thanx cee13! always good to hear postive things about directors!

trying to get a feel for it from someone who has worked there in recent years. salary vs. cost of living? administration? the vibe of the school kind of thing. if i remember correctly i posted this because the reviews were not current. thank you.

looking for anyone who has taught in the elementary at the american foundation of monterrey in the last few years...thanks

i taught in an international shool in brazil that actually wanted dependents. they wanted native english speakers in their preschool program to model for the non-english speaking children. might be something you can spin to your advantage in an interview.

went to ghana and south africa for a month in january 2010. at the time, i was teaching in brazil, got a fat tax return and decided to use to see west africa on my own. to be clear, i have not taught in africa but was seeing it thru the lens of an international teacher. you are probaly aware that there are many power outages and internet can be sketchy. even in bigger cities, there usually is not a plumbing system like in the west. but if you can roll with that, it can be way fun. i traveled as a single middle ages white woman and never and i mean never felt in danger. i'm sure bad stuff can happen but i did not see it or experience it. way friendly people and ghana had nice beaches. i chose ghana because most folks speak english. kumasi was a very cool city with much culture. i have read that togo has some good international schools but do not know of anyone personally that has taught there. i think it is like most international situations-do your research as you are doing here and get everything in writing b4 you go.

thanks to all who replied! it was helpful!

does anyone know anything about colegio karl c. parrishschool in barranquilla, columbia? cannot find even a single piece of info about it except the school's website, thoughts on living in columbia?

ask for email contact with teachers at the school and ask their opinions, views, etc. many schools encourage or offer this as they have nothing to hide. some schools actually start the school year in january.

just a note to some of the above-i'm thinking many of you have not worked in the states for a while. i just came from working in the states in a public school district in a "conservative" state. in our district there were out gay teachers, closeted gay teachers, black administrators, christians of all colors, hajib wearing muslim teachers, tatooed teachers, teachers with pierced noses, straight mainstream teachers, several teachers of latino decent, etc. there was a lgtb student group at the high school. it seems the thing to do in the international schools community is to see ourselves as "better" than the states. there is racism and homophobia everywhere. it depends on the individuals involved.

try south america. i think stereotypes are worse in asia. south america has many people of african decent and many biracial families. as most administrators are american, they have (most of the time) the american consciouness that having a diverse staff is a good thing. rascism does exist here but it depends on the country. peru, colombia and brazil has large populations of people of african decent. as with all international jobs, do your homework on the school and country first. special needs teachers are always in demand. most schools are not interested in a trailing spouse but if he gets his tofl certification that will help.

wow, this has been my first time reading the forum, lots of perspectives here. i worked in the states for years and worked under some visionary principals. one school was in a white suburb, one school was 100% title one. and yes, i belonged to the union. the title school was fed by two large sections 8 housing projects, largely african american and latino immigrants. we had, however, an outstanding principal. you did feel like you were effecting kids lives in a very postive way. out staff was a mixed bag of white, black, latina, christian, non-believers, gay and straight. those issues were not an issue as we were there for the kids, not to argue and debate. once in a great while differences flared but most of the time, people were professional and focused on kids. NCLB had its plusses and minuses. our state had clear, developmentally appropriate standards and indictors. yes, testing had a big focus but we used good teaching and staff study groups to expand our knowlegde base so that it did not feel like we were teaching to the test. decent test scores were the result of decent teaching. it was tiring at times and a joy at others. i think that is called life. the principal was innovative and a real leader. we had resources. i see from the posts that this experience did not happen for everyone out there in public schools.

now i teach at an international school. the "curriculum" is 10 years behind at best as are the teaching practices. the administration has the old boy network on full swing. the parents can be a mixed bag but for every crackhead parent i had in the states, there are plenty of cokehead parents here. for every kid who had never even met the father in the states, there are kids here who are raised by the driver and the nanny. why international schools say they offer an american type education but then expect teachers to "write" curriculum is a mystery to me. i don't have a master's in curriculum development. if i had wanted to do that i would have gotten a master's in that. there is no job security here and for those of us at midlevel international schools, the loss in pay is not outweighed by the free housing. living in a new country is exciting and challenging and i feel it has stretched me in a postive way. traveling is cheaper. there is new food to discover. to save money our school hires mostly locals and only few foreign hires so this makes the friends pool very limited. there is much gossip and back stabbing. it took me a while to get used to this after coming from working with professionals. so again, it is life, some of it is good, some not so hot. here, it is either kiss the administrator's butt or move on. it is difficult to break into top tier schools but i will continue to try.
i don't think that it is an "either/or" thing. there were things about my life in the states (lack of diversity, expensive to travel, mentality of some folks) that spurred me to teach abroad. there are things here that make me yearn for my old school. but there is no perfect school in the perfect place. or if there is, it is different for every person.

our school used to offer free tutition to local hires' children. the new super put a stop to that, now they (the local hires) pay half. our school hires lots of locals and only a few international teachers so it makes it cheaper for the school.