that feeling.
3. I have a 2/5/10 year career and life plan and now is the time for me.
4. I love the thought of starting over where nobody knows me.
5. I’m in a rut and the routine doesn’t satisfy me; I need a reboot.
Running Away…
6. I feel disconnected and not close to people. I seek a sense of community.
7. I’m coming off a bad breakup/divorce and need to hit the reset button.
8. I feel poisoned by the consumerist rat race of the Western world.
9. I need to flee suffocating family pressures.
10. I have always felt I don’t exactly fit in my home country, and the thought of joining the expat society appeals.
Put your reasons in order and be honest – there is no right answer, just what works for you personally. Keep shuffling those cards until you intuitively feel you’ve got it right.
Unknown Unknowns
A decision this momentous is littered with murky and tangled motivations. In spite of your best efforts, you can be sideswiped by feelings you could not have predicted. Oh well. You can only do your best.
Please pardon this incredibly awkward quotation, but it is just so awkwardly filled with wisdom on this point.
Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense after 9/11
“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.”
This is the place where your big plans can come to grief unless you prepare for the unknown unknowns. Just be as honest as you can and go for it.
In the next post we’ll continue exploring more underlying emotional and personal components of this decision. You can come to grief if you fail to take them into consideration.
1.4 More Good Reasons To Teach Overseas
Reason #1 - Change
“Things do not change; we change. ”
The changes described in this post come under the heading of emotions. You’ve taken charge of you life, you feel connected, and the black-and-white picture of your current life might burst into full color.
The Reset Button
One of the most unexpected and pleasing results of teaching overseas comes under the heading personal growth. No matter how well (or badly) the experience turns out, you will absolutely be a stronger person than the one who got off the plane in Shanghai or Stockholm. Gym rats know the only way to get stronger is to stress the muscle; same thing with overcoming the inevitable challenges of an unfamiliar environment.
Another of the biggest payoffs of the teaching overseas lifestyle is that you can start over every two years if you want to. You’ll be working with a completely new set of teachers, parents, and administrators. This reset button can be immensely invigorating.
New Worldview
Your school may have students from 50+ countries and their parents will be well-traveled and multilingual Embassy staff, CNN reporters, and leaders of NGO’s or important business people, all of them with a background as unlike yours as possible. All this diversity will crack open your shell as you grow, change, and become more tolerant and open.
A Thai person might pity you for eating alone or a European may laugh to see you blush at a topless city swimming pool or nobody pays the slightest attention to baseball, cricket, or AFL scores. Adjust or go back home.
But you really can’t go home again, because your worldview has changed forever and you can never again see your home country uncritically. But overall, that’s a good thing.
Reason #2 - Sense of Community
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. ”
Bonding
Another impetus to personal growth comes from features peculiar to the world of international schools. For a start you’ve been dumped into a world of unfamiliarity and culture shocks.
All this stress produces the instant bonding that happens in close-knit environments with a common purpose. Think sports teams; think freshman college dorms; think the military. These stressors build a tight community immediately, unlike everyday life in your home country.
I remember our middle school kids on their first day at AIS Vienna. They were swarmed by the other kids who wanted to know all about them and had already begun absorbing them into school life and friendship circles.
The reason for this openness is obvious, once you think about it. Most all of these kids had been in the same situation themselves, especially those with Embassy parents who move every few years.
The same dynamic applies for teachers. The community can always use a member with new and interesting stories, maybe a potential travel partner.
Expat World
Since you’ll be living in an expat bubble and probably don’t speak the local language fluently, your chances of socializing with host country nationals are slim. This only serves to draw you closer into the school and expat community.
Family
Marriages in a new environment can flourish and refresh; you share a common challenge and spend a get deal more time together than usual.
Children will grow, adapt, and change utterly. They will engage with kids unlike themselves and begin to take a changed worldview for granted.
In a good international school, their peers expect to attend prestigious colleges, work hard at academics and possess the habit of success. For a parent, what’s not to like?
Singles
Several practical day-to-day features of school life also promote community and encourage friendships, particularly for singles and especially for women.
Frequently, schools will supply housing in a particular building or even a compound. Then it’s just like a college dorm where you can head down the hall and knock on a door to arrange a shopping expedition or happy hour.
Singles then have some relief from loneliness and the opportunity to make quick connections. This lifestyle can be a godsend, making a return to their home country unbearably isolating.
In ordinary life, making new friends can be difficult and take a great deal of effort and cultivation. Overseas teachers have an enormous advantage in this effort, mainly the openness of the community to welcome new and potentially interesting members.
Teaching overseas can provide an automatic sense of community, if you open yourself to it.
Reason #3 - Richness of Experience
“Travel is intensified living. ”
Memorable
This feature of the overseas teaching life is fundamental, but I need to pound home the idea once again: teaching in an international school isn’t just a job but is life-changing.
In your ordinary life in your home country, chances are that you may not remember what year such and such happened except for the spectacular anomalies: had a baby, first job, bought a house.
But milestones of your overseas career will not fade into mush, guaranteed. First job in Russia? Two years in Vienna? These dates are clear mileposts in my memory and remain so.
No Regrets
Of all the overseas teachers I have ever known, none regret having gone. They may have suffered plenty of negative experiences and regretted a particular school or their own behavior. But no, they do not regret going. Plenty of them regret coming back home, but that’s a story for later.
To repeat my overarching theme: Go.For.It.
Reason #4 - Alienation
“Almost every truly creative being feels alienated & expatriated in his own country. ”
The feeling that I never really fit into my home culture provides the unacknowledged motivation of many a happy overseas teaching experience. At some partially unconscious level, you just never felt like an ordinary citizen of your home country.
The thought of living in the same neighborhood you grew up in gives you the willies. You cannot imagine why anyone would stay at a chain hotel or go on a tour. When you travel, you bumble around on your own seeking new experiences and finding them. You have just always felt like an outsider.
I am here to tell you that there is a cure for this particular affliction, which is to teach overseas. That makes you a citizen of a new country or an Expat.
Expat
Expats exile themselves from their home countries either permanently or temporarily. Many find themselves breathing a deep and invigorating sigh of relief – they feel, at long last, that they finally fit: I have found my tribe.
Overseas teachers live in a self-selected community of like-minded souls, colleagues who take for granted that, at least for now, overseas is better than being back home. Plus the lifestyle is a tremendous amount of fun.
“The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive. ”
What if you’ve read this far and decided you want to teach overseas? If so, it’s time to explore this new and exciting world. Let’s start with some definitions and categories, mainly what exactly is an international school?
2.1 Types of International Schools
2.2 Evaluate School Quality
Establish the Verifiable Facts
“Just the facts, ma’am. ”
No matter what category of school you’ve applied to, you the candidate need a firm basis on which to evaluate quality. Upending your life and moving to the other side of the world without doing basic research is jumping from a plane without a parachute.
What’s your assurance that a particular school is not a terrible mistake? Your only defense is to judge quality against four metrics:
Verifiable facts
Accreditation
Curriculum and test results
Reviews
#1 Collect the Data
Governance
Consider governance to start. If there is no charter and no Board of Trustees or if this information is not available, you might want to re-think applying. Private single-owner or chain schools are not required to be transparent about decision-making; they own the school.
International School of Prague Board.
Compare this private governance model to an embassy school like the International School of Prague’s Board of Trustees. Ask yourself:
Is there a board at all and if yes, then who makes up its membership?
Does the school post this information?
Do parents of current students have board representation?
Basic Numbers and Information
Keep digging until you uncover and establish these data points. If you cannot find this information in online or print documentation, ask the school or current teachers.
Take nothing for granted. Facts are facts because they can be proven or disproven and which no amount of spin or PR can change. Take a look at this international schools database for parents to help them choose a school. It is one more source of data for prospective teachers, as well.
1. Nationality demographics - What is the percentage of host nationals? How many nationalities are represented?
2. Makeup and turnover of staff and administration - What is the administration and teacher turnover rate?
3. Growth and age of school - How many years has the school been in operation? Is enrollment growing, steady, or declining?
4. What are the IELTS (International English Language Testing System) scores and what percentage of students require ELL support?
5. Admissions policies - Is the school selective and does it require exams for admission? What about minimum levels of English-language facility required and at which grade levels?
6. What is the teacher workload (after-school activities and extracurricular?) What is the commitment and is the work paid?
7. Curriculum structure and support - If the school is IB or AP, what are the scores?
8. Accreditation - Is the school accredited? Which organizations?
9. What about the package (salary/benefits/other.)
#2 Accreditation
“Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval”
Why Accreditation Is So Important
We have discussed the explosive growth in K12 International School market (nearly 60% increase from 2010 to 2018.) So in the mushrooming field of international schools, how on earth does a parent or teacher identify a good one?
Accreditation is one way a private school owner can compete and get a leg up on the competition. According to the market intelligence firm ISC, only 21.9 % of international schools are currently accredited. This means accreditation by an international agency would be a huge selling point.
This is not to mention accreditation’s main purpose - quality assurance. Parents who move often need standards and consistency in curriculum. But it also crucial for you, the teacher who is trying to evaluate whether a school is good enough to upend your life for an overseas adventure.
Accreditation Badge Is Not a Panacea
Accreditation is hardly a panacea or absolute proof that you will be happy working at a given school, but it is an important piece of data. At a minimum, it shows the school administration cared enough to expose the school to outside scrutiny.
Posting these markers is a badge of pride and a marketing tool for ISK.
If only 21.9% of international schools are accredited, does that mean that 78.1% are crap? Of course not, but lack of accreditation is a yellow flag. Schools which take the process seriously, like ISK (International School of Kenya) proudly post their results, partly as a marketing tool.
At the very least, prospective teachers ought to seek accreditation information and inquire if it is absent or hidden. If a school is attached to an Embassy or approved by the US State Department, accreditation is mandatory.
The Accreditation Process
Some of you may have been through the accreditation process, which begins with teachers and administrators assembling information beforehand or serving on the self-study committee to prepare for the visit, paying particular attention to results from the previous accreditation report. The curriculum director or an administrator will be in charge.
Every aspect of the school will be addressed, from facilities to financials to educational practice. Then the accreditation visit begins, with typically 6-8 outside experienced educators on the team.
They spend two days gathering data, observing, interviewing, and the next day planning their report, which is then written and presented to the board and administration.
Weaknesses of the Accreditation Process
Can be extremely time-consuming and take away instructional time.
May expose gaping holes in the school program.
May lay bare the fact that there really is no curriculum.
The accreditation team may just be tickled to have an overseas, all-expenses paid jaunt and they do not really look under the hood.
The process and results may prove a sham and be manipulated by administrators and/or owners.
Since international school turnover is typically 3-4 years, many staff members will have no basis to answer the questions.
If you read through the comment thread from ISR (International Schools Review) on this topic, you will read a great deal of grumbling. But do not ignore the informed comments from the positive side; these visits can be extremely valuable.
#3 Testing Schemes and Results
Order Out of Curriculum Chaos
Curriculum can be a fraught issue in the best of schools, and in the words of Kent Blakeney in Teaching Overseas: an Insider’s Perspective, “If there are any black holes or dark spots in overseas education, curriculum is one of them.”
One of the main reasons is turnover. Good grief. If the typical length of international school teacher stay is three years, who’s going to write curriculum for accreditation which occurs on a 10-year cycle with a refresher at the 5-year mark?
International school teachers also have a tendency to independence. Naturally: that’s why they teach in Bangladesh or Brussels. This translates to a sometimes home-made, very personal curriculum design.
Many teachers therefore won’t be interested in coordinating with the GR5 team, for instance, but instead want to teach their favorite thematic unit. Sometimes a written curriculum is entirely missing.
Add in two other complicating factors, and difficulties compound.
One is that the school will have most likely have a substantial percentage of students who lack English-language fluency.
The other is the process of obtaining teaching materials. A new textbook adoption, for instance, needs to be ordered and literally shipped (put on a ship), get through customs, arrive, be processed, and finally put to use, which can easily be a year-long timeframe.
Missing Structures
Public or state schools in your home country are restrained and corralled by laws and bureaucracies and an infrastructure largely missing in international schools. Your state or country schools will be governed by:
Department of Education (adopt textbooks statewide/set graduation requirements/publicly post school progress/ set learning goals and measure achievement and so forth)
Teacher Standards and Practices (certify teachers)
Federal or country-wide laws, like PL 94-192 (Special Education)
Labor laws, unions, grievance procedures, legal recourse
Given these features, how does an international school bring any kind of order out of this chaos? Two words: accreditation and testing. Accreditation means that an external structure has been imposed, no matter its weaknesses. But at least a written curriculum exists.
The other foundation is independent testing.
Exam Results
International school curricula generally come in three different flavors: IB, AP, or National (IGCSE, etc.) Each one features big serious tests with public results announced at the culmination of study. Therefore, testing schemes level the curriculum playing field in a big way.
There will be problems if…
A school offers IB or AP classes but none of the students get decent test results.
Students in a British curriculum fail to pass their IGCSE exams.
Few graduates are accepted at good universities.
Then teachers and administrators will be hounded by parents and the board, rightfully so. When you research a school or interview with the director, plan to find out what the curriculum picture is and the test results.
You’ll have to deal with the fallout every single day. Especially consider the implications of English language fluency in the context of a sophisticated curriculum. More on that in the next post.
#4 Online Presence and Reviews
School Online Presence
Digital natives are surely by now aware of web site red flags. For instance, 404 Page Not Found - clunky and hard to navigate - loads slowly - misspellings.
Other red flags peculiar to international schools are seeing the same blond Western child pop up over and over again (frequently a teacher’s kid.) You should also see accreditation badges if earned.
This thread from ISR (International Schools Review) points out some pitfalls in evaluating schools whose reviews seemed to have stopped and are not current at all. Does this mean a bad administration has stifled comment? Or the school is so small it’s difficult to conceal a teacher’s identity? Or disgruntled teachers have moved on and don’t feel the urge to complain anymore? Whatever the reason, out of date reviews are at least a yellow flag.
Staff directories and photos are probably going to be behind the school portal. In some countries staff information is hidden for fear of kidnapping or terrorism; in the EU such information is even illegal to post. However, I would certainly expect to see names of the Administration, maybe a statement of welcome or short bio.
It’s still a pig…
The usual grain of salt applies to the school website, since any owner can hire a talented web designer and create an entirely fictitious school. Just skim the site and see how many pieces of hard data you can uncover.
Perhaps a good reason to sign up with an agency.
Hint: the recruiting agencies ISS and Search Associates offer a firewall of protection since they screen the schools they represent. Search notes that they decline nearly 50% of the schools which apply. Search and ISS databases are also gold mines of the facts you need, all gathered in one place, perhaps a good reason to pay their fees whether you recruit at their fairs or not.
Validity of Review Sites - A Comparison
You can always start with Yelp and Google reviews, but you’ll get better information from dedicated international school sites. The biggest and most reputable is ISR (International Schools Review.) They have the most reviews of schools and administrators, as well as a deep archive of articles and forums, all for $29. Some of its forums are free but frustrating to navigate.
Important research tool since 2003; priceless at $29.
ISR - International Schools Review
Comparing two sample review from competing review sites is illuminating. Below is ISR’s review of APIS (American Pacific International School) which is pretty thorough and in-depth, although not recent.
Please take note of the questions and issues this school review addresses below. These are questions you should also ask in your search.
ISC - International School Community
By comparison, its competition the ISC (International School Community) review of the same school is very thin. ISC also costs $50, almost twice as much and always seems to be begging for subscribers. However, it does contain plenty of useful information.
