Speaking to friends who have had to teach Turkish national curriculum (even in combination with an IB programme) is enough to make me think that the aggravation isn't worth it. The Turkish Ministry of Education is not one that you want to have any dealings with, some of the requirements have actually been diametrically opposed to the 'other', 'international' curricula they were also 'supposed' to be teaching. (Ex: all 6 second grade classes needing to teach EXACTLY the same thing, on the same days, but purportedly PYP. No actual inquiry-based learning, rote memorization and worksheets. Just one example, on one level.)

Hisar is currently paying salaries in Turkish lira, which has been falling like a stone, given the corruption and unrest issues, which is another big red flag to me (being paid in TL, not the unrest so far and I have lived in the middle of it), but the housing allowance stated on Search could be do-able. The days you are required to be in school will involve sudden, last minute changes (also directly from the Turkish Ministry's orders) that will mean you could lose out on vacation plans. One friend this year has lost out on airline tickets she bought for a 4 day weekend that was on the published school calendar, having to come in for an hour on a Sunday for some special, suddenly mandated event. The longer holidays follow the Turkish calendar, which is different from what you might expect. Your required days are on the high side, too, those will be for A LOT of meetings and 'professional development'.
You REALLY want to think it through. I wouldn't do it if you had any teaching experience, OR student loans at home to pay, because you can do better.
Good luck!

**** This information is from friends at other similar schools, not Hisar specifically, more to give background on what the challenges are of working for a school that is under the authority of the Turkish Ministry.

Hi, I am wondering if anyone has an idea regarding the quality of the schools that either Search or TIE shows. I know I can find some dodgy schools in either listing, but in people's opinion, are there better schools on Search? Recognizing that there are a lot of ways to measure "good", I wonder if TIE's list of schools looking has a greater percentage of for-profit schools? Is there any vetting of schools on TIE's end? Can a school get kicked off?

I am not even going to reply to what psyguy has said on this thread. >:{

To answer your question with the sincerity and respect with which it was posed:

I interviewed with this group. Among the things I learned:
Work day long and seemed intense: I think it was 8am to 5pm.
You will need to train teachers in addition to your teaching duties because that is the purpose of the initiative.
You must learn both Russian and Kazakh. If you know Russian, or something similar, this would be less difficult, but still, in addition to the high demands of the job already, you would be learning TWO languages that would be difficult for most native English speakers. The good news is that this would be structured into your prep periods in the day, so there is school support for it. But you are staying there until 5 pm.

If you are not at the one IB school, then you will be in a different city, they did not seem to have their needs worked out yet, who where, so they can't tell you anything about where you would/could be living. It was unclear if you would need to get a car to get to and from work, so that could be a big expense in an otherwise fantastic pay package.

My understanding of this position was that you would be placed in among local teachers with very few to no other expat teachers and would need to integrate with them. That can be amazing, but it is not without its price in terms of energy expenditure and I have a hard time seeing a healthy work-life balance for someone who was not coming alone, honestly. The pay and housing allowance looked great but it would be a hardship posting. You would work for every penny. I'd be really curious to hear if you do take the job and if you did, if you felt that you had the energy to sign again after 2 years. They sounded exhausting to me, but I may not have an accurate take. I had another offer in hand, for much less money, but I easily saw myself as happy there, so I took it and did not proceed to the third interview, which was rumored to be via skype and teaching a lesson for the education department people back in Kazakhstan. (They did not explain that to me directly and it may not be accurate, the teaching a lesson for a third interview.)

"I am married, with 1 child and 1 on the way. Does this limit my chances? I'm not looking for a teaching position, rather to be a Coordinator, Manager, or Director of Instructional/Educational Technology. "

Yes and no.
For your position, I think no, it does not, but your position will be less common than, say, elementary teacher.

I recommend going to the fair (whichever you choose and agree bigger is better, also earlier because if you don't land something in December, you can pay the 50$ to go to another fair). You will learn a lot talking to everyone there, Search associates, heads AND other teachers, not just general things but specifics about areas and schools, which are good, what others' experiences have been...

I would recommend that you tell them you're looking for 12-13 so you can get a look around of what is happening before November-December, get your ducks in a row, all of that.
Good Luck!

I'm actually in agreement with PsyGuy on just about everything in this thread.

Counter reviews (that is, positive ones) can be authentic and are helpful. I have also read positive reviews on ISR that were intended to be "rebuttal" positives but a few of them have actually persuaded me off of a school like the plague, being written by a person trying to speak to "fellow" teachers without having any real understanding of what is most important to us in working at a school. They showed evidence of not just an inability to consider their audience when communicating but also a willingness to lie and deceive. Those reviews were written talking about bizarre, random things like statistics or the success of the curriculum or personal vendetta against an earlier reviewer. What teacher has an axe to grind on ISR, reviewing a school but trashing another teacher? Evidence of serious problems. ISR is most helpful when there are enough reviews for a pattern to appear, good or bad because most aren't as extreme as those cases.

