I know that some schools will pay for you to be certified, but it seems like it's becoming less common and I would like to make myself more marketable by costing the school less money. Plus I'm genuinely interested in IB. So with that said, I'm a little confused about what the best option is.

Do I do an IB educators certificate through a University?

http://www.ibo.org/professional-develop ... tificates/

OR

Do I take part in one of the workshops offered by the IB?

http://www.ibo.org/professional-develop ... -teachers/

For those of you who took IB certification before going to an IB school, how did you do it?

One question about leadership. Is a Masters in Education essential to being in leadership?

I've got a Masters in my subject area, and I was wondering if that would be just as suitable.

@sitka I know that's why Standardized testing exists in general (regardless of the curriculum). I was wondering about the IB specifically.

@PsyGuy I think the optionality of IB is the key here. It's just an anomaly because the IB always seems to have the reputation of being progressive.

PsyGuy wrote:
> Yes the UK pension program is pretty bad, its not anywhere near generous.
>
> There was a topic in another forum that we did the math on for Switzerland,
> at $100K salary and only 10 years your looking at a pension of $1500/month,
> and you can find similar in several NE regions.
>
> Its not mediocre in some regions (well its mediocre, but its livable), and
> as I discussed in that previous post, there is a lot more to a pension than
> the coin, its medical care, housing assistance and other social insurance
> programs. Those benefits arent available elsewhere, Asia isnt going to take
> care of you. If youre at an elite IS you have the salary, and some fast
> savings potential, and when your hitting the end of your career you want to
> maximize your savings and that means somewhere where you can get a pension
> and not go bankrupt when you find out you have cancer, or need a new hip
> replacement, and thats those EU regions that have the really high taxes.

This thread only seems to be relevant to a few teachers, specifically those from the US. In many other western countries (at least Canada, Australia and the UK for sure) there is a solid pension system that provides solid healthcare (if lacking coin). I would think teachers from those countries can just save lots of money abroad in China or the Middle East and then retire in their home country. It doesn't really seem like it's necessary to go to Europe for a pension.

It seems there has been an attack on standardized testing in education. Not by government, but by most education experts. Yet the IB has standardized testing as well, and has been celebrated by most education experts as being student-centred and holistic. How has the IB been able to avoid that criticism for having standardized tests?

Not really trying to argue the merits of the system. I'm just curious about what makes the IB exams different from other standardized tests.

I don't really have a lot to say here except, am I the only one that has had an easier time landing expats wherever I am rather than locals? I teach in Asia now and I've always found it easier connecting with expats than with locals (believe me I've tried).

First school gave options of either booking ourselves or they can book it for us. However, the money they gave for that is nowhere near enough to do anything creative with booking (fun stopovers in places I haven't been to before).

Second school let us book ourselves and I'm given enough money that I could pay for my own flight to and from the country and a vacation in between.

sid wrote:
> Thanks lastname. How many, and what qualifies as a day?
>
> If memory serves, the 180 day thing is related to the Carnegie Unit, but I
> don't remember how. Probably all ties back to agrarian practices, as Dredge
> says.

I'm not sure how many days are needed to be honest, but I do know that PD and Exam periods do qualify as days. It's not just exam periods.

The British Columbia (Canadian) Curriculum requires a certain amount of days to be able to accredit schools.

Haha fair enough. I guess I'm too naive/idealistic about what leadership is. I always envisioned the best leadership as being the one that focuses on bureaucracy/paperwork and keeping parents happy so that teachers can focus on teaching. I also probably hadn't worded my post well. I guess I have an issue when admin have made meetings for things that could have been emails or vice versa.

Either way it looks like it's just something I'll have to expect when I start to move up the teaching ladder and just cope with it (which I'm okay with).

It's not the in-class teaching I have an issue with (in response to your examples PsyGuy). That's not what I mean by workload issues. It's more out-of-class responsibilities that bother me like several emails, meetings on meetings. Stuff like that. Things that admin say are supposed to help teaching, but seem to interfere with my ability to do the best job I can in the classroom.

I started thinking about this issue recently. In my experience (which I whole-heartedly admit is limited), every school that has had a positive reputation seems to overwork its teachers and is usually very organized/efficient, almost machine like. Lots of extra responsibilities are added on to teachers as well (in the form of meetings, reports to fill out, many emails to keep track of, etc.) in this environment.

I'm at the beginning of my IT (and teaching) career and I've traditionally enjoyed a more laid-back/relaxed structure in schools (based on my practicum and current school experience). I'm wondering if this is something I'll have to get over if I ever want to move up in my IT career (and I do). Or are there high-level (Tier 1?) schools that also have a laid-back approach and they don't micromanage their teachers or add unnecessary pressure?

I'm aware this could kind of be a tough question to answer because it depends on one's personal view of different schools and about teaching in general. However, I hope we can all be civil?

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Moderator Comments: We have locked this topic as it is leading to evaluations of schools. This a question that belongs on the Member Forum - not the Open Forum as in accordance with forum guidelines.

@resigio:

I haven't taught either AP or IB yet (I'm just not at that level in my IT experience yet), but I don't see how building teacher-student relationships is the responsibility of curriculum. That's one of the main (and depending on the school you're at, one of the few) responsibilities of a teacher.

For China you can use Baidu Translate. It works just like Google Translate and so far it has been just as good for me. And it works in China.

Besides the Middle East, China is a another option.