Strategies Without Online Reviews, and Caveats
Just remember that online review sites frequently skew to the negative. This happens with anonymous posters, I guess. Same grain of salt as above; satisfied teachers tend not to post.
Hint: once you’ve gotten that first overseas job, in future you can call on your own network of contacts. Somebody knows about the school and would be happy to dish. Just ask. Or fire up social media and post your questions.
You should also ask the recruiter to provide you with contact information for current staff, especially the person you’d be replacing. If they do not oblige, that’s at least a yellow flag.
Due Diligence
“Eyes wide open
”
International schools lie along the Bell Curve (some awful, some fabulous, most in-between.) To sort out which is which, do two things before deciding to apply at a given school, especially a for-profit school.
To summarize:
Thoroughly research the factors described in this post before making the leap. (facts/accreditation/testing/reviews.)
Decide what exactly you are willing to tolerate to teach overseas. Then decide if the school is a good match for you.
2.3 The Classroom
Classroom Support
“A Day In The Life”
Best Case Scenario
If you’ve ever taught in a well-resourced school in your home country, you might have an idea what you might expect from an international school classroom.
• Classroom aides
• Small class sizes
• Teaching resources, enough for everybody
• Classroom supplies in abundance
• Specials (art, music, library, PE, counselors)
• Few if any discipline problems
• Academically capable and ambitious students
• Most likely no Special Education students
• Parental support
Sigh. Makes you feel happy just thinking about such a well-ordered, well-stocked, well-run workplace.
Class Size, Aides, and Specials
Small classes (20 is considered large) and an aide in every elementary classroom is typically the default. There may even be a staffer to run the copy machine. What used to be the standard specials like PE, art and music, librarians and counselors are also the norm.
Professional Development (PD)
One element of the teacher package to ask about would be PD support i.e. will the school pay for conference attendance or other training? How many days are granted? A pleasant quirk is that if you work at an IB World School, you might well be sent to Geneva, Switzerland for training.
Teaching Materials
It may strike you as odd, but early in the school year, your administrator will ask what teaching materials you’ll need for next year. Frequently, materials are ordered from the US and take a full year to arrive. Besides hiring, ISS sometimes sets up and runs new schools and arranges school supply, and so your orders might go through them.
Alternately, some schools keep a supply room jam-packed with every teaching supply a teacher might ever need. English-language books can be very expensive locally and hard to come by. This has eased thanks to widespread availability of Internet downloads, thankfully.
Facilities
Olympic sized pool in Chiang Mai
Because the international school market is so competitive and because tuition is typically so high, the physical plant tends to be well-maintained, beautiful, and in a green space outside a sometimes chaotic central city.
Frequently there is an elementary and a separate secondary campus, if the school is big enough. The maintenance crew is numerous and keeps things tidy.
Maintenance Staff and Guards
Janitors in Thailand performed the full range of duties.
In Thailand the staff came in handy when a cobra got into the boarding school laundry room; they killed it and cooked it for lunch. In Austria we called the maintenance workers “the green guys” because of their work coveralls. Guards and gate attendants and putz-frau (cleaning ladies) filled out the staff. In Russia the staff would start your car to warm it up before you left for school and used a shedload of tools to break up ice in the parking lot.
Technology
Again, because of the competitiveness of the international school market, up-to-date technology is frequently a selling point and competitive edge. It is not unusual for each classroom to have a smart board and for each student to have his or her own tablet and for instruction to be delivered and work turned in electronically.
Extracurricular and After-School Activities
Coaching and ASA (After-School Activities) are decidedly part of your job as a teacher at an international school. These schools are Western islands in a foreign sea and are therefore closer-knit than you might be used to. They serve a huge role as community centers for the school families.
This means you may be chaperoning sports trips to Warsaw or taking the MUN (Model United Nations) group to Dublin. Or you may have to drum up a robotics club as your twice a week ASA. Part of the package.
Diversity and Global Outlook
One of the most characteristic features of an international school is right in front of the teacher when s/he calls the roll. Diversity in this context means children from any one of 50+ countries could be in your classroom.
You might hear a regular Babel of languages in the hallways and lunchroom. Or better yet, you might hear them all speak English, which is the point of an international school.
Curriculum Options
“Variety’s the very spice of life,
That gives it all its flavor.
”
True enough, but too much variety may lead to chaos. So how does an international school structure what goes on in the classroom? What teaching materials are used?
When a job posting reads Teacher of IBDP and IBMYP Language A: English, what does that mean? In other words, what curriculum is used in a given school?
Generally, the categories of curriculum are:
IB (International Baccalaureate)
AP (Advanced Placement)
IGCSE (International General Certificate of Secondary Education)
National (Canadian, Australian, Korean, Japanese, French, Indian, Pakistani, etc.)
Parents are paying extraordinary tuition, most over $20,000 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE,) for instance. What parents need and want for their children determines which curricula they choose.
If their child will be returning to their home country for university and expects to build a career in the United Kingdom, for instance, the decision is made. This assumes the city is large enough to support more than one category of school.
International Baccalaureate
But if the parent anticipates the child will be an expat with a global outlook, IB works best. What is IB? It was established in 1968 with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. In 2016 IB had 4,538 World Schools (their term) and 161,408 exam DP (Diploma Program) candidates.
That means students must take and pass exams in various subject areas to be granted university credit or receive a boost for university admission. The marks are crucial, just as in AP (Advanced Placement) classes for American schools.
“For schools that have achieved the high standards required for authorization, one of the benefits is to be known as an IB World School and to make use of the IB make use of the IB brand.”
The curriculum consists of four programmes. Note the spelling, as there is a strong British flavor to IB:
DP (Diploma Program) - high school, culminates in IB exams
MYP (Middle Years Program) - not found so often as DP or PYP
PYP (Primary Years Program) - requires much teacher collaboration and student initiative
CP (Career-Related Program) - I haven’t experienced this; uncommon.
IB is built around the Learner Profile, which emphasizes students taking responsibility for their own learning. IB has a well-developed promotional and professional development arm. Some people snarkily refer to IB as a cult.
IB really isn’t “for all.”
A friend returned from overseas and taught at a self-described “IB For All” school in Massachusetts. It didn’t really work that well. The problem was that successful IB students need a high level of general knowledge, good academic skills, and the ability to work independently and collaboratively. Not all students do, unfortunately.
Advanced Placement
This program is built on the same principles as IB, mainly a challenging curriculum and exams which can lead to college credit and even skipping entry-level university courses.
AP credits are almost universally accepted in American universities and increasingly in international colleges. If a school is big enough, as at the American School of Paris, it may offer both. But AP is still nowhere near as common as IB.
Some schools like AIS Vienna offer a “curriculum based on the American system with an international flavor.” Others use the Common Core framework.
International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE)
This is the British curriculum featuring an exam array from Accounting to Urdu, leading to A-Level exams, which are a requirement for university entrance in the United Kingdom. If a city is big enough, there may be a school featuring the British curriculum and another with the IB or American curriculum.
National Curricula
Again, if a city is big enough, there might be an array of schools featuring curricula from the home country. Vienna, for instance, has a French Lycée, a Svenska Skolan, and a Japanese school.
In addition even if a student attends an IB or American-style school, he or she might also attend a cram school just to be prepared to enter university when the parents return home.
Bottom line? This decision depends on what the parents plan for their child.
Models of Instruction
Inquiry-Based
When you build a house, it’s all about the foundation. In instructional terms this means the school’s curriculum determines the instructional model.
So in an IB World School, for instance, the youngest elementary students PreK-2 will learn through inquiry-based instruction. This model requires extra teacher training (you may be sent for IB training) and for students who have the language skills and background knowledge to manage this style of learning.
Grade-level and subject area teams are the norm, and differentiation in the classroom is made much easier by the generous number of classroom aides.
Traditional
If the curriculum is not IB, then other more traditional instructional models govern the classroom: traditional textbook-based/ outcome-based backward by design formats/ or thematic units that a teacher favors.
Most frequently the school will be divided into elementary/middle/high school divisions, and often a Nursery/PreK section. The structure will mirror that of a British or American school.
Special Education Implications
International schools are seldom able to accommodate children with severe disabilities. However, you might expect a handful of mildly-disabled students: LD/ ADHD/ on the spectrum/ sometimes blind or deaf, sometimes even with a full-time aide.
What you will not see is a classroom with numerous severe BD students and a high percentage of non-English speaking students. International schools have no legal obligation to serve these students and it is too costly to provide services.
The US Department of State delicately notes that “children with moderate to severe difficulties still encounter major challenges.” This means diplomats with children in these categories won’t be sent overseas. DoDEA schools will be more able to provide some services, but not to the degree available back home.
English-language Learners
Younger ELL students become fluent more easily, generally speaking.
Attaining fluency in English and preparing for admission to good universities is the reason international schools exist. Some schools will not admit older students with weak or non-existent English. Refer back to the discussion of IB and AP testing to understand why.
Instructional models for ELL (English-language learners) have some quirks. Below are the most usual formats for non-native speakers:
• Inclusion. Just drop the child into an English-language classroom environment. The younger the child, the better the outcome.
• Self-contained classrooms focusing on English-language instruction. This model is intended to end when the child has reached a benchmark.
• Pullout for intensive English language instruction with core classes. The child is mainstreamed into electives and perhaps math.
• Mainstreaming, perhaps with an aide or other support as needed.
International School Teaching Staff
“Who’s on first?”
Overseas Vs. Local Hires
Let’s start with the two main groups of international school teachers. First are overseas hires, meaning foreign teachers. Overseas teachers are hired through recruiting fairs or by online interviews.
Overseas hires are in a class apart from the next group, financially better off by a long way, with benefits the other class of teacher can only dream about.
Local hires provide the backbone of the school, at less financial cost.
Then there are local hires. These teachers already live in-country for various reasons. They may be local citizens or a Westerner married to a local.
Typically they teach the national curriculum or the local language. Their salary schedule is an emaciated version of the expat teacher’s.
For benefits, they might receive health care and perhaps contribution to a retirement plan, but no housing, tuition for their children, no flight home, no conference travel. Nothing extra. Local hires are financial second-class citizens.
Why?
Because a successful international school requires a certain proportion of native English speakers; parents demand it. And few Westerners are going to leave home, travel to a foreign country on their own dime and work for shockingly low wages and no benefits. Period.
The school might be able to hire random poorly qualified Western teachers who just happen to be in the country, but that won’t work out over time, not with the tuition parents pay. So the school is stuck, and it’s the local hires who bear the brunt while the expats live high on the hog.
Types of International School Teachers
Tourist Teacher
In it for adventure and jolt of adrenaline provided by change. In Year One they arrive/ get settled/ travel a lot/ do a capable job in the classroom. But they are already making plans for the next move and by winter of Year Two, they’re been hired by the next school and will be gone by the start of Year Three.
Most-Likely-To-Break-Contract Teacher (Heidi)
Doing a “Heidi” means breaking contract.
Why Heidi? Because in one school year in Moscow, two teachers coincidentally named Heidi broke contract and left before Christmas. One’s boyfriend was very ill back home and the other got dropped into a band program with no musical instruments; they had not arrived yet. So this is my shorthand for breaking contract.
This group either fell into an international school career (Saudi? Why not?) or they are running away from some personal or financial mess or they are just overwhelmed.
Depending on the nature of their motivations, personality and character, potential Heidis can either become perpetual complainers and crack under the pressure. Or they may feel liberated and settle into this new life having left their problem behind and found a congenial lifestyle.
Career Lifer
They have made international schools their permanent career and worked in many schools and countries. They tend to be steady, pragmatic, and tolerant.
They’ve been everywhere even though they are still connected to their home country and may plan to retire there. Their children are TCK (Third Culture Kids) and equally worldly-wise.
Second-Career/ Retired Teachers
Not quite ready to retire yet.
They seek one last adventure before settling down to spoil their grandkids. They’ve had long and typically successful careers behind them and have mellowed enough to be a steadying influence on the faculty. In baseball these guys are called good in the clubhouse.
Local Lifer
Occasionally a foreigner finds a city or country that just feels like home, and they stay. They may marry a local and raise their children in Vienna or Chiang Mai, learn the language, settle, and let ties to their home country wither. Local lifers are worth hanging around with for their depth of local knowledge.
Trailing Spouse
When a husband/wife is posted overseas, the spouse, possibly unwillingly, ends up getting a teaching or substitute job. Most often these postings are for just a few years, so the trailing spouse may be adaptable enough to be successful or just the opposite. It’s a difficult high wire act. More later.
International School Administrators
“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
”
The administrative structure is pretty much in the same mold as a government-sponsored school anywhere. The main difference is that the school typically stands alone, so instead of a district with a superintendent, international schools have a head of school.
Head of School
If you take a look at the career paths of a typical crop of new administrative overseas hires, you will note a common theme – they generally have considerable international school experience.
When you list their responsibilities, it is easy to see why. They need to perform all these duties, but in a foreign country:
1. Strategic planning – growing the school.
2. Fiduciary management – keeping the school on sound financial footing.
3. Dealing with the Board of Trustees, Embassy, and local government.
4. Handling parents diplomatically.
5. Attending many/most school and community events.
6. Recruiting talented staff.
7. Managing curriculum and accreditation.
8. Preparing emergency plans and campus security.
Administrative Staff
If the school is big enough, the head of school will have both local and overseas staff. If the school is tiny, guess what? The head of school does it all and may even teach a class or two. Bigger schools may have separate departments like:
• Finance department/ business manager
• Admissions director
• Curriculum and Instruction supervisor
• Facilities manager and maintenance
• IT (Instructional Technology) department
Local Staff
The main office could not operate without the highly capable bilingual local staff. They always seem to be over-qualified, but the school would crash in a day without their local knowledge.
These staffers seem to move easily in both the expat and local environments, like salmon, which swim in both fresh and saltwater. Be nice to these people. They will be there long after you have moved on and will prove immensely helpful.
Principals
A large enough school may have an elementary, middle school, and high school division, each with its own principal and separate staff. These principals deal directly with students, instruction, teacher evaluation and day-to-day operations.
They suffer less bureaucracy and Special Education paperwork and fear of litigation. But there is still plenty to do and plenty of problems walking in the door.
Peter Principle - Impact on the Classroom
As with life in general, administrative talent is not evenly distributed. The Peter Principle notes that employees tend to get promoted until they reach their level of incompetence.
This rule holds true for international school leadership, of course. There are some miserable principals and heads of school, even though most are experienced and capable.
But a feature peculiar to international schools is their autonomy, which in practical terms means administrators have a much freer hand than they would in a school district.
A bad administrator can turn the school sour within a few months and short-term, nobody can stop him/her. International schools are especially vulnerable to this rapid-turnover collapse.
So when you read school reviews, keep in mind the review date – a bad administrator can ruin a school pretty quickly. Confirm how long the administration has been in place and whether changes loom. Then decide.
So there you have a roundup of the factors which determine what goes on in your classroom every day. Next let’s move on to your customers, meaning the students and their parents.
2.4 Students and Their Families
International School Students
“The same but different.”
By and large international school students are a joy to teach, just like the academically ambitious, polite, hard-working kids at a well-run private college-prep school in your home country.
The emphasis is on well-run, because of course things can go badly wrong. But do your research and you should be able to avoid bad schools.
What lends spice to an international school student body is its multicultural diversity, even though the playground and hallway language will be English. It’s truly awe-inspiring to see students from 50+ countries mingle effortlessly in the classroom, lunchroom, sports field, social groups in and out of school.
