2.3 The Classroom

Classroom Support

“A Day In The Life”

— The Beatles

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.
”

— William Cowper

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:

1.        IB (International Baccalaureate)

2.        AP (Advanced Placement)

3.        IGCSE (International General Certificate of Secondary Education)

4.        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?”

— Bud Abbott and Lou Costello

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.

”

— William Shakespeare. Henry IV, Part 2

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.

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.
”

— Euripides

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. ”

— Daniel Webster

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. ”

— Winston Churchill

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. ”

— Inspector Clouseau in the "Pink Panther" movies

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.
”

— Wernher von Braun

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.”

— Naomi Judd

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. ”

— Anonymous

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.

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?

1. These are questions to sort out in advance of need.

2. Decisions must be made jointly with your other family members.

3. 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.