To take the point about whether an administrator must have a positive relationship with all of the staff... when the situation is teacher-student, what do we expect of ourselves? At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you like student x. You need to maintain professional respect, even if the student is being rude, this is the expectation, so that the teacher's behavior does not enter into the consequences the student will ultimately have, be they grades or otherwise. Anything else is an abuse of power: it simply can't be. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the same back from an admin-teacher relationship. I agree that administrators need years of teaching so that they have a good grip on this, and on what fundamentally motivates people (younger or older) and how to encourage or at least not damage it.

I can jump in and add to the category!

Before my current job, I had thought that a school's non-profit status would mean that it put the kids' experiences first!

Feeling a lot older and only a little wiser now, it is important to note, each should be evaluated on its own basis. I have heard that there ARE for-profits where teachers don't want for resources and honor contracts. My current school supposedly has "charity" status and has given exactly NONE of us ANY supplies this year. Those of us leaving after fulfilling our contracts are being cheated out of our plane tickets home. :evil: These are due to special and unique circumstances here, but they come down to arrogance, incompetence and blind ambition, all pretty common. I just would have far more expected these things to have their sway in a for profit, rather than a non-profit.

It is very true that no two schools are alike!

But I do have to agree that it is a bit absurd to say that it's ok to use parents' hopes for their children's futures as a means to work as much money out of them as possible. And it is uglier still to suggest that : "Their country, their business. "
At home, no, but ok elsewhere?
I really think this is a wind up.

I guess I'll take that for a "no".

ichiro, I agree with you there, about the change at the PE part.

specialed, I especially agree with the part about recognizing that one is among many who are good also, as time goes by. The first round of layoffs that I was present for really changed my perception. Not because I was directly involved (I had moved on) but to see absolutely EXCELLENT teachers without work and mediocre to bad kept for arbitrary wording on their teaching credential woke me up to the fact that GOOD teachers aren't always employed, excellent workers aren't always employed. Life is not fair and being great is just not enough. The lesson I took away was that it's part random luck that you have no control over (and should be grateful for) and part strong relationships with others that you have no way of knowing how it will bail you out in the future. Besides being better to work in a respectful and cooperative environment, push IS going to come to shove sometime and you WILL need help.

derPhysik, I'm bored, simply and without smugness, just that we're all busy. I extrapolated content area because it's not clear to me why and where you draw the line between content areas and I haven't heard a well-supported argument regarding that yet. (That's rhetorical. You don't HAVE to send more defensive stuff, I'm much more interested in anyone who has an opposing view regarding performance pay that is well supported, ie, a plan that would be evidently equitable and fair to all. I'm not convinced it is possible, but interested in being proven wrong, or at least provoked to think about it differently.)

JISAlum, I agree with you too, that the conversation was really interesting when it was with reasoned, supported arguments regarding pay and negotiation and pay for performance. Do you think we can get back to that WITHOUT someone jumping in and saying "but not this area! This area, no!"? Or was that inevitable?

" If I may boil it down; it has always bothered me (and gotten me in trouble with union officials) that a Physical Education instructor gets paid as much as me. Coming to school in shorts and watching kids toss a ball around is equal to what I do??!!"

"I will stand my ground on PE. You can doll up the language all you want- they play sports with kids. You could hire anyone you want, and the kids would learn (self-directed) and get as much out of it if you had a PhD., or the Pope, or an 18 year-old. "

"RedRider- you are putting words in my mouth and trying to make me look bad." You didn't need any help with that.

And if no one points it out to you that the above is offensive, you will have problems at an international school. The culture is significantly different there than in the US and a good school will have a very tight knit and mutually supportive community. Letting on in any way that you think another content area is not "equal" to what you do will not go over well. It's not that it's impolitic with a union. It's disrespectful to work that you haven't put any thought into why it might be valuable.

Two points you might want to consider:

1.) A bottom tier school might be bottom tier because it is so unprofessionally run. Please take a look at the reviews for cases in point. If you are in another country with less worker protections/recourse, and you have any kind of problem come up, they can have you blackballed, which may not end your teaching careers but could set you back years to recover from. By problems, it could be anything, conflict with an influential parent asking unreasonable and unethical things; if there's a problem keeping staff, they could insist you teach in an area you are not familiar with and hold you accountable; there's one instance of rape mentioned, the problems could be serious. Yes, there's frivolous stuff over there, but there are also things that should absolutely not be ignored.

2.) You might find yourselves unable to move up (or both find a job) because of one's lack of certification after the experience. The best schools won't hire without proper credentials, this is also a visa issue, they can't justify the work permit to their immigration officials.