A true international school will be full of TCK (Third Culture Kids.) This means a global education curriculum is redundant; some of these students have lived in five different countries before middle school and have extra pages in their passports.
Issues Unique to International Schools
Transitory Lifestyle
Many of these families only stay a few years (3-4 years for US Foreign Service Officers), which has implications. One of these factors is very positive; because these kids have moved so often, they tend to be very accepting of newcomers.
Student friend groups might include a motley collection of nationalities like Ethiopian, Canadian, Estonian, Belgian, Danish, Lebanese, and Austrian, in the case of my children, who were swarmed by students looking for fresh companions their first day.
But negatives include the lack of stability and issues with bonding and friendship. Some students may fall through the cracks academically and socially, since nobody knew them when. More fragile students may fold under the pressure of regular uprooting.
English-Language Fluency
Two admissions constraints also have a particularly crucial impact, so be sure to ask. How many students speak English well? How solid is instructional support and what are the school’s admissions testing and policies?
One AP teacher recounted how a GR11 student had to have his friend translate a request to go to the bathroom. How can such students possibly get good IB/AP scores and be admitted to a British or American university without English-language fluency?
1. Older students who are not fluent should not be admitted in the upper grades. It is far too difficult to master the language skills needed to succeed in a challenging curriculum and subsequent tests, like IB.
If too few students are fluent in English, teaching any kind of curriculum will be an uphill slog. Many schools do not accept older students without excellent English for this reason and also require a minimum admissions test score.
2. Many schools limit the percentage of ELL under the theory of critical mass, meaning if there aren’t enough native English speakers, who are these learners going to immerse themselves with?
If the proportions are wrong, the school ends up with groups of, say, Koreans speaking nothing but Korean and who can barely speak English when they graduate.
The Families
“The family you come from isn’t as important as the family you’re going to have.
”
Who are these parents?
1. Embassy diplomatic personnel
2. NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) employees
3. Businessmen and women for global corporations
4. Teachers’ kids
5. Host country nationals, generally rich
Who Pays the Tuition?
Parents #1-4 do not typically pay their child’s tuition out of pocket; their government or corporation pays. In the case of AAS Moscow, for instance, fees are in the $28,000 range plus a $10,000 entry fee.
Lori Loughlin, actress, sentenced for bribery in a school admissions scandal. Money talks, but not always.
This feature means that when a #5 host national’s child enrolls, the parents most likely are rich. That does not automatically mean they are more prone to be pushy, entitled, and demanding, but the risk is, frankly, greater.
Lest you think parents from hell only occur overseas, remember this pair and their $500,000 bribe to admit their daughters to USC?
How Parents Decide
Families have many motivations for choosing an international school over the local national school. These range from the negative (teachers are on strike again) to the positive (broadening the child’s worldview and achieving English fluency.)
The growing middle class around the world sometimes stretches itself financially for an international school education. They value extracurricular activities and the nurturing of personality and independence in a multicultural environment because they may be wary of the rigid national schools.
So…parents have settled on sending the child to an international school. What factors influence their choice?
1. Tuition can be upwards of $40,000. Can I afford it? What if I have three children?
2. Will the curriculum fit the future I have in mind for my child?
3. Is this a true international school with certified foreign teachers?
4. If my child needs extra support, will it be available?
5. What about sports and extracurricular activities?
6. Location – if we live in a huge city, is the commute impossible?
7. What is the school’s reputation and college acceptance rate?
Here is one online example of how parents search and the criteria that matter; just input the child’s age and desired location, then start shopping. By the way, this database is a priceless resource for prospective teachers to dig up facts like ratio of local students to international (crucial to know.)
Difficult Parents
Difficult parents are distributed along the Bell Curve, never mind who pays the tuition. There are plenty of horror stories of embassy parents throwing their weight around and making a teacher’s life miserable. Your main defenses are:
1. Solid supportive administration
2. Selective student admission process
3. Curriculum in place with testing as the end result
4. Zero tolerance of cheating or bad behavior by Board and administration
5. Adherence to Western norms
Supportive Parents
On the bright side, parents all share one common feature, meaning high expectations for their children. They tend to be supportive and involved, and if their child is happy in your classroom and making progress, they will be your best supporters.
Highly talented and educated classroom volunteers will be available. The PTO will likely prove capable of raising plentiful money for classroom support, organizing special events, and providing manpower or more typically womanpower. Keep an open mind, and you could end up with a lifelong friend from the parent community.
Now that you have a good idea of the international school world and have decided you want to teach overseas, let’s lay out the hiring process.
3.1 Process, Preparation, Paperwork
3.2 What Makes a Good Candidate
Am I a Good Candidate??
“Go to the front of the line ”
To be honest, this process is very much like grading beef: prime, choice, select, standard/commercial. In this post I’ll break down who ends up in which recruiting category of desirability.
But please note that even if you are not a prime candidate, there are always options and very few actual dead ends.
Non-Negotiable Requirements
“Nothing has more strength than dire necessity.
”
You must meet the school’s work visa requirements, meaning different things in different countries. Sometimes partners must be married, there may be limits on age, teacher certification may be required, plus clean health and criminal background checks.
The school may also require legitimate and current teacher certification, two year’s successful teaching experience, even a Master’s Degree.
Candidates need to complete the application package correctly, meaning the CV needs to be clean and thorough, any transcripts or other paperwork supplied according to instructions and all deadlines met. One of my work visa forms contained a typo and was sent back, seriously messing up deadlines. Be accurate.
Positive recommendations must be supplied and do not even think about failing to obtain one from your principal; that’s a red flag.
Subjective Desirability Rankings
“There is always room at the top. ”
There is disagreement on this subject, but here are the broad outlines in order of desirability.
Personal Situation
1. Teaching couple/no dependents – Why? Because this configuration saves the school money in housing and transport (two-for-the-price-of-one.) A couple also cuts the recruiting load a bit and recruiters may feel a married couple is more stable.
Next in descending order:
2. Single teacher, no dependents.
3. Teaching couple, one dependent per contract.
4. Teacher with trailing (non-teaching) spouse.
Curriculum Experience
1. IB teaching experience (the gold standard.)
2. Specialty area in high demand – STEM, especially higher math, IT, or physics. Some specialists, like librarians, music teachers, and counselors, can also be hard to find.
3. Certified and able to teach several subjects or grade levels.
4. Experience and willingness to coach or organize extra-curricular activities.
Personal Traits and Intangibles
Recruiters need to believe that you are going to be two things:
1. A good teacher.
2. No trouble, meaning negative or disruptive to the community.
How can they feel confident they got it right, just from an online interaction or a stressful 15-minute interview in a hotel room?
You provided positive recommendations and well-thought out supporting materials, even a portfolio or video of your teaching. They may even ask for a short impromptu lesson on the spot.
Recruiters will then add any up additional factors that lead them to bet you will survive and thrive overseas. For instance, your application and persona demonstrate you are committed to teaching overseas, not just looking for a paid vacation. Maybe you’ve already lived overseas for an extended period or have otherwise proven adaptability. Your hobbies show a positive, social spirit.
All these factors balance the equation in favor of “will not be trouble.”
Serendipity, Gut Feeling, and Dumb Luck
Here is where random factors collect. Does the recruiter think the candidate will fit in? Does this teacher fill a need the principal wasn’t even exactly aware needed filling?
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell illuminates how humans make these decisions in just a few seconds.
I once overheard a recruiter say, “We have too many Americans in that department.” Some factors are out of your control. Do the two of you connect? Does the recruiter even like you?
Reputation and Networking
“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth gets its pants on. ”
Everybody Knows Your Business
Meaning that news about you, true or false, can spread almost instantly. Your school may be large but the international school world is small and the spread of gossip has accelerated.
If you did not grow up in a small town, read this and pay particular attention to the section Everyone Really Does Know Everyone.
Reputation and networking – if you play this part of the game by protecting the former and cultivating the latter, you stand a chance of becoming an Alpha Dog when it comes to hiring at the best schools.
Non-quantifiable elements can make or break your overseas teaching career. By that I mean the old-school values like a good name, basic skills like networking, and character traits like adaptability. Why?
It’s Who You Know
Numerous studies and plain old common sense say “It’s who you know.” In the recruiting world this translates to networking and word of mouth. This is especially true once you have your foot on the first rung of the ladder.
I distinctly remember feeling stress at my second recruiting fair, then watching long-time international school teacher friends sail past, greeting old colleagues and possible employers from all over the world. They weren’t going to have trouble getting interviews. Their sterling reputations and numerous contacts broke trail; they were halfway to hired before they ever showed up at the fair.
The converse is also true, unfortunately. If you are a jerk, an incompetent teacher, troublesome staff member, or job-hopper, your reputation will precede you.
If you think recruiters do not talk to each other, you’ve missed a basic driver of human interaction. So use this trait to your advantage. Otherwise you will either not be hired at all or end up at a low-tier school.
Social Media and Gossip
A new twist on an old story (gossip) is the viral speed of information or misinformation. Be extremely leery of social media postings on any platform.
If you haven’t learned by now that Facebook and its ilk can bite you in the pinfeathers, you haven’t been paying attention. Recruiters will be checking, or you should at least assume they will. Be discreet; your doings are not likely to remain invisible.
And lastly, try really hard to be an adaptable, trouble-free, good sport kind of person. If you’re not, at least pretend. If these character traits do not come naturally to you, just fake it till you make it.
That’s all the advice I have about personality. Just remember that recruiters aren’t looking for problems; they’re looking for solutions.
Recruiters’ Perspective
“A Shot In the Dark. ”
Process Also Hard On Recruiters
Imagine the strain:
Hoping you’ve chosen a quality teacher who won’t flame out.
Competing for great teachers in a red-hot job market.
Reading dreadful CVs and sitting through painful interviews, whether virtual or in-person.
Eventually there may be in-person recruiting fairs again, and things will be even more painful:
Flying long distances and eating hotel food for weeks on end.
Being away from your school with all its duties, and your family.
Competing Goals For Recruiters and Candidates
In this recruiting-hiring dance, the goals of each party are sometimes contradictory. For instance, tourist teachers may just be in it for the travel and adventure, then move on every two years.
The recruiter/principal needs staff stability and is looking for teachers to stay 4-5 years. Tourist teachers just mean unsettling turnover and a lot more work for the recruiter.
Go down the list and see if you can work out what each party (recruiter vs. teacher) wants with #4 as an example:
1. Salary
2. Benefits and housing
3. Facilities
4. Workload - A teacher might want the smallest workload with no after school activities, while the principal wants someone who works late and is eager to coach, lead clubs and organize community events.
5. Time off to travel
The Rolling Stones got it right: you can’t always get what you want. But now the tussle starts, and through the back and forth, both recruiter and candidate can get what they need.
Four Years Minimum
Pay attention to this advice from a long-time school head before you start recruiting. Read this interview with care and take it to heart. To quote Dexter from TIEonline again,
4) Do NOT interview or apply to a place that you cannot envision yourself at for FOUR YEARS minimum.
This mindset may or may not be how things play out, but beginning with an honest commitment to a long-term stay seeps into your interview, like a pleasant smell. Otherwise, recruiters might grade you down as a tourist teacher.
Paperwork
“We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.
”
Your paperwork is an instant sorter for recruiters: okay candidate, better, best. Make sure it is complete, on-time, and without errors. Your online CV and supporting materials need to look 100% professional. Your social media presence might need a grooming as well.
Recruiters will inevitably make negative judgments if they see any of this:
A job-hopper, meaning a string of 2-3 year stints.
Apparently you did not read the school website and adjust the query to match.
CV boring, too general? Laden with jargon? Doesn’t tell a story?
Recruiters won’t be happy if they discover later that you have not been upfront with any potential problems: legal difficulties? a special needs child? unmarried or gay partner? bad relations with your supervisor? The issue may not always disqualify you, but don’t blindside the recruiter.
Zig-Zag Pathway
“There are many paths but only one journey.”
These were my various routes to five overseas stints. The lesson is plain, meaning that there are many paths. Any longtime international school teacher will probably have a similar tale. This is my story.
1. Government of American Samoa – Word of mouth from brother-in-law already on island. They meant to hire us but forgot until October. We quit our stateside jobs and took off for the South Pacific.
2. AIS (American International School) Vienna – Paged through the ISS school directory (a fat paperback) and directly wrote aerograms to the 40 schools we liked. AIS responded, flew husband over for an interview for principal, and we were hired.
3. AASM (Anglo-American School) Moscow – Attended Search fair in Cambridge. Bingo (they needed a librarian.)
4. DAA Dubai American Academy) Dubai – Attended Search fair again in Cambridge. Bingo (they needed a librarian.)
5. APIS (American Pacific International School) Chiang Mai – Word of mouth again. Friend already working there said, “I know a librarian.” No Skype, just paperwork and networking.
Who’s The Judge?
“There’s a lid for every pot. ”
By now you should have a firm idea of how desirable a candidate you are. However, you are not the one doing the hiring, which means you are not actually the judge of whether you are a good candidate. The recruiter is.
But good luck on the hunt; you will get hired if you persist.
3.3 Recruiting Methods
International School Job Hunting
“Choose your own adventure. ”
There are pretty much three routes for candidates to meet recruiters.The pathway you choose is rather like buying a new car: gas, electric, or hybrid. All three can get you where you’re going, although they all have pros and cons, mainly time and money.
You might…
Use the recruiting agencies’ digital recruiting fairs: the iFair sponsored by ISS and Search Associates’ Virtual Fair. Or when in-person fairs return, attend a fair.
Sign up for a recruiting agency and mine their vacancy database, then just approach schools on your own.
Skip the recruiting agencies altogether and job hunt independently. Follow this link to online DIY recruiting and go to the section titled Job-Listing Sites for details.
Plenty of international school teachers have never attended a fair and done well. Plenty of IS teachers have also paid for and attended a fair and gone away empty-handed. The contrary, of course, is also true.
You just have to pick one method, stay focused and go for it.
International School Recruiting Agencies
“You’ve got a friend.”
What Is a Recruiting Agency?
An aspiring overseas educator can certainly do the DIY thing However, going through a recruiting agency can be a huge help and reassurance, especially that first ride on the carousel.
What exactly is a recruiting agency? They are companies that connect overseas schools and potential teacher candidates. Even though there will be no in-person fairs this year, these agencies share these features:
1. Sponsor large recruiting fairs, virtual during the 2021-22 seasons; otherwise in-person.
2. Cost more than the DIY approach.
3. Some are invitation-only, meaning the agency believes you have a decent chance of getting hired.
4. Make no guarantees of a job offer.
5. Fairs in both formats provide face-to-face interviews and a chance to sign contracts on the spot.
6. Act as gatekeepers to weed out the bulk of the dodgy schools.
7. Placement fees paid by the school, not the candidate.
8. Provide expertise, structure, and a personal touch.
9. Access to school vacancy databases, including savings potential; daily emailed vacancy notifications.
10. Give schools convenient access to your uploaded CV and files.
11. Set up iFairs (online interviewing.)
12. Some offer other services (new school setup; ship school supplies.)
Top Five Fairs
Search Associates
In operation since 1990, Search focuses solely on recruiting. They represent 650 schools and cost $225 for three years’ database access (or until you get hired, whichever comes first) and free admittance to your first fair, $75 after. They brag about personal service from their associates, who only get paid if you get hired. This means they are invitation only after your full application has been evaluated.
ISS (International Schools Services)
Founded in 1955, ISS is a wide-ranging business which helps with school startups, owns 20 schools, and also does a huge business in school supply, shipping over 15,000 orders yearly. They charge $75 for a year’s database access to approximately 500 schools and free fair admission to their three fairs and two iFairs. ISS is not “invitation only.”
