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.
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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.
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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.