#1 Money
“The best things in life are free, but you can keep ‘em for the birds and bees. ”
The top three reasons to teach overseas are money, travel, and satisfying teaching. Not to be crass and start with money, but you will often be better off financially teaching overseas than in your home country.
How much better depends on your situation in life and personal circumstances. You might look at a salary range starting at $20,000 and think, No way can I survive on that. Well, yes you can…maybe. It depends.
Three features peculiar to teaching overseas make the difference: the package, taxes, and the cost of living.
Benefits Package
When British, Australian, American, or Canadian teachers hear the term benefits in the context of a teacher contract, they think insurance coverage, 401K or personal days.
But an overseas teacher in a reputable school typically receives a generous housing allowance and utilities support, often free transportation to and from school, round-trip airfare home yearly or every other year, free tuition for your children.
Think for a minute what a boost your discretionary income would receive if you did not have to cover these expenses. Take out a pencil and tote up what housing and utilities, medical, and transportation costs take out of your check every month.
List what you pay for Medical Insurance and costs _________
List what you pay for utilities (power, garbage, etc.) _________
List what you pay in transportation costs (gas, insurance, monthly payments, maintenance, Public Transit) _________
List your Rent or Mortgage Costs _________
TOTAL CURRENT EXPENSES_____________
2. Taxes
The second feature that makes teaching overseas so potentially lucrative is taxes, meaning Americans don’t pay any. I will repeat that…
Unless a teacher makes more than $108,700 in 2021, he or she will not owe any federal income tax, although you need to file. Of course, you won’t pay into Social Security either, but that’s an issue for later.
Take out your pay stub and add up what you now pay in taxes and retirement costs.
List the TOTAL Amount You Pay in Taxes (all kinds) ___________
3. Cost-of-Living
The third reason a teaching stint overseas can be so financially desirable is cost-of-living. Just in case you hadn’t noticed, the Western world is expensive: food, housing, transportation, and clothes, everything, in fact.
Now what if you taught in Asia or the Middle East where the cost of everything is so much less?
Eating out was cheap and delicious.
In Thailand, for instance, we got tired of living in free school housing on campus and rented a sweet little house in town for $215 a month. Dinner was $2 around the corner at a hole in the wall joint with authentic Thai food. That’s what I mean by cost of living.
Fire up your calculator and total roughly what you spend on food and other necessities of daily life (exclude housing or medical); then reduce it by a factor of say, 50%, and total the difference i.e what you’d save in a low cost of living location.
List your total adjusted Food and Living Expenses here ___________
Now add up the these three numbers and subtract them from your current gross salary. _____+_____+_____= _____
tOTAL SAVINGS POTENTIAL____________
Imagine how much you could save or pay down debt with this surplus. Of course the best things in life are free, but you can have more of the best things with some financial wiggle room.
One of those things, of course, is travel.
#2 Travel
“To travel is to live. ”
The Travel Bug
Lust for travel is the root of the international school lifestyle, probably the most important driver for an educator. If you didn’t have a love of travel, you might as well teach in Des Moines or Moose Jaw.
But you are infected with this desire or you wouldn’t be reading this blog and dreaming of teaching overseas, now would you?
You could be taking the overnight train to Italy for the weekend just to eat authentic Italian food. You could be accompanying school field trips to Sochi, Russia and hiking in the Caucasus.
You could take Spring Break floating in a hot air balloon over the Bagan temple complex in Cambodia. Or you could spend your weekends poking around the back streets and markets of Beijing or Bratislava or Bogota.
Not A Tourist Anymore
If you have ever lived overseas for any length of time, you plainly understand the difference between being a tourist and actually living in a place. “The difference between lighting and a lightning bug.” (Mark Twain.)
Hey there, Muscovite!
Inhabiting a foreign city is of another order of sensibility. These streets are your streets. The historic site you drive by every day on the way to work is your history, at least for the duration of the contract
Travel Opportunities Unique To International School Teachers
School Trips
i.e. the school pays. If you coach or moderate MUN (Model United Nations), for instance, you could end up in Dublin or Warsaw on the school’s dime.
Vacations
are abundant and you could end up in London for Spring Break to see plays or book a chalet in Austria to ski or rent a beach hut in Phuket or take the train to St. Petersburg.
Weekend trips
depend on your location and energy (and money), but the options are going to seem very exotic to friends back home. They are.
Friends
who travel well together will pop up in daily interactions at school. Especially if you are single, this camaraderie is a blessing and opportunity.
Word of Mouth
means news of great trips spreads like a pheromone at school, and pretty soon you’ll be in contact with a dynamite local travel agent or following the advice of more seasoned travelers.
But what about life in the classroom? Can it be as satisfying as the money you make and the trips you take?
#3 Great Teaching
“Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition. ”
Teaching Paradise
Is the classroom as satisfying as the travel? The answer can be a resounding yes. Imagine a classroom full of eager, well-behaved students. Imagine tremendous parental and administrative support.
Imagine small class sizes, plenty of aides and resources, the full array of specials, and the latest technology. Imagine highly qualified and fascinating teaching peers from all over the world.
You can leave behind some of the negatives of teaching in your home country: no high-stakes testing; no overload of disruptive and high-need students with the accompanying mass of paperwork; few if any discipline problems or lack of engagement; no unsupportive or unresponsive parents.
Well, you do not need to just imagine this kind of teaching paradise. The right international school can provide this kind of teaching environment.
A top tier international school is the equivalent of a high-end private school back home with the attendant resources and high standards.
High Expectations
Frequently, an international school’s curriculum framework will be IB (International Baccalaureate). This means teachers have the freedom to innovate and go deeper into subjects and skills. In fact, the IB requires innovation, skilled teaching and collaborating closely with colleagues.
Remember that parents, embassies, and businesses overseas pay hefty tuition fees ($20,000+) for their children to attend these schools. The students in your classroom come from ambitious and well-educated families.
The expectation is straight up that their children will receive a superior education that will enable them to attend top universities around the world.
Disclaimers
Having painted such a glowing picture of a teaching paradise, let’s step back a bit with a few disclaimers:
1. International schools run the gamut of accreditation, support, and quality. The paradise described above means only the top tier schools.
2. International schools depend on administrative talent and recruiting and are independent to a degree that district or state schools in your home country are not. This means a great school one year can crumble quickly the next.
3. Parental involvement can have a dark side, naturally.
4. There may not be state-mandated high stakes testing, but IB test results are like the SATS on steroids. These scores really really matter.
5. Yes, a proper international school can be a teaching paradise, but it is also hard work and no vacation.
So those are the top three reasons to teach overseas: money, travel, and great teaching. The next two posts will help you explore several underlying motivations, meaning your personal reasons for wanting to upend your life.