UNI (University of Northern Iowa)
UNI may seem like a rather unlikely recruiter, but it is “home to the oldest recruitment event in the world…” and actually created the model for teacher recruiting fairs. It takes place in Cedar Falls, Iowa in late January with a $50 early bird registration fee and seems to be especially favorable for new teachers.
AASSA (Association of American Schools in South America)
If you particularly want to teach in South America.
Queens University
If you are a Canadian.
Other
Carney-Sandoe – In 32 countries, mostly US, but they do not name the international schools, free with fairs January-April in the USA. Carney-Sandoe works with you and displays numerous administrative positions not listed elsewhere. If you return to the States, think about them for private school jobs.
How To Decide Which Agency and Fair
There are pitched battles among teachers over which recruiting agency and fair is best; over which date and location of fair is optimum; over whether a teacher should even spend the money to attend when success rates at fairs range from 30-60%; over skipping fairs altogether and going virtual.
Read this blog post from the wonderful Amanda Isberg on her experience at a virtual fair. Draw your own conclusions.
DIY Recruiting
You can, of course, skip recruiting fair hell and strike out on your own. More work and personal initiative is required because you need to carefully track openings and jump on them, applying separately to each school with a resume, transcripts, contact information, even a separate job application.
Then you must make arrangements for a Skype or FaceTime interview. However, plenty of successful candidates take this route and save themselves a lot of money. But for this approach, you need to first locate the openings.
Job-Listing Sites
“Vacancy listings - the keys to the kingdom. ”
Here I’ve lined up and annotated the top job-listing sites; they provide database access to vacancies. Some of these sites provide other features, which I will note as well.
TIE Online (The International Educator) – for 25+ years TIE has been “the most comprehensive service for securing a job overseas.” TIE lets you search vacancies, post your resume, and get instant notification of jobs; they also host a terrific blog and provide a professional newspaper devoted to IS, all for $39 (online only) with an additional $29 for instant job notification. Best deal around and many international school teachers only use TIE and would never attend a fair.
JoyJobs –funky name and old-school look to the website since 1998. But what JoyJobs does provide is priceless, namely setting up your personal online CV by which you can sell yourself digitally to schools. They also post daily vacancies, provide a deeply knowledgeable Job Guide and sample CVs for inspiration, a list of all the job fairs, and a school review site called “the black list,” all for $39.95. On top of that you get personal help from Pam and Igor, and they’re not kidding.
True Teaching – Completely free. Once registered, candidates upload the usual raft of information: CV, copies of degrees and certification, passport, references contact information, and police check. Then you are approached, interviewed by True Teaching, and matched with likely openings. In addition you have access to the database of job openings.
TeacherHorizons – Founded in 2011, free for teachers to upload documents and search the database and at the moment showing 997 actual openings. The site has a decent amount of good introductory material as well. Candidates just register and fill out a profile page using their CV template if you wish; however, TeacherHorizons only accepts fully certified teachers. Then a Recruitment Advisor recommends you for a position and away you go.
IBSchoolJobs – Advertising site for actual IB or candidate IB schools; free to teachers. Job alerts every week or so, database searching and CV posting. If you have IB experience and training, this might be a way to jump to the head of the line.
British Curriculum
Just so you know, British-curriculum schools are completely different from those with an American curriculum. This means US citizens are unlikely to be considered. COBIS (Council of British International Schools) supports the international network of British-curriculum schools and is a good place to start research, if you are so inclined.
TIC Recruitment (Teachers International Consultancy) - UK focused, since 2005 with no physical recruiting fair, only online. Uploading a CV and searching vacancies is completely free; candidates can then either approach a school directly or have TIC contact you “if we have any vacancies that we think will suit you.” I am not exactly sure what this means, but TIC notes that of their 70 vacancies (the bulk in Europe and Asia), most are accredited and reputable.
TES (formerly the Times Educational Supplement) – Aimed at teachers from the UK, it is free to register and their database contains 2,197 international openings at the moment. Candidates upload their CV and Career Preferences and TES gets in touch with any potential matches. Or once you find a likely opening, you can apply directly to the school.
Compass Teaching International Teacher Recruitment– founded 2011 for British administrators and teachers. Compass can also hire the complete staff for startup schools. From their testimonials, it appears Compass specializes in speedy hires, quick turnarounds, and short-term contracts.
Alternate Recruiting Methods
“There is more than one way to skin a cat. ”
Short-Term Contracts
Note: almost all contracts are for two years. If you start out looking for a one-year contract, you’ll probably get skunked. It is far too disruptive and expensive for a school to bring a teacher over for just one year.
Unless…you get lucky and somebody broke contract or washed out. Just don’t count on it; too many variables need to line up just right.
Exchanges
These are hard to come by but just maybe…
1. Fulbright – very selective and short-term (3-9 months.)
2. Go Overseas – you’ll have to dig a bit into this largely TEFL site.
Substitute Services
Check out these services if you are flexible and adventurous:
1. International Supply Teachers – Created in 1999 to fill emergency vacancies for reputable schools with well-vetted substitute teachers. Just try to imagine the difficulty of getting a qualified teacher in a high-end school in a hurry halfway around the world.
2. Flying Squad – Short term contracts, connected to TrueTeaching Recruitment Service, for teachers willing and able to work contracts from one month to one year, and in a hurry. Full support from the school for salary, flights and accommodation. Three years successful experience and criminal background check required.
Internship
Several of the recruiting fairs and job-listing sites do hire interns. Much less money and support, naturally, but the position can lead to a permanent hire once the school sees how you work out. This is the equivalent of young teachers needing first to substitute until they can move up the ladder.
Local Hire
Supposing you just happened to already be living in X country for another purpose. You might apply directly to the school and see what happens. If you should get hired, it will probably be as a local hire.
This could be your first foot on the ladder. But be aware that local hires are paid a great deal less than overseas hires, often a great deal less and never mind benefits. Why?
Mainly because the school can. Local hires may be paid a lot less, but they typically still earn a fair amount more than citizens of the country doing the same work on the local economy.
Local hires generally fall into two categories: host country nationals and spouses or partners of overseas hires, known as trailing spouses. In the former case host nationals can live on the economy much more cheaply than expats.
In the latter case, the trailing spouse’s partner does the heavy financial lifting in the salary/benefits department. More on this in MONEY.
ESL (English as a Second Language)
This website is aimed at certified teachers and not those wanting to teach English to foreign students. But ESL is certainly another pathway overseas. My post on Language Schools covers the topic in general.
In addition the websites below provide background and job listings, just in case you want to take this path.
Transitions Abroad - “The original guide to travel, work, volunteering, study and living abroad.”
GoOverseas - Online community, vacancy postings, reviews, and articles.
Teaching Nomad - Founded in 2011 to connect teachers to jobs in Asia and the Middle East.
TeachAway – Jobs appear to be in China, the UAE, Saudi, or Qatar; they also list online, college, and vocational teaching jobs.
Dave’s ESL Cafe - Meeting place for ESL teachers with most listed job openings in China and Korea.
Ajarn - Established in 1999, Thailand-only job listings along with background material.
GoAbroad - Specializes as a training and certification directory, including a focus on online.
Military-Sponsored Schools
Sponsored by the military, DoDEA (USA) and MOD (UK) schools are quite different from other international schools. Types of Schools covers these differences in more detail.
But just be aware that their recruiting method is entirely different from what has been discussed here. No fairs, no approaching schools individually, no recruiting agencies. Follow instructions exactly. By all accounts this process is opaque and cumbersome. Kristen is a kindergarten teacher in Korea and her blog World Traveling Teacher lays out the complexities.
Personal Connections
It’s all about relationships, duh. My last job was word of mouth (a friend working in Chiang Mai told her principal, “Yeah, I know a librarian.”) Practically any experienced IS teacher will have a similar story.
Skype/FaceTime interviews or a 15 minute interview in a hotel room are a shot in the dark. But if the administrator already knows Teacher A to be a solid professional and positive presence on staff, and Teacher A vouches for Teacher B, well there you go. The administrator is already halfway to a hiring decision; it’s how the world works.
Administrative Hiring
“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”
Process
International schools need good teachers but they also need good administrators, and the process adds another layer of complexity to the recruitment process. For one thing, the timeline is accelerated; if teachers largely get hired in winter, administrators get hired a full year in advance, certainly by fall.
The process also differs. Principals, head of school, and other administrative jobs typically require going through a search committee of parents and board members from the school.
Requirements
Important administrative jobs (principal, head of school) usually require a site visit to meet the school’s search committee. Bad administrations can make or break a school in a shockingly short amount of time, and the school community needs to get a look at you, and frequently your spouse as well.
An advanced degree is pretty much the minimum, and you would very rarely get hired without international school administrative experience or at a least solid leadership resume. Look over this description for the head of school at the International School of Paris. This is typical.
Getting In The Door
You can go in the front door and apply through one of the recruiting services. ISS and Search both have robust leadership hiring sections; you can work through these agencies. You would be on a parallel hiring track and would not be hired at a fair.
Or you can go in the side door and apply directly. The first time we were hired, my husband wrote a letter, flew to Vienna to interview at their expense, and was hired; at that time we had no overseas experience. However, he had a long experience as principal of schools in a high-end suburb.
Differences Because You’re Not a Teacher
One difference would be a 3-year contract, sometimes with a trial period. You would also need to negotiate salary, as the verbiage typically says “salary will be competitive and commensurate with the chosen candidate’s experience and qualifications.” This article summarizes some important strategies for salary negotiating:
1. Research the data.
2. Start high, even though you have a walk-away number.
3. Use exact numbers not ranges. Go figure.
4. Be prepared to justify your worth with detailed evidence.
5. Be confident.
I would also add that if you feel the number is too low and they won’t give, try for extras to make up the difference (a driver, more trips home, better housing, entertainment allowance, full medical coverage, and so forth).
Remember that the value of your salary depends on cost of living in the country. More on this issue in MONEY.
Administrative Hiring Ramifications For Teachers
Sometimes when you read the job postings, finding such a miracle worker seems fanciful. Truly, who on earth possesses all these leadership skills? Not very many people. The takeaway is that administrators are not perfect.
But for the teacher candidate’s own recruiting journey, keep several unique features of international schools in mind:
1. Watch out if the admin team turns over all at once; something is wrong.
2. Ask your recruiter if they or any of the other team are leaving next year.
3. Once you’ve worked with a good administrator, follow them when they move on.
4. Go easy on administrator’s mistakes; it’s a horribly difficult job.
“When the curtain rises, the only thing that speaks is courage. ”
So gather your courage. You have worked out a strategy for finding vacancies and applying. Next you are ready to meet the recruiter, interview, and sign a contract. You’re halfway to that first teaching job overseas.
3.4 Interviews and Contracts
4.1 Moving Overseas
4.2 Moving Process
Leaving Your Old Life Behind
“Marie Kondo isn’t crazy.”
Before you start this stage of the process, watch an episode or two of Marie Kondo on Netflix and take her message to heart. Paraphrase “Does it spark joy?” to “Does it fit in my shipping allowance?”
What to take? Teachers tell their stories in this long thread on this exact question.
Downsize - Do Not Ship Junk Overseas
Imagine Marley (Christmas Carol) dragging behind him “the chains he forged in life” and get rid of your junk now as opposed to when you’re dead. Take this golden opportunity to lighten your load.
I recently helped a friend move, and the 24 boxes in her attic had not been touched in so long some had mildewed and she’d forgotten what was in the rest. Nobody had needed them in three decades; try to avoid this error.
Go through every item in your life and ask yourself:
1. Do I use or wear this item regularly?
2. Is this item available in my new country? Avail yourself of the teacher garage sale and confirm what exactly is included in your furnished housing. Then decide what to bring.
3. Run the numbers and work out whether storing the item for two years is cheaper than buying new or used upon return, which is unlikely.
Typical 10 X 10 storage units run in the $100 per month range; that’s about $2,500 for your two-year stint. Is the item worth it? And by the way, your family may not be happy to have your stuff in their basement or garage.
Decision Time
If you have issues with discarding, have a friend or family member work through the process with you, someone merciless. This link takes you to the blog of a trailing spouse in India; pay particular attention to his advice in #3 Make A List.
Now divide your belonging into three categories:
1. To the dump. Remind me why I still have this?
2. Recycle, gift or loan to friends. It could make someone else’s life happier.
3. Take with you on the plane or ship overseas, even if you have to pay out of pocket. The item is that important.
Housing Issues Before You Move Overseas
“Never let a short term desire get in the way of a long term goal. - Curtis Martin”
Renters
Give your landlord proper notice and begin the downsizing process. You will no doubt need to stay those last few days with family/friend at the end. Or maybe you can work a deal with your landlord to stay until you head off to the airport, although the logistics probably won’t work.
Be sure the landlord has your forwarding address or local contact and make arrangements for the deposit return; PayPal works great. I’d also suggest going through the unit and filling out the checkout form together with the landlord in person and take pictures. This means less chance of getting stiffed.
Home owners
When we went to Vienna in 1988, I wish we had kept our house and rented it out. We sold it for $106,000, and during the 24 months we were gone, prices shot up 1% per month. We needed the cash for the move (Lesson: stay liquid) and thought we were not coming back the the US (Lesson: don’t close off any options.)
Sell or keep? Now there’s the question and it’s a big one. However, given the way house prices have been exploding, I would strongly advise keeping your house if at all possible. But some considerations, as landlording is not for everyone:
Will you stay overseas the rest of your life or do you plan to return to your home country someday?
Do you have a reliable, trustworthy agent to manage the property?
Are you comfortable with tenants possibly trashing your beloved home?
Do you have what it takes to be a landlord? Are you prepared to do the work and tolerate the stress?
Do you have cash reserves in the bank to cover unexpected expenses or vacancies?
Home Country Issues While You’re Overseas
Support Back Home
Identify a person you can truly trust, meaning someone responsible who won’t screw up, someone honest enough to have Limited Power Of Attorney and access to your money. A hundred little issues will inevitably pop up in the transition period. More on this in Money later.
Who you gonna call? If you do not have anyone like that in your life, you’ll have to hire people. With online banking and instant communication, you might still be able to manage things. But your overseas life will be a lot easier if someone has your back at home.
Car
If you decide to keep your car, a reliable somebody needs keys to run it around the block once a month or so. Set up auto-deducts and do not cancel the insurance. Finally add up the insurance and monthly payments. Compare these costs to the expense of renting a car for the summer.
You’ll almost certainly need a vehicle if you come home for the summer, so decide if it’s worth the expense and trouble to keep your current vehicle. This might be cost-effective if the car is reliable and paid for.
Retain a US address, a family member, for instance. Some present and future financial transactions are difficult, or even impossible, without one.
Confirm with the school/consulate how or if you might receive actual mail, if absolutely necessary. Mail will probably need to come through the school office. In Russia it had to come through the Embassy in Finland.
Keep track for the next few months and see if anything crucial lands in your mailbox. Better yet, sign up for online notifications and access, meaning go paperless.
Double check on delivery of packages, which will cost you extra postage and time. Remember customs duties and reliability.
Goodbyes
Friends and family are going to want closure and a chance to say goodbye in person. You jumping off a cliff like this is vicariously exciting, plus your departure is a chance for a really memorable party.