Your husband, even in this economy, should be able to find work in math teaching, why not wait until he gets the certificate, especially if he can work through it?

for the record, specialed, I am unimpressed with the lot of them. Giving NCLB a new name and making it worse, well. I'd hoped at least for some common sense.

In my district, to qualify for Race to the Top funds and save jobs, our superintendent wanted us to agree (right before contract negotiations) to a very nebulous plan of "merit pay" (who decides? one person? a popularity contest? a scantron test? scantron tests in other content areas?) that would Only have been binding on the teachers, since there Was no detail in it. You need to understand that the idea of his saying, "Trust me!" when I'm not now being paid for provable, known facts is a bit funny. But not in a good way. And it wasn't that I'd topped out of the salary scale.

I think that idea of the "marketplace" is a disingenuous excuse to pay less, pure and simple. People that equate education to a business model happily pass over the fact that they don't at all function the same. And boy would they be mad at the treatment their kids would receive if they did!

derPhysik, if thorough knowledge of one's content area is not important, and students can learn on their own, what are any of us doing? Why don't we just go to Lord of the Flies and let them all teach themselves? Or is it only your content area that is valuable?

May I humbly suggest, that after the wonder and beauty that was No Child Left Behind, PE teachers are one of the LAST teachers teaching creative problem solving (kinesthetically, on a playing field) and not how to find a correct choice out of four given? I went back to school with the first generation of these kids and they couldn't think their way out of a paper bag. And those were middle American kids, NOT kids from the inner-city. Those who are teaching in a content area that they haven't figured out how to reduce to one single number arrived at by a scantron, they are the last ones, at least in the US, with any freedom left to challenge students to think for themselves. And THAT would be why I'd like back out. Four letters: NCLB.

PE teachers are one of the few working with kids without knowing what the outcome of the given task will be in advance. Add creative writing and art to that list, also areas that have received severe cuts because they couldn't be measured with a bubble test and therefore couldn't possibly have held any value. Incidentally, if you work with kids who have PE, you should thank your lucky stars someone is a.) willing to do that work and b.) runs out the kids' energy for you, so that they can focus in your class.

I'm sorry, but you did lose me arguing that some teachers deserve less than others because of their content area.

and I'm sorry, but when someone gets snippy and impatient regarding clarification for me to sign Anything, it's a BIG RED FLAG to me. The same with evasion regarding an answer they should have READILY at hand, ie, dates of payment. They don't know?

derPhysik, ALL your leverage is before you sign. Keep the faith. Good will happen.

ichiro, I could be way off on this, but... a school who didn't offer any shipping allowance? no settling in allowance? utterly nothing for relocation? I can see reasonable exceptions for this, for example the swiss schools that pay the big bucks saying, "we pay the big bucks." but... they are a rarity, not a rule. A school that thinks so little of its teachers as to have a policy of no allowance for bringing materials related to one's professional duties... do they REALLY care how professional their teachers are? or maybe they just don't care very much for their teachers. Either way, derPhysik, I don't think it was a loss for you to not go to this job. IMHO, a near miss can often be the best of all possible things.

I do think that in Western cultures, we don't really know the art of negotiation. My understanding of it, however, is that you absolutely never make an offer you don't intend to follow through on. I don't think you lost anything, not going to this school. (I mean the point is to do a job well, no? as a professional, treated as a professional, no? otherwise, what's the point? we can be treated badly at home and understand all the products in the grocery store.) What I've experienced of negotiation was a circling around and back to numbers, with flattery and conversation in between. But at no time would eitherparty have a number accepted and then try for more. That's it, you said you'd do y for x. With a worthwhile school, that I wouldn't try.

Having said all that, I'm with specialed on the idea that you don't want to come off as a "Bargainer" {gasp!} : } Please don't take the above as a recommendation to bargain like at a bazaar. I think all of this is pointing to the importance of having as much information you can going in. As much as people hate the placement agencies, they do give you an idea of the package on offer. I think you can reasonably debate placement on the salary scale if you don't agree with they way they've counted. But I don't think you can negotiate off the scale and have it go well in any event. And be afraid if they don't have a scale.

In any event, if the number is far from reasonable, they've told you what they think of you. The question is whether you'll accept them thinking of you that way. After you sign, you can be sure they'll be consistent and continue to treat you that way, well or poorly.

well, saturday got promised that there'd be a job for me by my principal, who said he cleared it with the superintendent, monday found out the other principal had promised it to someone else. My principal was talking about changing the entire schedule of the high school to accommodate being able to keep me, the other person who was promised the job is reportedly writing lesson plans already. I keep wondering if I'm going to be employed next year. I love those mornings when you wake up and find yourself in the center of a mine field...

Name and shame, candy cane? I'm very sorry to hear it.