International vs International

There is International Teaching, and then there is international teaching. Today has been a solid lesson in the difference between the two.

A quick explanation - for decades international teaching primarily meant teaching in a school that had mostly Native-English speaking teachers, teaching a Western (US or UK) type of curriculum to mostly international students of diplomatic families or business expatriates. In many ways it would be like teaching back home, including good support mechanisms.

In recent years there has been a vast expansion of local schools who are offering an English-language program to local students and hire a few foreign teachers to round out the language expertise and provide educational expertise not readily available through local teachers.

Lisa teaches in an INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL. I teach in an international school. That's not bad, per se, but it is vastly different.

For example, we are back from vacation break and are preparing for students to return this week. I was never sent a contact to tell me a schedule for first week activities, transportation, when I should be there, nothing. I ended up calling the HR office to find out when the expresso would pick me up.

On Monday we were first told there would be a meeting at 8:30, then it was pushed back to 11:00. We were told the next few days we would have some workshops, but no schedule was put out. We were told we needed to write up our syllabus for our classes and have them in by Friday, but we didn't find out what the breakdown in classes/grade levels would be until today (Wednesday). We also didn't get out textbooks until today so we could see what we are supposed to be teaching. Today I sat through most of a 7-hour presentation on Special Education (in Spanish, not English for the foreign hires). A couple of new teachers we have are all bug-eyed. They had expected to simply be handed books, curriculum and syllabus and go for it. No such luck here.

Of course, that is part of the charm at teaching at a school like this. You aren't told what to teach, because frankly, the local educators really don't know what to teach. That's why they hired the foreign teacher. For a teacher who likes to teach their own way, with a minimal of school restrictions, this is paradise.

Of course, if you are in a position of needing a lot of direction and hand-holding, this type of a job is probably not for you.

Me, I love it. After the end of the day, I stood chatting with one of our new teachers, Wilhamena from Holland (who speaks 9 languages, 3 fluently), as we chatted about the day and watched a three foot iguana chow down on some leaves about ten feet from us. Can't get these experiences standing on the street in front of your school, I'd wager.