Please be aware that those left behind may feel one of two ways. They may
be jealous and feel their own lives pale in comparison to your adventure; they may even feel an unspoken criticism of their lifestyle choices. Just remind them they have a tour guide and free lodging when they visit. Besides, living an adventure vicariously is a lot less stress.
think you’re nuts. The ones who think you’re nuts are happy for you, but literally cannot understand why you would do such a thing. What’s wrong with staying in Portland instead of going to Poland? Just reassure them you’re just the restless sort and nothing is wrong with staying put; you’ll rely on them to keep you grounded.
On The Plane Overseas
“There are few places you can find silence. Air travel could be the last fortress of solitude. - Regina Brett”
Cultural Prep Work
I suggest that you assemble a list of books to read, movies to watch, and blogs to follow about your new country. Just Google such a list for Vienna, for instance, and crank up the Strauss waltzes to get in the mood. You will never be a native in this new country, but one of the best ways to get inside the culture is literature, art, and research.
Lucky there’s a translation on this sign.
There is no reason to be a cultural illiterate either when you arrive. For instance, if a Russian asks your salary, it’s rude not to answer. A Thai would be horrified if you said something negative about the king; it is also in fact actually illegal.
If you can, try to locate one of the CultureShock book series or similar. Learn how to puzzle out street signs and speak basic politeness phrases: hello, thank you, how much is? goodbye.
Yes, you are jumping off a cliff, but don’t jump without a parachute. Do your homework, make yourself a good guest and avoid unforced social errors.
Packing
1. Check airline baggage regulations. Carry on sizes have changed and you might need to buy new luggage. Here is a good roundup of the difference between personal item and carry on, plus recommendations.
Six weeks until your stuff arrives!
2. Confirm how many pounds and bags you can ship with you and the cost. Consider duffle bags, since they fold up to nothing. Remember that if you have a shipment coming later, you need to survive for six weeks on what you bring with you. That, or buy on arrival.
3. Decide what is important enough that you must hand carry; you can always buy another toothbrush. But without these items, you’d be would seriously inconvenienced.
Electronics
External hard drive
Chargers and adapter
Passport with work visa
Important documents like birth certificates
Credit and debit cards
Phone
How to know where you put your passport. (You won’t actually be transparent.)
4. Pre-pack and weigh your carry on. Here is Amanda’s very experienced advice on bag choice, packing light, and luggage for small children. I also like the SCOTTeVEST which looks dorky but helps prevent travel frazzle. Practice accessing passport and phone and be rigid on putting stuff away the same place every time. Reduces the stress.
Flying
Unless you can afford to upgrade to Business or First Class (ha!), you will be jammed into steerage. Oh well. This is an opportunity for meditation and relaxation; after all, you are on found time and all the crazy-busy hard work has been done. You are a leaf floating on a stream in full flood.
Strategies
Plenty has been written about long-distance flying, but here are the basics:
One of the most thoughtful going-away gifts we ever received was a little package for our pre-teen kids: treats, small games, and puzzle books to keep them sane on the long flight.
Hydrate and avoid lots of alcohol
Try to sleep. Melatonin may help and consider asking your doctor for a prescription.
Act as if you are in your future time zone, meaning sleep if it is nighttime in your new home country.
Move around and stretch as much as possible.
Children? Pack a little surprise kit full of distractions. More on this later, but you and your kids will become closer, so start now with real interaction, not digital distraction.
Babies and toddlers? Stick to their routine, provide something to suck or chew for ear-popping on takeoff and landing, and don’t forget their comfort items.
One door closes and another opens.
Arrival
Stagger off the plane and double-check that you haven’t left anything behind. Then go through Immigration. Prepare for long lines and stern-faced staff. It’s not personal.
Next is Customs for your luggage. You shouldn’t have any trouble if you followed instructions. You should be met at the airport by a representative of the school, possibly even your principal or the head of school. A van will probably take you, your new colleagues, and your luggage on the first stage of your adventure.
You’re not in Kansas anymore. Welcome to your future.
First Week
First 24 Hours
Depending on what time it is, you may all go out to eat somewhere, to the school for a tour, or directly to a hotel or your assigned housing to sleep. Or all of the above.
Orientation
Typically the school will have an orientation procedure and people in charge. The most important of these people is your mentor/mother hen/team leader/savior.
This person is the one to untangle the mysteries, herd your cohort through the subway, take you shopping for coffee makers, and provide reassurance in a thousand ways. I will always think fondly and gratefully of Patrick in Moscow and Frank in Vienna.
If you have children with you, the school should help getting them sorted with activities or babysitting. You’ll have time to set up your classroom before the returning teachers arrive, plus social events and outings and practical errands.
You have two other crucial tasks:
1) Bond with your mates
2) Set up your household
Bonding
By this time you will meet your future colleagues, who were probably on the same flight. I met Ann in the PDX airport on the way to Moscow, and we survived the 16-hour flight to Moscow with a plane full of crazed Armenian-American teens on a trip to the homeland. We’ve been friends ever since.
Guess what country we were in?
This is your cohort and over the next days and weeks, you will and should bond and support each other. If you’ve played a sports team or gone through Basic Training, you have experienced this deep bonding.
You will be spending a lot of time together and grow to depend on each other. Remember how often I’ve told you that you’re moving to a small town? If you stay on the international school circuit, you will bump into these people repeatedly.
But for now, congratulate yourself on this accomplishment. Your old life is in the rear view mirror. The next step is to set up housekeeping.
4.3 Setting Up House
Housing Options
“Home sweet home.”
Mostly housing choices are out of your control. However, definitely confirm the details in advance, even before you sign the contract. I’ll summarize a few of the implications, the pluses and minuses, and questions to consider.
School-Supplied Housing
This can be a blessing, as you don’t need to waste time and mental energy searching. Perhaps you inherited from a departing teacher and made arrangements in advance to buy their stuff (teacher garage sale.) The school handles the utility setup and billing. Bingo, just hang your clothes in the armoire and you’re good to go.
Negatives? This housing might be sub-standard. The apartment might be on campus and you’d live in a fishbowl. Assignment of desirable units can be political and in the event you got lucky, you might be resented. Lastly, you have no choice in the matter.
Subsidy Provided
Subsidy may be provided but you find your own. Since you almost certainly do not speak the language fluently or have local knowledge, the school will assign you an agent. Then you can find what suits you best. This House Hunters International episode highlights one teacher’s experience in Tokyo with this model.
No way is this tub big enough!
Negatives? The hunt takes time, lots of it, just when you are trying to get settled and start work. What you prefer might be well above your budget and beware of the transportation issue; you don’t want to spend hours getting back and forth to school in hellish traffic.
Pay Out Of Pocket
The school provides little support and you pay out of your salary. Eek! Think twice about signing a contract under these conditions. ISR posted an informative discussion on this particular housing issue.
Red Flags
Keep your eyes open.
10-month housing contract, meaning you’d have to vacate during the summer. Who needs that?
Substandard (moldy, bad condition) or literally nothing livable in your price range available.
Hidden costs that pop up without warning. Check who pays water, utilities, and Internet.
The rental agreement in your name, not the school’s, which means you can be at the landlord’s mercy regarding repairs, safety, and deposit return.
The school might assign you shared housing with a random teacher of the same sex. Again, who needs that?
Mechanics of Getting Settled
“When you’re safe at home you wish you were having an adventure; when you’re having an adventure you wish you were safe at home. – Thornton Wilder”
OK. You are indeed having an adventure. But here’s a checklist to be sure you don’t forget anything important:
1. Register with the police – this is why you have a work visa. The school should arrange this.
2. Electricity and heat or A/C – occasionally, heat for the entire building goes on on the same date and you have no control.
3. Water – if you can’t flush the toilet paper, don’t drink the water.
4. Mail – may go through the school.
5. Internet and Wi-Fi – crucial to your well-being.
6. Food shopping – explore local markets and expat stores.
7. Paying bills – in school-supplied housing, you never even see the bills.
8. Cash and banking – where and how. More on this in MONEY.
In the best case your school agent and new teacher mentor deal with all this. If not, you will have to make the arrangements, be present at the housing to let in workers, plus all picky details of renting.
Scenarios For Outfitting Your Home Overseas
1. You inherited a more or less completely outfitted apartment or made use of the teacher garage sale before you left, so you’re covered. You made contact with current or departing teachers to ask what you should ship. Good on you for preparing in advance. As always Amanda has pertinent and detailed advice, like be sure bring a Halloween costume. Who knew?
2. School housing has the basics and you are provided with a relocation allowance and taken on field trips to stores where you can finish outfitting the place.
3. Neither 1 nor 2, so you’re on your own and have to scramble.
It is almost impossible to overstate how important your home will be as a refuge and sanctuary. So prepare as well as you can in advance.
Note: do not take privacy for granted. An American landlord is required to give 24-hour notice and usually does. In Russia the FSB (formerly KGB) can make its agents at home in your apartment while you’re at work, listen in, and otherwise snoop freely. Several female teachers who lived alone would return in the evening and find the toilet seat up and coffee cups in the sink. Get over it.
Too bad they don’t vacuum and tidy up while they’re snooping.
Moving Pets Overseas
““That’s good chicken. No, it’s good dog.”
-Micronesian villager to Peace Corps Volunteer”
Cultural Norms
Attitudes towards pets, particularly dogs, are country-specific. In Austria, for instance, dogs are coddled; in less-developed countries, street dogs may run in feral packs and pet owners are considered nuts.
America’s love of pets has grown exponentially and many international school teachers will bring/want to bring their pet. But as always, do your research in advance.
Can You Take Your Pet Overseas?
Let’s start with worst-case scenario.
1. It simply may not be possible. Some countries/ schools refuse to permit entry to certain pets or breeds, period.
2. Sometimes it’s easy-peasy. France loves its dogs and you might find yourself with Fido in a sidewalk café without a lot of trouble.
3. The process is not easy or cheap, but it can be done.
In each of these instances, you must do your research early. If Fido or Fluffy is a member of your family, confirm details with the school and study the country’s regulations before you sign a contract. Some issues are country-specific and some are school-specific. Make sure you deal with each.
#1 – Not Possible.
Before you even begin recruiting, research the breed you hope to bring with you. It could be the breed is banned, or quarantine is so restrictive that it would be cruel.
Once you have decided to interview with a particular school, clarify their policy on pets. Be up front and don’t waste their time and yours.
It may be that the landlord for school housing does not permit pets. The school may say ‘no pets’ and they pay your salary. It may be the administration has had bad experiences with troublesome pets and won’t hire you.
But if the answer is “sure, we hire people with pets,” then go to #2 or #3
#2 Easy
Either no quarantine or very short, a reasonably inexpensive process, pet-friendly city, suitable housing. But be sure to Google living conditions for pets in general.
Are there dog parks? A decent place to walk the dog?
Can the animal ride on public transport?
Are pet sitters available? What about summer and other vacations?
Will I need a yard? Can cats be let outside?
Is the climate too difficult? (Think Russia or Dubai)
What are vaccination requirements and availability of veterinary services?
#3 Not Easy Or Cheap But Can Be Done
There will be a lot of bureaucratic and organizational hoops, and be sure you have the cash to cover expenses. I’ve heard instances of up to $5,000.
But many teachers have successfully shipped their pets; it can be done. Companies like PetRelocation specialize in these details if you don’t want to do it on your own. The best piece of advice is to confer with school staff who have transported and now live with their pets. What is their experience?
Transportation Mechanics
“Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet. - Colette”
Study this discussion from teachers who have gone through the process. Pay particular attention to their description of the preparatory work involved and how complex it can be. Again, you can pay a service or do the legwork on your own.
1. Shipping crate preparation
2. Health papers and vaccinations required
3. Airline choice and route
4. Temperature restrictions
5. Checked luggage or cargo?
What Is Best For the Animal
The comments in this discussion are illuminating and some of the stories terribly sad. But if transporting your pet isn’t possible, there are typically plenty of adoption and fostering opportunities to fill the void.
But above all else, keep the animal’s best interests as your top priority. You want to leave a Newfoundland alone all day in a 390 square foot apartment? Or provide kitty with an unhappy new lifestyle?
Everyday Concerns Like Food and Water
“ “Don’t drink the water!””
You’ve made it through the first days and your house is more or less set up to your satisfaction. You are even awaiting the arrival of your shipment in about 6 weeks. Time to organize the basics of everyday living.
Water and Bathrooms
Verify that this is a safe behavior.
Let’s start with water, which you should research ahead of time. “If you can’t flush the toilet paper, you can’t drink the water.” In the developing world drinking local water can be life-threatening,
With any luck, the school will provide bottled water for your housing; in Russia trucks came by with 5 gallon water bottles and installed them in a dispenser in our kitchen.
Or you may get lucky and tap water is fine. Just confirm. And before you rely on disposable plastic water bottles, consider the environmental impact and use your own bottle, please.
Other bathroom features might be different than what you are accustomed to but might actually be an improvement. The toilet may be in a tiny separate room; water in the bath/shower may be heated with a wall-mounted water heater.
Toilets come in a dizzying array of layouts, but just remember that these differences are why you left home in the first place.
Food Shopping Overseas
Options to keep yourself fed:
Our “pickle lady” at the reenok (farmer’s market) in Moscow.
1. Local market including farmer’s markets - explore your neighborhood. This is where your exotic new life comes into focus. If you are a foodie and like to cook, become a regular.
2. Local shops will be an adventure. In Russia there were 20 flavored vodkas and loads of root vegetables. In Dubai the row of olives and the fruit juice display seemed to stretch the length of a football field.
In many countries the default is daily grocery shopping and schlepping the bags back home. But this way of life seems to be vanishing in favor of large supermarkets.
3. Shops catering to expats – you are bound to pay more, a lot more, but the staff will speak English and you are likely to recognize items.
4. Superstores – if you have access to a car and adequate storage, this might work. Or perhaps a colleague would take you along on a shopping trip. These Walmart sort of superstores are becoming more and more common.
5. Eat on campus – if you work at a boarding school, you can always eat with the kids. But it gets tiresome after a while.
6. Eat out – this can get expensive and it is easy to fall into the same expat restaurants over and over. McDonalds and its ilk are worldwide.
7. Get a cook – it depends, but this person can take care of the day-to-day grind and get a much better deal at the markets.
Food Cravings (and Children)
You (and your family) will absolutely be overcome with the deep need for comfort food on occasion. You and/or your children may have particular dietary requirements or worse, be picky eaters. So let’s strategize.
1. You cannot possibly take enough peanut butter to last two years. So you can either do without, buy Nutella, score a local source, or make your own. Peanut butter is, after all, just ground peanuts with salt and honey. In other words - be flexible and buy a grinder.
2. If you need to be gluten-free or have other restrictions, you might very well be better off in certain culinary traditions. India anyone? But do your research in advance.
3. Children mirror mom and dad’s attitudes. If you express culture shock through picky eating, your kids will probably do the same. That’s OK now and again, but you won’t last if you don’t pull up your socks.
Medical Care Overseas
“Plan for the worst and hope for the best.”
In CONTRACTS you should have verified exactly what your medical benefit covers or does not cover. But verify these details.
o Deductibles?
o Reimbursement scheme or insurance billed?
o Travel coverage? Out-of-country coverage?
o Limits and exclusions?
o Evacuation coverage?
o Dependents coverage? Pregnancy and childbirth?
o Disability or major illness?
I hate to be depressing, but medical insurance is all about the worst case scenario. Just hope you never need to test the limits of your coverage, but read the fine print to avoid nasty surprises.
Plan Ahead In Advance Of Need
Two issues you need to sort right away:
1. What happens if an emergency occurs? Is there a 911 system? Does the school or Embassy have emergency contacts? Find out and put this number on speed dial.
