Hello,
I'm an American currently living and teaching at an IS in India. While I was here I met my lovely wife, and she transitioned from 6 years of corporate IT to teaching. First, I'll provide a brief rundown of our credentials, then I'd really appreciate it if anyone would be kind enough to answer the questions below.
Me: DP Language and Literature/ToK Teacher
- 5 years experience
- B.S. Literature and Communication, M.A. Teacher Leadership
- IB Examiner, Lang and Lit
- American license, ELA 5-12
Wife: MYP Design Technology/Tech Integrator
- 2 years experience
- B.A. Information Technology
- American license, Computer Science 7-12
Oh, and we have no dependents :).
I was just wondering:
- Do schools see couples with different passports as a problem? What about an Indian passport?
- How might we fair as a package in terms of our subject combination? I was hoping ToK might help me or the fact that she's flexible as a teacher or tech integrator would help her.
- Any other advice on how to market ourselves? I'd like to think that, as an interracial couple, we embody internationalism!
American and Indian Teaching Couple—Advice Please!
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Pointednorth
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2016 6:24 am
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eion_padraig
- Posts: 408
- Joined: Sat Dec 11, 2010 8:18 pm
Re: American and Indian Teaching Couple—Advice Please!
Whether a particular passport matters or not can come down to a country's policies for issuing work permits. Granted, you can deal with recruiters, owners of schools, or parents of students who are racist which can impact how likely your wife is to be hired. Certainly, the Middle East as a region has been problematic for people coming from South Asia.
I think a good thing to look at is whether a given school has hired other people from South Asia. It helps to network with people in other international schools and you can find out if a school has hired other people from South Asia. Do you keep in contact with former colleagues or have you met people through the IB examining?
Being flexible as a teacher so you can either teach English and ToK is certainly good. The schools I've been at have sometimes had experienced teachers start on ToK who were already working and the school, and other times they brought in people who had already taught ToK (and other subjects) to teach it. IB English experience is valuable along with being an examiner.
Without dependents, I think you have a decent shot of being hired by someone if you're flexible.
Good luck,
Elon
I think a good thing to look at is whether a given school has hired other people from South Asia. It helps to network with people in other international schools and you can find out if a school has hired other people from South Asia. Do you keep in contact with former colleagues or have you met people through the IB examining?
Being flexible as a teacher so you can either teach English and ToK is certainly good. The schools I've been at have sometimes had experienced teachers start on ToK who were already working and the school, and other times they brought in people who had already taught ToK (and other subjects) to teach it. IB English experience is valuable along with being an examiner.
Without dependents, I think you have a decent shot of being hired by someone if you're flexible.
Good luck,
Elon
Response
ISs see teaching couples with non-complimentary passports as a problem in that immigration sees them as a problem and can have vastly differing rules depending on the applicants passport.
An Indian passport is generally going to have more issues than a western passport.
TOK will absolutely help you with marketability at IB ISs, its not going to mean much at non-IB ISs. I dont see how you arrived at the conclusion your spouse if "flexible", they arent. they are an ICT/Design Tech IT. I dont really see her as a Tech Coach or Integrator not in an IS setting. They would have a stronger resume for Tech Director than an integrator, as Im sure your spouse has the technical background but smart people dont always work well in edu especially with ITs and not understanding how technology and education work or how ITs and technology work. Its a very different audience than that of a group of ICT engineers/scientists and professionals.
I think you have a relatively solid presentations s a IT couple, your strengths balance out your weaknesses.
I dont see how being a biracial couple has anything to do internationalism? IE tends to be very homogeneous on the white/Caucasian appearance. You are certainly going to encounter various level of racism in regards to your spouse depending on the region. ISs tend to give lips service when it comes to global internationalism, its something the IS says that sounds nice, but parents care about status and performance, and do the head bobble when it comes to global and international perspective. They dont really care, they just dont want to offend anyone.
An Indian passport is generally going to have more issues than a western passport.
TOK will absolutely help you with marketability at IB ISs, its not going to mean much at non-IB ISs. I dont see how you arrived at the conclusion your spouse if "flexible", they arent. they are an ICT/Design Tech IT. I dont really see her as a Tech Coach or Integrator not in an IS setting. They would have a stronger resume for Tech Director than an integrator, as Im sure your spouse has the technical background but smart people dont always work well in edu especially with ITs and not understanding how technology and education work or how ITs and technology work. Its a very different audience than that of a group of ICT engineers/scientists and professionals.
I think you have a relatively solid presentations s a IT couple, your strengths balance out your weaknesses.
I dont see how being a biracial couple has anything to do internationalism? IE tends to be very homogeneous on the white/Caucasian appearance. You are certainly going to encounter various level of racism in regards to your spouse depending on the region. ISs tend to give lips service when it comes to global internationalism, its something the IS says that sounds nice, but parents care about status and performance, and do the head bobble when it comes to global and international perspective. They dont really care, they just dont want to offend anyone.