Hi again,
Another question: my husband and I were just offered positions in a rural school outside of Guangzhou. It's a bilingual school with almost all Chinese students.
In our current district in California, many people have tattoos openly displayed and wear casual clothes like tee shirts and jeans to school. Hubby and I have tattoos on our arms.
Should I expect to cover these with long sleeves?
I will ask the school about dress expectations, but what's typical? Do teachers wear suits?
We would be living in a school community. Would we need to hide our tattoos all the time, even outside of work hours?
Thanks.

Hi all,
My husband and I have been offered jobs in Guangdong. My husband has chronic back ad neck pain from an old sports injury. He's prescribed Lyrica here in the states. How would he likely be treated in China? Would he continue to receive his prescription as before?

Psyguy, you know nothing about me or my family. It so happens that my mother is French and I have a large extended family in France. I've lived in Paris, and I know what I'm getting into. I am not a tourist.

I'm open to what you have to say, but making assumptions about me like that just tells me I can't rely on you to base what you say on actual knowledge and facts.

Am I the only one who feels like I should be holding up score cards?

;)

So, I'm still not sure which would be better for my husband and I. We do want to end up in Europe, preferably SE but we wouldn't argue with another part. So it sounds like I should be looking at which schools will be present at which fairs and trying to get us invited.

But since we're also interested in Central and South America, should I be saving up for UNI, too? I mean, at this point we'll be saving for a year, so we may be able to pull off saving enough for two fairs, I don't know.

IT is something we've both wanted to do for years, but this year was the first where we really tried (we sent out more than fifty applications through school websites, TIE and TeacherHorizons--also a couple through Schole and Uptick). We got four schools seemingly interested, of which one was very exciting for us. Of the four, only two actually interviewed us (though they all said they wanted to). And of the two that interviewed us, one said they definitely wanted a second interview and the other said they'd get back to us. The first never emailed again, and as we had our own doubts about them we haven't tried to get into contact. The last one was the one we were really excited about and they said they'd be in touch in two to five weeks... it's been four and a half... so, maybe? But it doesn't feel likely. It seems like if we were their first choice they'd have contacted us sooner.

So I am concerned that the way we went about it doesn't have a very encouraging success rate. We're both experienced teachers and are pretty flexible. As far as I know our references should be very good. Our biggest negative is that we have three kids. We know that will disqualify us for some posts. So next year we want to try to maximize our chances of finding positions that will suit us in a location that we feel good about.

@cms Yeah, we applied, but as we are a teaching couple and they only have the one position, no dice. I was disappointed!

@Psyguy and @ThamesPirate, thank you both.

We are experienced domestic teachers (8-9 years experience) but no IB. We're experienced and credentialed in several subjects, which lets us apply to more schools. Mr. Nutella wants to eventually teach IB history but he would teach other social studies subjects depending on what. I have an MA in history but I also am credentialed in English, drama (9 years experience), and French, and have experience teaching psychology. I got certified to teach AP psych but haven't had the opportunity to do so yet. So we are new to IT but we do have good references and such. Our end goal is southern Europe but we're looking all over before then (I'm the one who posted the question re: small children in Africa). I think if I could choose I'd pick a South American country to cut our teeth on (Uruguay, for instance) because we both have a little Spanish. Is UNI the best for South America?

I've been thinking we should register with Search. We're in the Pacific Northwest and saving up for a trip is going to be something of a challenge. Should we be aiming for Boston, then?

@shadowjack,
Thanks! I did TIE and TeacherHorizons this year and it's not looking like we're going to get any offers. I figure next year we will go with a big agency and a fair. It's going to be hard to save for the trip to the fair so I want to get an idea of which would give the biggest bang for our bucks.

Which fair is the best one for teachers new to IT?
Or just in general?

Hi everyone! OP here. Thank you for your responses. I really appreciate especially those that spoke about specific locations.

PsyGuy, South Africa is out for us as explained in the OP. I mean, if people disagree with what our family member told us, I'm open to that--I'm not going to base any decisions on what just one person says, as far as possible.

I personally have been interested in eastern Africa for some time and quite honestly didn't even consider the "safari" aspect. But I also do want the experience to overall be positive for the kiddos. So my priorities are a generally safe community (as safe as you find in most US cities, which isn't always extraordinarily safe, you know? But the kind of thing where if you know the spots to avoid, you're okay), and not too much risk of exposure to diseases you can't get vaccinated against, like malaria. We've ruled out Malaysia for that reason. It would be nice if in terms of hardship, it was a rare-ish occurrence. So based on that, would anyone be willing to revisit the lists of places already mentioned and narrow them down a little? Doesn't have to be eastern Africa at all.

joe30 wrote:
> Yes, if we're talking about sub-Saharan Africa.

Wow, that sounds pretty broad. It's a big place. There isn't a single city that would be okay for little kids?

joe30 wrote:
> It's abuse to subject children to Africa.

All of it?

:D

I had ruled out Africa for us (teaching couple with kids under 6) because I had read that many locations are not ideal due to the lack of good healthcare. Now I'm thinking I need to expand our search as so far we've only had two interviews. I don't personally have any objection to Africa, and at one time thought I'd go there for graduate studies (Rwanda specifically). So. What are the best places in Africa if you have small kids?

I should add that a family member lived in South Africa for a time and painted a negative picture of how racist it still is, so I'm thinking unless folks here disagree with her, South Africa is probably not for us. We are white but feel very strongly about racism.

These are all interesting points. Just the sorts of insights I was hoping for. Thank you all.

PsyGuy wrote:
> @Nutella
>
> Understand the person asking may only be office staff following
> instructions. If it is worth it to you write them and thank them for
> responding but you are uncomfortable providing them personally identifying
> documents at this stage of the application process and that you would be
> happy to do so as it becomes required for employment and visa purposes. Ask
> them what information from your passport they require, and that you are a
> Caucasian, X nationality, and Y is your age/birth date. If they insist
> beyond that, then you can decide if you want to provide them the passport
> scan, personally at that point I wouldnt.


Thank you, that sounds like the right approach for us right now. It doesn't look like this place will be the right fit anyway, unfortunately. I would have liked to make it work. Right now I'm trying to decide whether to even move forward, or just pull the plug.

PsyGuy wrote:
> @Nutella
>
> If air quality is going to be a primary importance to you than your going
> to have to exclude many urbanized parts of China. Many of the livable parts
> of China for westerners have air quality issues, though not nearly as bad
> as Beijing.

Yeah, that's what I'm realizing, which is disappointing because I've dreamt of seeing China for years. Maybe when the kids are older.