2. What if you have a pre-existing condition and require medication or treatment? Find out if you can bring the medicine into the country or if there is a local substitute; inquire about getting a physician.
Medical Tourism
You might be surprised to learn which countries have been ranked best healthcare. Expat teachers will be in a separate Western hospital/doctor system, most likely.
I needed an emergency eye treatment in Thailand and the doctor had trained in Boston. In Oman the emergency room stitched a bad cut for free and the staff spoke English. Ditto in France when my brother injured his eye.
Self-Care
Above all else, take care of yourself.
o Get plenty of exercise even if the traffic/weather/filth/crowds/pollution are too bad for outdoor exercise and you have to use a gym.
o Avoid self-medicating with too much alcohol or with drugs.
o Don’t short yourself on sleep; make your bedroom as quiet and soothing as possible.
o Cultivate your support network.
Same old, same old advice, of course, but it’s far more crucial while you are adapting to a brand new way of life far from home.
Technology Basics
“We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works. - Douglas Adams”
Electricity
If a solar flare destroyed the electrical grid (SEE Dystopian fiction) technology and its blessings would end. So if you expect to maintain a 21st century lifestyle overseas, confirm the reliability of the electrical grid before your departure.
French plugs
Also verify the power system (most likely 220 V) and plugs. Generally speaking, laptop computers can switch seamlessly between 110 and 220 volts.
Small household appliances, not so much. Printers, hair dryers, kitchen appliances? Best to skip buying adapters and 30 pound transformers and just buy locally, or better yet, buy from departing teachers in the teacher garage sale.
Internet
Network and Internet reliability are local and unique to your school and city. As always, try to confirm the situation in advance. Some schools did not invest in a fast, reliable network and staff the IT department with capable people, meaning those big dreams of interactive whiteboards in the classroom and streaming Netflix at home are just that – dreams.
Always remember there is a difference between PR and reality, so take the school website with a big lick on the salt block in this regard and trust but verify.
Censorship and Security Overseas
The next issue is national and even global. Some countries don’t give a hoot about free speech and they censor or block information on the web. Google, YouTube, Facebook, news sites, and Twitter may even be blocked. What a time-saver. Just prepare yourself.
Some countries are hacker heavens and you’d be wise to take security into account. The only defense users really have is to pay for a VPN (virtual private network) which hides your IP address and encrypts all the data you send and receive.
It’s not perfect but it helps. VPN is a good idea even at home, but particularly out in a public unsecured coffee-shop WIFI setting, especially online banking. Ounce of prevention…
Backups and Password Managers
A word about the most crucial failsafe of all: backup. It is not a matter of whether your hard drive will fail, but when.
If you want an instant headache, imagine the disaster your life will become when failure occurs and you did not backup properly: 15,000 photos lost/ five years’ worth of brilliant lesson plans/ financial records/ and so forth. Experts suggest the rule of three.
1. Make three copies.
2. Use two different formats minimum like an external hard drive + Dropbox or Backblaze in the Cloud.
3. Store one copy off-site and or even on paper.
And of course your best computer friend is the password manager, if you don’t already use one. It’s a jungle out there and along with a VPN, these tools provide another level of protection.
Staying In Touch
““Distance sometimes lets you know who is worth keeping, and who is worth letting go. - Lana Del Rey”
Cell Phones
As always, do your homework first. Cell phone issues differ when you are a traveler as opposed to a resident.
o Want to keep your current phone number? Can your phone be unlocked? Check with your current carrier. Typically you have to own the phone.
o What do teachers at your school use for cell phones? What about a local SIM card?
o Would you want to be tied to a two-year contract? In some countries, you will need to prove you’ve paid it off before receiving an exit visa.
o What about when you are traveling and not at your new school? This advice is from Rick Steves, the PBS travel-guru.
Electronic Mail
Communicating with family and friends is a long long way from aerograms and waiting two hours at the local post office for a 3-minute phone call. We are so lucky today. FaceTime, Skype, email, blogs – there is no excuse for not being in touch, as long as you have a good internet connection.
Paper, Physical Mail, and Packages
As always, it depends. Sometimes letters and packages need to go through diplomatic pouch. Sometimes mail and packages will come directly to your home or the school. Or maybe you do without altogether.
In some countries corruption rules and customs workers may view your package like a Christmas present, so the item may or may not arrive in one piece, or ever.
Amazon, FedEx, and UPS do ship internationally but not everywhere; check with your school on delivery options. Be aware of customs regulations and duties. And of course, international shipping will cost a lot more than you are used to.
Social Media
More on this later, but let’s just be clear – it’s a jungle out there. Remind yourself that social media provides zero expectation of privacy. You may post a blog with opinions you may regret later and these words will follow you forever. Caveat Emptor.
Transportation
“You won’t need to go to the gym
to get your heartrate up.
”
Options For Getting Around
Let’s run through your choices, from easiest to most “exciting”:
1. If you live on campus at a boarding school, just walk to work and go home for lunch. Even so you will need to get into town or go traveling on breaks; that means car-sharing, renting a vehicle, or taking public transport.
2. School-provided transportation could mean a bus to take teachers to and from school housing every work day.
3. Public transportation infrastructure is frequently much better overseas, and the typical big-city resident won’t even own a car. Automobiles are too expensive, for one thing.
4. Hire a driver. Sure, it’s expensive but it is also stress-free and provides employment to a local.
5. Buy a car or motorcycle. Maximum independence. After all, you teach overseas to explore, don’t you?
Car Ownership
For us this ranged from a Samoan car so rusted we could see the road through the holes in the floor to a bright green Jeep for dune-bashing in Dubai. We had two accidents in Thailand where they drive on the left, but otherwise emerged unscathed and do not regret buying a car and driving.
Some things to watch out for:
1. Get local advice to help with the purchase and someone you can trust. Ask around school.
2. Buy a common car, nothing fancy or unusual or flashy. You’re going to be a target anyway with your expat license plates.
3. City streets can be narrow and parking spaces tiny, so keep size in mind.
4. Some countries permit driving on your American license but some require driving lessons and road tests, which can be a royal hassle, but interesting. Check before you go to see if an international driver’s permit from AAA will do the trick.
Cultural Norms
Getting to work might end up being the most exciting part of your day and not in a good way. In some countries you will learn the true meaning of defensive driving. As always it’s a jungle out there, in some countries more than others. Be careful. Below are my evaluation of various driving environments I lived through:
Lawless, chaotic, and downright dangerous. That was Moscow. Way too many vehicles, a culture of corruption and entitlement, and inexperienced drivers produced a toxic brew.
A sense of fatalism and entitlement, plus big heavy expensive cars and drivers who trusted to Allah and not traffic regulations to keep them safe. That was Dubai.
A relaxed Buddhist go-with-the-flow attitude seemed to make traffic flow by magic, except for the horrendous traffic death numbers. That was Chiang Mai, Thailand.
A Teutonic adherence to order made the roads very safe, if somewhat anal. That was Vienna.
Moving On
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving. -Alibert Einstein”
Occasionally expats may find the place they were meant to be and spend the rest of their lives there. Most of you, however, will sooner or later be moving on.
Let’s start with the most common reason for departure, meaning a new overseas school. Then we will move down the list to the least common reason (evacuation, either medical or political).
Basic Advice
1. Plan as far in advance as possible.
2. Set aside money in savings. These moves require liquidity.
Next School
You just perform the moving process all over again, but backwards. For instance you are not the one buying from the garage sale but the one selling or giving things away.
You have been through the shipping allowance experience, so none of this will be as stressful as the first time.
Keep an eye on the recruiting calendar, meaning that the autumn of Year Two (or Three or Four) you will need to give notice and start looking.
Since you are overseas already, you may be able to attend an overseas fair in Bangkok, for instance. Or you may have developed enough contacts that you can recruit directly or digitally.
2. Home For The Summer, Or Not
This is the default, especially for families. Grandma and grandpa want time with those kids, plus there is a lot of shopping and visiting to do. You will want to reconnect with friends and go camping/rock-climbing and other things you cannot do in Dubai, for instance.
Home for the summer with friends, family, and familiar pleasures.
Or you can just stay and travel like a relaxed tourist in the wonderful place you call home. Visitors can be expected no doubt, and it’s a lot easier to host when you are not working. Conditions like weather might make this too difficult, of course, depending on where you live (rainy season/extreme heat/hordes of tourists.)
Your Apartment During Summer Break
You can leave the apartment vacant and arrange for the guards, your cleaner or some school staff member to keep an eye out; be sure to pay them generously.
Depending on where you live, you might be able to arrange a house exchange. Teachers from Mumbai spent three weeks in my house summer 2019, for instance, and I just had a request from Barcelona teachers in 2021.
Maybe an overseas teacher from elsewhere might want to stay in your apartment; put out the word on the grapevine.
Some low-end school housing allowance only covers the school year and you must relocate for the summer. The cure for this is to (a) confirm the details in advance and (b) don’t take that job.
3. Breaking Contract
Sometimes the school is just too awful or health issues or a family emergency arise, and you need to skip town. The bottom line is that the administration will not be inclined to be helpful or cough up money.
You’re on your own. This is when you will need teacher and staff allies to help you. Also be careful about regulations for an exit visa, or you might not get out of the airport.
4. Evacuation
Once in a great while, a natural or political disaster means the school needs to evacuate for safety. Think of Paradise, CA and how little time residents had to flee. If this sort of evacuation seems even faintly possible, prepare yourself with a safe bag.
1. Important papers, especially passport and laptop with backups
2. Cash (several hundred dollars or Euros in small bills)
3. Small suitcase with the most necessary items.
5. Home For Good
This can mean either retirement in your home country or overseas where things are cheaper, or going back to work stateside. Since in this instance you fulfilled the contract, the school will provide transportation and shipping, as per the contract.
Details That Can Derail Your Move Home From Overseas
Follow the advice of the business office to the letter regarding cancellation of contracts/rental agreement and deposits/car payments/and so forth.
You have to pay your final bills and prove it. Schools typically have favorable arrangements with landlords and do not want to jeopardize future business.
You’ll be selling or giving away all sorts of things either you won’t need or do not have the shipping allowance to take home with you.
Some shipping advice? Remember that your stuff will arrive back home weeks or even months later. Decide how long you wish to live without your household goods overseas.
Note: There are tax implications regarding bona-fide international residents i.e. staying out of the country a certain number of days . Go sit on a beach somewhere to make the yearly minimum and avoid paying US taxes. More on this later in MONEY.
But for now you live in a new world, the Expat world. You’re an official member of this tribe.
5.1 The Expat Life
5.2 The Expat Bubble
The Expat Bubble
“Stranger in a strange land. - Robert Heinlein”
Think about a bubble or snow globe. On the one hand, everything inside is protected. On the other hand whatever is inside, in this case you, is isolated and frozen in place. This is the essence of the expat lifestyle, both good and bad.
I remember how lucky we were to attend the Vienna Opera Ball; I hadn’t brought a ball gown, of course, but managed to buy one from the Embassy’s used clothing outlet. There we were in the balcony at midnight watching the flower of Viennese youth dance to the Blue Danube waltz, naturally. But we were on the outside looking in. We had not attended tanzschule (dance school) every week in middle school, nor been fitted for a long white evening dress or black tails in high school. We were just onlookers. Expats, in other words.
Your employer offers school housing support, you earn many times more than the local school staff, and you can expect a lifestyle you could never afford in your home country. You have the opportunity to travel widely and your worldview is forever changed. You are privileged.
Expat Hazards and Traps
“You have been trapped in the inescapable net of ruin by your own want of sense. - Aeschylus
”
In spite of these advantages, culture shock and homesickness will no doubt sideswipe you at some point. It’s a long way back home, and where exactly is home anymore? This sense of dislocation and frustration can lead to some bad expat behaviors. Let’s start with a lack of discretion.
Social Dangers
Photo by John Arano on Unsplash
The expat life has two features which can lead to disasters. One is a frequent temptation to drinking, drug use, and subsequent stupid behavior. Expat life is generally very social. Then add in the attraction of duty free liquor with the frequent passing through airports. This means plenty of opportunity to make an ass of yourself.
The second characteristic of expat life is its small-town feel. We’ve discussed this before, but the international school community is more like moving to Drain, Oregon than to New York City, at least in terms of everyone knowing your business. Social media makes things even worse.
Protect Your Reputation
Your reputation is golden, so develop strategies for protecting it.
Confide only in trusted friends or family.
Do not post indiscreet comments on social media, or at least give yourself a waiting period before going live.
Verify that your behavior is in line with local norms, especially sexual and dating norms.
Take sensible precautions when out drinking or clubbing.
Loneliness and Negativity
“The Slough of Despond. - John Bunyan”
Loneliness is a normal feature of human life; a person can be bitterly lonely in the midst of even social uproar, plentiful activity, and tight family ties. You may be more or less an extrovert or introvert. But certain features peculiar to expat life lend a different flavor and require dealing with.
Elements Peculiar To Expat Loneliness
For one thing you are far from home and will at some point suffer from culture shock. This disorientation and homesickness can lead to bouts of piercing isolation and loneliness, even clinical depression.
Staying In Touch
You would not be suffering from culture shock at home, as this is the water you have swum in since you were born. All is familiar and comfortable.
The lifestyle is also inherently transient. Most expats will not be spending their lives in the country but will move on within a few years. This means maintaining friendships will be more difficult; most of these relationships will fade away over time.
Compare this to camping with a friend you have known since middle school. There is a history, an ease, an intimacy impossible to recreate with a member of the nomadic expat herd. This lack may wear on you over time.
Cultures also vary in their social openness and warmth. Some cultures are at ease welcoming foreigners, while others hold back and socialize mainly with family and long-time friends or take a long time to accept an outsider.
Compare gregarious Italians to reserved British, for instance. You may feel left out. You are left out; you’re a foreigner. Language will also be a barrier, of course.
Particular Expat Categories
Families and couples typically respond in two ways: they either fall apart or they pull together. Fractures in relationships will be spackled over temporarily in the excitement, change, and stimulation. Children ditto; they might be overwhelmed or they may thrive.
You’d think singles, particularly women, might be particularly susceptible to loneliness. Yes and no. On the bright side, the peculiar setup of most international schools can lead to plentiful opportunities to defeat loneliness, mainly the proximity of living in school housing.
A teacher does not need to retreat to a solitary apartment and see nobody until school starts again on Monday. Just go down the hall and see if somebody is going to the Reenok (open-air market) Saturday morning or wants to buy season tickets to the Bolshoi ballet. Ditto for finding a travel companion.
If you’re not interested in dating, you’ll find plenty of girlfriends or guy friends to do things with. If you do want to date, here are two links. This thread highlights the “homely Western man dates beautiful local woman” situation. This one summarizes some pitfalls of dating locals; you could also just date another expat.
If you are gay, socializing may be easy or more difficult depending on the country, and more or less discretion may be required. But finding a community is not impossible; just do some research and persist.
Staying In Touch
Thanks to modern technology, contact has become immeasurably easier. However, in one way Facetiming too frequently may actually worsen loneliness. For one thing digital contact is second-hand and lacks the intimacy of human contact through the five senses.
The blogger cited above has some pertinent things to say about the downside of being far from home. Making local friends overseas is a delicate dance and she notes aptly that “we carry the burden of staying in touch.” She is a trailing spouse and must have had a bad day.
Too-frequent contact could also mean that you are so closely tied to home that you may set yourself up for increased homesickness. After all, you are missing out on the action. At low points you may yearn to rejoin them on the other side of the screen.
Dealing With Loneliness
If you are a gregarious extrovert, you require lots of social stimulation, while an introvert is perfectly happy spending large amounts of time alone recharging batteries. Whichever you call yourself, the primary way to deal with expat loneliness is positive action.
If you wait around for someone to rescue you from loneliness, you really will be lonely. You must force yourself out the door, make an action plan, approach people, become a joiner even if it feels unnatural.
Unhappy In The Bubble
Here are some behaviors that mean you might be stuck in a dangerous rut.
You isolate yourself; whine incessantly to friends and family back home; take up heavy drinking or emotional eating; devote all your free hours to binge-watching anything available; align yourself at school with the negative crowd who have nothing good to say about the country and school.
You may actually tip over into clinical depression, putting you in serious danger. This may lead you to break contract and go home. You may fall into an emotional state that calls for professional help. Or you may just remain miserable the entire time overseas, never to return.
What Doesn’t Kill You…
If you do survive culture shock and its attendant bout of loneliness, congratulate yourself. You are now officially a stronger, more resilient, more empathetic person.
We will next discuss how to avoid falling into this negativity trap in the first place, the boring stuff like get plenty of exercise. But by far the best defense is choosing the right friends.
Which friends you choose makes all the differences. If you hang out only with negative people in the bubble, guess what? Your time overseas will be either ruined or seriously compromised. So let’s move on to coping strategies.
Social Life
“You gotta have friends. - Bette Midler”
If you expect to survive culture shock, never mind thrive, you need friends. Who will these friends be?
School Community
We’ve touched on your cohort, the colleagues you stumbled off the plane with and went through orientation together. This is an intense relationship, and they most likely will be your first group of friends.
Also, if you are in school housing, socializing is just like a college dorm; knock on next door and invite whoever answers over for coffee. At school there will be your fellow teachers. Easy-peasy. These friendships are the path of least resistance.
Some of these friendships will be lifelong while some will fade away when or if you move on with the nomadic tourist-teacher herd. The title of this article hits the nail on the head. Wanderlust gene: how expats can spot each other at 50 paces by Kate Lord Brown. “You skip several months of ‘getting to know you,’ she says. Exactly.
But while you are together overseas, you will almost certainly be closer than you would back in your home country by the intense nature of your shared experiences and everyday proximity. You take the school bus to work, eat lunch and work together, live down the hall, and inhabit the same expat bubble.
The wider school community also provides options: parents, classroom assistants and other school staff, parents of your children’s friends, expat community members you meet through school events and activities.
Outside the School Community
If you have a particular interest or existing affiliation, the pathway to a wider friendship circle just opened up. This is one of the healthiest ways to combat loneliness and negativity.
The Moscow AV guy was the Maori husband of a New Zealand diplomat. He loved rugby and back in Auckland, performed the haka even though he was the sweetest and least scary man. In Moscow he immediately joined the Moscow Dragons RFC and found a diverse gang of friends right away.
The advantage to seeking out a wider circle is that you cannot just bitch about the school copy machine, the unfair administration or parents from hell. Guess what? Nobody cares; they’re involved in their own concerns.
And guaranteed, these new friends will all have interesting stories. Teachers tend to be a certain kind of personality with similar life experiences. Expats in your new expanded circles will be different and have fascinating stories. Go for it.
Having Fun Overseas
Join, Explore, and Travel
Be open to growth and get your butt out the door. The possibilities are endless once you start looking. If you are a runner, look up Hash House Harriers (“a drinking club with a running problem.”) Join a Trivia Night team at your local. Attend church. Volunteer at the orphanage. Join the birding group, go salsa dancing, take a cooking class, sign up for walking tours. Get on the Embassy mailing list and attend outings that interest you; search Meetup or similar expat sites.
Adventures and pleasures sort themselves in categories, starting with the prime motivator for teaching overseas, meaning travel.
Travel
Home entertaining
Culture
Sports and outdoor activities
Clubbing and going out
Travel
Start with the activities mentioned above, get out the door and engage with the city and country. Between your teacher-friends and the new expanded circle you’ve cultivated, chances to travel together will come up.
Travel, of course, is one of the prime reasons to teach overseas, so do not turn down any chances. Most likely teachers have a relationship with a local wizard travel agent who can put together trips and find amazing deals. Cultivate this person.
Since you now live overseas, you can take the overnight train with friends to Venice just to eat Italian food. You can spend spring break at a Red Sea resort or attend the theater in London, and all of this without a 14-hour transatlantic flight and jet lag.
Entertaining
Since expats live for all practical purposes in a small town, dinner parties and gatherings seem to be more common than back home, where you might typically be inclined to have the weekend pizza-movie night and a big shopping trip to Costco on the weekend agenda.
Eventually, people run out of energy for throwing parties, but then they can move on to the next posting and start all again.
Overall, expats seem to fall more into the extrovert group, not the introvert. Something about the fact that they all rolled the dice and abandoned their old lives makes them particularly outgoing sorts in the first place.
Culture
If opera, art museums, and music matter to you, let’s hope you factored this into where you applied. In Moscow we regularly attended the Bolshoi and in Vienna the opera, for instance. Just find like-minded friends, figure out how to stay informed, and go. Life is short.
Sports and outdoor activities
This club is a ready-made group of friends.
If sports and the outdoors are very important to you, check out the possibilities a bit ahead of time. Consider bringing your own equipment and start looking for like-minded expats or locals even before you arrive.
Clubbing and Going Out
Do some research first and gather local sources of events and locales. Research the limitations and norms. For instance, Spanish restaurants may not even begin serving dinner until 11 pm. In some countries drunk driving laws are strictly enforced, and I mean strictly.
In some countries homosexuality is actually a crime, so best be discreet. Hundreds of expats are currently residing in foreign prisons for drug smuggling, so rethink careless drug use.
Top 10 Overseas Survival Skills Recap
1. Understand basic everyday differences.
2. Respect an alternate worldview
3. Successfully navigate the expat bubble.
4. Survive the stages of culture shock.
5. Accept the differences from Western values.
6. Rely on common sense ways to stay safe.
7. Maintain healthy social life and friendships.
8. Keep your family and children happy.
9. Deal with family and friends at home.
10. Go back home and readjust successfully.
You’re about to have the time of your life. Have fun!
5.3 Health and Safety
“I wake up every day and think, “I’m breathing! It’s a good day.” – Eve Ensler”
Schools In Unhealthy Places
You could be taking years off your life if you work at a school in a heavily polluted city. “I was sick most days with respiratory problems from the lead used in the fuel of the millions of cars that jammed the roads…lethal air and strange and toxic smells emitted from factories…the worry of food being tampered with, vegetables grown in toxic soil.”
In August 2020 the AQI in Delhi was 597. By comparison a sunny spring day in Oregon AQI is 23; statewide fires that same autumn poisoned the air for weeks. Just try to imagine breathing that every day. Should you work in unhealthy conditions?
As always, do your research. Here are some resources:
Geosure – app that rounds up safety data and warnings.
US Department of State travel advisories.
Center for Disease Control (CDC)– alerts by level.
World Nomads – insurance company that does a good job rounding up alerts and providing good general advice.
Evaluate the Dangers
“I was happy in the midst of dangers
and inconveniences.
- Daniel Boone”
“One child developed an odd muscular twitch that wouldn’t go away.” This HuffPost reminiscence from a diplomatic spouse is illuminating, unnerving, and inspiring, all at once. Of course, this decision matters most if you have children. Consider these hazards:
1. Insects carrying disease (roaches, mosquitos, vermin), tropical diseases like malaria and dengue fever, tropical rashes, and asthma - are there vaccines for these diseases and how clean are school facilities i.e. mold?
2. Air and water pollution – check the air quality index AQI. Do school facilities have good air purifiers and how frequently is outdoor recess impossible?
In some countries, coal-fired plants, vehicle exhaust, chemical and industrial factories, and burning trash spew toxins without any restraint. Not every country forbids leaded fuel.
In others like India, Thailand, and Burma, the agricultural burning season darkens and clogs the skies every year. This top 10 most polluted cities roundup is shocking. China shows some improvement but India is worsening.
3. Adulterated food and water - if you can’t flush the toilet paper, you can’t drink the water, so how will you access clean water? In Russia 5-gallon Nestle water jugs were delivered and set up weekly. Will this be possible for you?
Precautions
“Precaution is better than cure. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
”
Once you have a handle on exactly how dangerous a location might be, you can make an informed decision. Don’t automatically cross a school off your list, but be proactive. Plenty of teachers work happily and profitably in polluted cities. However,
Be up to date on all necessary vaccinations, especially if certain diseases are endemic. Follow State Department guidelines.
Bring prescription medications with you, enough to last. Occasionally, local equivalents are just fine, but verify ahead of time.
Use a water dispenser or safe bottled water and consider installing air purifiers. Some schools may have effective air cleaner systems.
Discuss your concerns with the school.
Research, read blogs, and talk to staff.
The decide whether to go, but first evaluate the risks. I know all this sounds like you should never leave home, but risk can be managed (mostly.) Of course, think twice if you’re bringing young children with you.
Health Issues
Insurance
Pre-existing health conditions could be a show-stopper. Schools won’t not want to hire someone who will explode their insurance costs. Thoroughly examine the school’s insurance policy and read every word.
Read the fine print and think about worst-case scenarios.
You never know when disaster may strike. Verify exclusions, pre-existing conditions, dates of cover, and medical facilities the school uses. Consider buying a backup personal policy from World Nomads, which can be expensive but may be necessary. Or just don’t go to a school without good coverage.
Disability Access
There is no ADA overseas (the A stands for American) and countries vary wildly in disability accessibility. If you use a wheelchair, for instance, you might have a problem at the school or in school housing, never mind out in public. There are no guarantees, so discuss this with the school in advance.
Emergency Services
Even if the school’s insurance coverage is excellent, you might also consider evacuation insurance. God forbid you need specialized treatment outside the country or have a bad accident while traveling.
Keep the Embassy emergency number on speed dial.
And do you know what number to dial in a health emergency? It’s not 911, that’s for sure. Find out before you need to know and keep the phone number handy.
The overseas world features at least two unique medical issues. One is what is currently (Feb. 2020) happening in Wuhan China; you could end up quarantined or locked out of the country. The variables shift daily. Editing this today (April 2021) it all seems prophetic, doesn’t it?
You might also learn the term medical tourism and take advantage of the savings. The cost differentials are stunning. A $40,000 hip replacement would cost $17,000 in Thailand, for instance.
In Chiang Mai I suddenly developed vision difficulty and had to bail out of school “week without walls.” The doctor correctly diagnosed and treated the problem, the procedure cost virtually nothing, and her English was great (naturally) as she’d trained in Boston. If I ever need knee replacement, I know where I’m going.
Mental Health
Aristotle said it best – mind and body. To maintain your sanity and happiness, let’s just repeat the standard advice:
o Exercise – although depending on the level of air pollution, you might consider working out in the gym if the school air is filtered to minimize the toxins.
o Eat healthy, drink moderately, sleep well, repeat.
o Avoid risky behaviors.
o Nurture your support network.
Safety Overseas
“An ounce of prevention is worth a stitch in time.
Benjamin Franklin”
Actual vs. Perceived Risks
There has been a ton of research on this issue. Suffice it to say that humans are fundamentally irrational in this matter. Humans tend to over-react to spectacular risks and underreact to common dangers.
“People worry more about earthquakes than they do about slipping on the bathroom floor, even though the latter kills far more people than the former,” for instance.
Note: it might provide some perspective to compare threats perceived by travelers to the USA. This summarizes what Aussies think of traveling to the US: guns, terrorism, civil unrest, natural disasters. They also exaggerate the dangers SEE Actual vs. Perceived Risk.
Political Hot Spots and High-Crime Countries
Besides health hazards, you might also be putting yourself and your family in a dangerous situation by moving to a country experiencing instability or one especially prone to crime. A country can undergo a coup or riots and become unsafe in a flash.
The voice of experience from an ISR thread.
Best to create your own evacuation plan. I always had USD cash ($2000) + local cash, 2 liters water, passport, basic survival gear, and 2 changes of clothing in a backpack for grab and go. If it was a country where dressing local made me invisible, I also had 1 set of “native” clothing. In an emergency minutes count, as borders close quickly. You can bet locals will need to help their families–NOT you. Embassy staff plans fall apart when embassies are overrun. Best bet is often to head to nearest border crossing and bribe to get out. This is the voice of experience talking by the way.
Some places are inherently or currently unsafe, either due to crime or political uproar. What should you do? Should you take a job at that school? How can you practice due diligence? Here are some basic steps:
Follow the news.
Check State Department alerts. This example is Guatemala.
Remember that your Embassy is not responsible for you, although they can assist.
Be blunt and just ask the school what their safety plan is. The director may try to make light of dangers, but you’ve done the research.
Then make an informed decision. Why do some expats stay? Here is one answer from Amanda Isberg on the front lines of Venezuela. Here are some other horror stories, which may give you pause.
However, notice a few mitigating factors in both these posts :
1) Not all these countries/cities are universally dangerous
Decide for yourself if it’s worth the risk.
2) Proper care and behavior can definitely mitigate the risk.
3) Some people have a higher tolerance for crime than others.
4) Sometimes the benefits outweigh the risks.
5) Just remind yourself that the US can also be very dangerous.
Common Sense Precautions
These red plates stand out. and mark you instantly as a foreigner. Never mind that it’s an expensive Western car!
You might as well be wearing Day-Glo since the locals can peg you as a foreigner at 100 meters. And if that weren’t enough of a tell, teacher cars in Russia, for instance, were registered as diplomatic vehicles and featured red license plates.
Expats are perceived as wealthy and therefore a high value crime target, mostly petty crime. Get over it and take sensible precautions.
Try to blend in as much as you can, do not flash anything that looks expensive, lock valuables out of sight, be nice to the guards at school housing. The usual precautions apply of course i.e. drunk alone at night in a dodgy neighborhood is asking for trouble, isn’t it?
Schools that keep your passport, most typically in the Middle East, are generally a red flag. Without a passport and/or exit visa, you are at the mercy of the school. Think twice about going to such a school.
Terrorism
Of course a terrorist can mow down dozens of people on a sidewalk or classroom. Oh, wait a minute. That was in Parkland, FL, Newtown, MA or manh places in the US _______fill in the blank. The risks are completely random and impossible to truly defend against.
Cynically, we’ve actually felt safer traveling in a place that has had a recent terrorist event. That mean plenty of guards, barely any Westerners, and wonderful service. In Cappadocia, Turkey after an incident, we had the entire site to ourselves, with only a Ukrainian tourist family for company and lots of guards with guns.
Women and People of Color
“Sexism is everywhere, bro. I don’t know if it’s ever not somewhere. - Billie Eilish”
Sigh. There is simply no getting around it. Attitudes have changed but not enough. It’s still a man’s world with the dangers and everyday annoyances that weigh most heavily on women and minorities.
Particularly in the Developing World, open displays of racism occur with godawful frequency. From veiled women in the Middle East to catcalls in Italy, women are viewed as weaker and therefore more vulnerable to attack.
Behavior that would not be worth a second thought at home, as in dress or public behaviors, can be provocative in some countries. As always, do your homework.
Police and Corruption
“I’m not against the police; I’m just afraid of them. - Alfred Hitchcock
”
In many countries, not all, bribery and police corruption may be the norm. The best advice? Do what your Embassy suggests. Trying to bribe an official is not a good idea. Suggestions if you are stopped by the police:
§ Always carry your official ID card, which is generally required at all times, but do not carry your passport unless you absolutely must.
§ Keep your phone charged and have the Embassy or Consulate emergency number handy. Your school should provide instructions for what to do in this situation.
§ Don’t do anything stupid or be rude and aggressive. Be firm and sit tight.
Traffic Is the Greatest Danger
“They say the universe is expanding. That should help with the traffic. - Steve Wright, comedian
”
In terms of statistics, transportation is far more likely to get you killed or injured than any other hazard. In my years overseas I was never robbed or assaulted; however, I was involved in two car accidents in Thailand, #2 on this list of accidents per capita.
This is probably about average. If you do decide to buy a car and drive, practice extreme defensive driving and abide by local norms. That means if everybody drives on the sidewalk, you should too.
Much of the problem arises from cheap, barely roadworthy cars dumped on the local market, inexperienced drivers, lax or non-existent licensing, lack of infrastructure like shoulders and zebra crossings, jam-packed buses, and swarms of motorcycles. All this is in addition to the usual speeding, drunk driving, and general carelessness. Good luck.
Perspective On Safety
“The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise. - Tacitus
”
I’ll just leave you with two thoughts and two book recommendations.
There is no such thing as perfect safety. Just prepare as best you can, then live your life joyfully.
The world is actually much safer and more civilized than it has ever been in human history. Try to maintain perspective and relax.
Steven Pinker’s 2011 The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined presents authoritative data proving that things are as peaceful today (homicide/violence against women/war) as they have ever been in history.
Otto Bettmann’s The Good Old Days - They Were Terrible! highlights the painful realities of American life in the 1800s, like adulterated food/child labor in sweatshops/rampant opium addiction…
So take care of yourself, do the research before you decide to sign that contract, take sensible precautions, and enjoy the adventure.
5.4 Family
Couples Surviving Overseas
“Ideally, couples need three lives; one for him, one for her, and one for them together. - Jacqueline Bisset
”
You may be single or overseas with a partner or spouse, plus children. In addition, everyone has family back home. The expat life produces a unique mixture of blessings and strains on families you would not encounter in your home country.
The Department of State even has a separate arm devoted to supporting diplomatic families. “Family life abroad can be very exciting,” they note. But they end with an offer to provide “guidance and referrals to those experiencing personal challenges.” This is a delicate way of saying that it won’t always be easy.
Couples - 3 Scenarios
1. Teaching couple
If you are a teaching couple, you’re going to be seeing a lot of each other - inside the school expat bubble, commuting back and forth to school together, going to the same events and parties, friends with the same people.
2. Business person + teacher trailing spouse
If your spouse/partner does not work at the school and you do, a different dynamic results. The business may demand long hours, lots of travel, and brutal amounts of stress, leaving less energy for the relationship.
3. Teacher + non-working trailing spouse
Or you may be that peculiarity of the expat world: the trailing spouse. It could be the wife or the husband; in the case of this charming blog post, it’s the husband, “In which I discuss how tricky it can be being the expat partner, but ultimately realize there’s way more to gain than there is to lose from the experience.” What puts the trailing in trailing spouse is that the partner’s job brought them overseas. The other half just came along for the ride.
One day in the Moscow library, empty at the time, a parent confided her distress. Her diplomat husband had been assigned a tour to Russia and she’d had to quit her very satisfying career. She wept bitter tears over the painful lack of purpose and loss of self-esteem that was her daily life. All I could do was listen and provide kleenex. I’d been in this exact spot and once spent a miserable spell locked in the bathroom, crying like a teenager.
In many countries the 2nd spouse literally cannot get a work visa or even work online and would in fact jeopardize the visa of the 1st spouse. That would damage the relationship of the organization or business with the local government. This means the unemployed trailing spouse is well and truly stuck in professional limbo. Which leads us to…
Stresses and Opportunities
Strains Unique To Expats
If both partners are on board 100% with going overseas, the adventure can strengthen the relationship and keep even a creaky marriage going longer than it might otherwise. Or the stress can blow open any rifts spackled over at home through routine.
As difficult as it might be to manage, each partner must feel valued. If one of the couple does not want to abandon their life and go overseas, things will almost certainly end badly.
If one of the partners cannot find professional validation and respect, a make-work job or volunteering with the Ladies Aid Society isn’t going to cut it either. “Adultery and fractured marriages are rampant in the expat world,” says Robin Pascoe who has written widely on the issue.
With all the temptations, things can go south. What to do? Talk to each other in depth for a start. If one of you really does not want to go, my advice is, don’t go.
This excellent summary from ExpatFocus Can Your Relationship Take the Strain of Moving Abroad Together? pretty well sums up the difficulties.
Sexual Pitfalls Overseas
The expat life features some sexual temptations a marriage would likely not face back home.
1. Many cultures have a much more relaxed attitude toward adultery and prostitution. Remember that America was founded by the Puritans.
A spouse who is working long hours and away from home a lot may fall into this trap and really not face much social stigma. Except for the spouse, of course.
2. Some countries are havens for sex tourism and mail-order brides and so even a very average-looking expat might be considered quite a catch.
This thread features a lot of snark but illuminates the complicated depths. Remember that frequently it’s not your good looks they’re after but your bank account.
Family Back Home
Single or partnered, pretty much everybody has relatives. Several dynamics peculiar to the expat life are in play. Let’s focus first on the negative aspects of this atypical lifestyle you have chosen.
Aging Parents
Who takes care of aging parents? This can be a thorny issue and must be sorted before you get on that airplane. If your parents become ill, will you have to relocate and abandon the adventure? Will you need to take a long leave and return home to make arrangements?
Are siblings nearby and willing to bear the burden? Might you move mom or dad overseas and find affordable care, in Turkey or Thailand, for instance? Could they tolerate the disruption?
These are questions to sort out in advance of need.
Decisions must be made jointly with your other family members.
It all depends on your relationship with your family.
Friends and Family Reactions While You’re Overseas
Instagram Life (Jealousy)
You know how other people seem to be having way more fun on Facebook than you sometimes? Your family back home may grit their teeth when they see you floating down the Venice canals on a long weekend, a trip they have dreamed of for years.
Your adventures seem so exotic (they are) and their life so prosaic (it can be.) The best advice is not to overdo the bragging.
Nobody Much Cares (Indifference)
After you have trotted out a few well-rehearsed tales, people back home typically return to their own concerns. Perfectly normal, and really, what else did you expect? You will discover that the only people who truly understand are fellow expats.
Wish You Hadn’t Gone (Disapproval)
Some family back home may put pressure on you, subtle or direct, to return home and take care of business i.e. mom and dad need help, you dumped your house and financial chores into my lap and I regret saying yes, etc.
Your parents may express horror every time a disaster or international incident occurs anyway near you. Or they may just disparage your choice (What’s wrong with your hometown?) and feel your choice is a put down on them. It’s not, but try to be sympathetic.
They Visit (Excitement)
Best of all, your family is happy for you and will turn up at your door sooner or later. There is nothing like a local tour guide for enjoying a place, so just prepare yourself to host family and friends at some point in your stay.
Grandma had the time of her life.
A few notes. Your visitors have come from halfway around the world and will stay possibly several weeks. You probably won’t be able to take two weeks off work to show them around. Plan accordingly.
Also take weather and season into account. You won’t be touring Dubai in the summer, as the temperature is over 110, for instance. Christmas and the high tourist season in Venice may be way too crowded.
Remember how much hand-holding you needed in the early days and be careful about sending them out the door on their own. Visitors will be rookies just like you once were and will need their hands held.
Advance Planning For Visitors
1. Walk them through the process details (tourist visa, money, customs.)
2. If possible, have them bring an extra duffel full of items you can’t otherwise obtain.
3. Their time will be brief (certainly not two years) so settle on a doable itinerary and prioritize.
4. You will need to do the planning and executing, so start making arrangements. Think about arranging tours and a driver.
5. Think through exactly how long you want this visit to be. Do you need to take some time off work? Can you??
6. Be sure the school is aware you’ll have guests in school housing.
Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days, according to Benjamin Franklin. Obviously three days won’t work, but the visits can be a strain as well as a pleasure, but a priceless experience for both parties.
Can You Raise Children Overseas?
“So where are you from? Umm...”
Intercultural contact.
Can you take your children overseas? Can you become pregnant, give birth, and raise a small child overseas? Of course. And these children will be different than if they’d been raised solely in their home countries. They will even have a special name and an acronym to match: Third Culture Kids (TCK).
TCK (Third Culture Kids)
First culture means the passport culture of the child. Second culture refers to the host country where the child and parents have moved. This leaves a third culture unlike either but something entirely new. Several characteristics define this third culture. These children:
1. Actually live in another culture for a fair amount of their developmental years.
2. Experience a mobile upbringing.
3. Expect to return to their passport country someday, meaning they are not immigrants.
They might be military brats or MKids (missionary kids) or EdKids (teachers’ kids) or foreign service families.
Temporary Or Long term?
Let’s first distinguish between those TCK whose parents do not stay long nor expect to (tourist teachers) and those who are making a career of overseas work (career IS teachers, foreign service, NGO.) The positive and negative effects will therefore be greater the longer the stay.
Entire books have been written on TCK and their special upbringing. This post revisits the psychological effects of this childhood from the perspective of a grown-up TCK.
Positives?
· Tolerant and with a broad worldview
· Bilingual or even multilingual
· Culturally adept
· Open to new experience
Negatives?
· Ignorant of home culture
· Rootless and lack a sense of belonging
· Hesitant to make close friends or develop intimacy
· Unclear loyalties
Special Needs Children
There is no 94-142 Education for All Handicapped Children law overseas. For-profit schools are private and can legally refuse to admit whomever they choose. Even for embassy schools, the State Department advises finding another career path if the family does not pass the suitability review panel; even schools supported by the State Department may not support the necessary education.
That being said, children with special needs can be sometimes be accommodated. This assumes no severe handicapping conditions or behavioral issues, plus you might be doing a disservice to your child. DoDEA schools can be somewhat more supportive.Be sure to verify in advance and please be upfront with the school.
Pregnancy and Nannies
Yes, plenty of overseas teachers have gotten pregnant and successfully raised small children. A few things to consider in advance, as always:
1. What is your present/future school’s maternity policy? You don’t want to find out too late that pregnancy is grounds for dismissal or insurance does not cover maternity.
2. What is the level of medical care in the country and the options for childcare? In many countries, healthcare is considerably cheaper and better than in the USA, but certainly not all.
3. Do plenty of research and ask around before you decide that you need to go back home to give birth.
4. Since you won’t have family support close at hand, what kind of support system can you assemble? Better get started early.
Questions to Ask the School
1. For how many children will the school provide tuition? (usually one per contract.)
2. Any constraints on single parents? How much does daycare cost? Can kids play outdoors?
Hint: don’t count on it.
3. What about children with special needs? Will the school accept them? If yes, how much support is available?
4. Is it a true international school, meaning plenty of other TCK’s? Or is it an international school in name only where 90% or more of the student body speaks the local language and the only foreign faces are teachers’ kids?
National School
What about enrolling your child in a true national school? i.e. the public school just down the street. You might be setting your child up for:
Bullying. True TCK are largely very welcoming. After all, they’ve all been the new kid many times before and know how painful it can be. Not necessarily so in a local school.
Lost academic progress while your child learns the language.
Young enough children, however, might very well thrive.
You’d need a translator to work with the school.
So…should you teach overseas with children? Heck, yes. The experience is a great gift to your child.
Reverse Culture Shock
As much as you love and miss your friends and families, if you stay overseas for any length of time, ties will inevitably wither. You are simply not there for the day-to-day events that constitute life, and honestly, FaceTime is not an adequate replacement.
You will feel a sense of dislocation back home referred to as reverse culture shock. Holy cats! The toothpaste aisle is overwhelming, and why is everybody in such a hurry?
It may seem you’ve landed in an alternate universe.
You will probably also discover that after a brief flurry, nobody much cares to hear your adventures. They may even feel a bit of implied superiority in your Instagram happy life compared to their mundane lives. At some point you’ll realize the only people who really understand are fellow expats. Unsettling, but there it is.
Going Home
“Home is the place where, when you have
to go there, they have to take you in.
Robert Frost”
The word home has a complicated meaning for an expat, meaning you. It also has a time element it does not have for the citizen who never worked overseas. Let’s examine four of these situations.
(1) During Your Contract
Meaning summers and holidays. Most typically, schools pay for a round trip ticket at the beginning and end of a two-year contract. So if you want to return to your passport country to see family in between, these flights are on your dime.
Plus you might well be couch-surfing unless you are lucky enough to own a home you can afford to keep vacant or can arrange a house sitting gig or house exchange.
I am a member of HomeExchange.com and last summer, a family of teachers from Mumbai worked a deal to stay in my house for two weeks to visit their family in Portland and also manage rentals. I wasn’t going to be home anyway; I’d already been to Mumbai and did not want to go during the rainy season. But still, it worked out slick for them and for me as well.
Summer Options?
§ Go back home for the entire period, which can be intense, exhausting, and expensive.
§ Travel overseas the entire period. This depends on your location, meaning it’s more fun to travel in Europe than someplace really hot. Also, occasionally a school will require teachers to vacate during the summer; avoid a school like that.
§ Mixture of both, perhaps with visitors.
2) Between Contracts
This means you will be rewinding the whole moving process. In addition, here is some advice on breaking the news to your school; remember that recruiting starts very early in the school year.
§ Close out your classroom and school checkout list.
§ Arrange shipping, sell or give away what you’re not taking in the teacher garage sale, arrange airfare reimbursement.
§ Pay off all financial obligations like landlord and utility charges.
§ Document all final payments to be able to leave the country legally.
§ Say sad goodbyes to the other nomads in your herd (IS teachers) and achieve closure, particularly if you have children.
3) Breaking Contract
Sometimes the school or personal situation is so awful that you just cannot tolerate the situation and you break contract.
§ What circumstances would you say justify bailing early or even sneaking out? Safety? Harassment or threats of violence not dealt with by the school? Repeated failure to pay salary on time or egregious violations of the contract? Personal or medical emergency? What justifications would you support? Each person will have a different threshold, so think about it.
§ Will you ever get another job and will you be blackballed? The answer is yes, no, and maybe to both. Reading through these comments reminds me again of the prospective teacher’s overarching responsibility to practice due diligence in advance. Plus the bitter whining in the comments. Whew!
1) Do your homework as well as possible in advance, particularly for-profit schools.
2) Do not rely solely on ISS or Search. You own this one.
3) Watch out for red flags, like when a good director leaves.
4) Keep financially liquid in case you have to pay your way out.
4) Permanently
“You can’t go home again. - Thomas Wolfe”
Actually you can go home again and eventually, international school teachers will need to choose where to nest for good, constrained by whether they can retire or must keep working.
§ Return to your passport country – if you still need to work, you can return to the public school system or try the private school route. Look at Carney Sandoe, private school recruiters or religious schools as well.
Just be sure you haven’t let your certification lapse, although sometimes private schools will give you a pass. There is dispute on whether overseas teaching is a plus or minus in the job market.
§ Remain in-country and go native to one degree or another, bearing in mind that some countries have visa and income minimum requirements. They may not want you and regulations may change suddenly. Ask yourself where can you afford to live and also feel comfortable.
The Same But Different
Family is family anywhere, but the expat’s relationship to parents, relatives, and children has unique twists. At the very least the aspiring overseas teacher should give some thought to the issues in this post and, as always, do the research.