One final point I'd like to make, is sacrificing the now for the future often leads to simply rolling forward your goals an extra few years, and never being truly happy.

I've mentioned this across the internet, but delayed gratification is a very bad western ideal. It goes like this: you don't like school, but are told you need to grind out those good grades to go to a good uni. Then you've got no money at uni, course deadlines etc, and are told you need to get over this stage to land a good job. Then you get the good job, but of course you're bottom of the ladder, but are told by society you need to 'pay your dues', and it'll be fine once you get a promotion or two. Then you get the promotions, and sure you have a bit more money, but you've also now got a lot more stress and work hours. But then society says 'well you made it this far, just imagine how great it'll be when you can finally retire after years of paying into your huge pension'. The end result? Many people with this mindset go through their whole lives not being happy, and only really start enjoying life once their best years are behind them.

You can see this in the posts of those who advocate the 'be miserable and stay at home' school of thought - that one day it 'might' lead to something better.

My view is you should always prioritise today over tommorow unless the payoff is truly massive (and 2 years in a DS over an IS, sorry, but the average payoff is small, maybe even nonexistant). By doing this, you're always ensuring you're happy and fulfilled as you're going through life. If nothing else, that 'tommorow' you're dreaming of might never arrive.

That's why I'd take a $30,000 job in Thailand over a $50,000+accom one in the ME. That's why I never ever work long hours in a job (got fired for this one once, don't care at all). That's why I think you should always take that nice vacation during the summer term over stuffing more money into your bank account. That's why I'd never go to some African country just to get 'IB experience'.

I'm telling you this because I was once a guy who always thought about the next 'goal' rather than the here and now. All it leads to is a miserable life. Yes, there's times that one has to grind something out for a big payoff down the road - like I'm doing for my PGCE now - but those times are a lot less frequent than many believe. 95% of the time your choice should be based on what makes you happy today - things have a habit of falling into place in the end if you're happy in what you're doing.

So basically, we've established that NQT's generally get the crap schools, whether at home or abroad. That makes sense.

So...given it's accepted the school is probably going to suck anyway, why would a rational agent not choose the one with the better pay and the more desirable location? And yes, 'more desirable' is a subjective measure, but if you're reading this board chances are there's something about your home country that you don't like.

I've not been convinced at all as to why I should give up double the pay and a nicer location for the 'joys' of working a 60 hour week teaching in the UK.

Why exactly does 2 years in a crap DS look better on your CV than 2 years at a crap IS anyway? I'm not convinced it even matters at all. At least with an IS you tick the 'working abroad' box.

Finally, it's not like having 2 years post-qualification experience ANYWHERE is going to make the tier 1 schools in nice regions all that interested. The teacher who works for 2 years in their home country probably isn't getting a job at ISB their first time on the circuit. They might get a second tier school but the guy who jumps ship to an IS immediately also has the chance of that in his next contract.

When I was interviewing, I basically used my ESL experience to say 'I've got experience living overseas and so you know I'm not going to be running back to the UK as soon as something goes wrong'.

All the actual 'teaching' questions I was asked I drew on my experience while on PGCE school placement, figuring the recruiter isn't going to be all that interested that I stood up in front of a bunch of local 7 year olds, played some games and let them watch some movies in English.

@PsyGuy

2 years in the UK isn't some magic bullet to make it to the elite tier. I'm skeptical that it has any additional value over 2 years in a random third tier IS to begin with, but even if so it's not like you're breaking into Bangkok Patana just because you did 2 years in a DS (it's possible, but would require the IT to have better luck than the average).

I'd go for the guarantee of double the money NOW, over some vague 'well you might get into a better paying school in 2 years time'. That's to say nothing of how life in the UK compares to elsewhere, which IMO is extremely unfavourably.

Certainly some good information in this thread for IT's who fancy making a bit more money. Think it should really be part of the research an IT does when deciding on a new country.

Anyone who screws a bank over is more likely to get me buying them a beer rather than judging them negatively. The banks hosed the people in 2008, so it's only right and just that they get shafted at any opportunity possible in return. Never forget.

Do statues of limitations exist in the Asia/Eastern Europe/Latin America regions? I know in the UK if you don't pay anything for 6 years and they don't get a court judgement, the debt is wiped.

Let's assume this hypothetical IT is never going to go to the ME.

Anything stopping them from doing a runner? Credit cards still easy to get outside the ME?

A bit of online research suggests you can get quite a fair bit of credit in SG and HK. If our hypothetical IT found themselves in one of those countries, they could earn themselves a nice little end of contract bonus, no?

OK, let's assume our IT is not and never will be working in the ME (and so there are no 'final exit' visas, you can just leave whenever you want).

Seems like potentially a nice way to get a little summer bonus every few years - if there's places outside the ME that issue credit cards to foreigners. All hypothetical of course...

So, I've been pondering this for a bit...

Let's say you get an international school job. Will most countries banks offer credit cards to IT's?

If the answer to the first question is yes, is there anything to stop this IT from maxing out the card a few weeks before their contract ends?

Said IT wouldn't care much about their credit rating getting trashed in the host country since well, they're moving to a new place anyway. I would imagine most card companies are just going to write off the loss once they figure out the IT has moved abroad and left no forwarding address.

Any downsides to this? All hypothetically speaking, of course...

I'm generally against the idea of performance based based because I don't like to do much work.

Probably the first time I've agreed with Thames Pirate.

My position on this is pretty straightforward: I go to work to get money. If there's places that are paying twice as much in total comp in nice locations, it's a real straightforward choice to go there rather than sit at home earning peanuts.

Couldn't really give a damn about which option makes me a 'better teacher' since I don't do work to change the world, I do it for the cash like most other people.

After taxes, a UK NQT with a student loan (90%+ of teachers) will take home $22,400. Derisory. Insulting. Wouldn't get out of bed for it, let alone for a job that requires working 55-60 hours a week like in the UK.

It sounds like the situation is significantly better for US teachers than UK ones.

For UK teachers specifically, I don't think it's sustainable that it's better to do 2 years domestic teaching first. Salary, work-life balance, prep time...all lower in a UK school than the vast majority of IS's.

Ease of avoiding a bad mentor depends on the school. Certainly in your PGCE year there's no avoiding them at all, as they're likely the class teacher, and so you'll be spending several hours with them each day. It's better on the NQT year since you wouldn't be interacting with them as much, but a toxic workplace environment ruins any sort of job. Likely in a large school they'd be easier to avoid. If you're in some small village school with 100 kids in the whole place...yeah, good luck...

While employers often do have special snowflake syndrome (hence all the 'why do you want to work for this school' questions when 99% of the time the answer is either money or location) there's not a recruiter out there who is stupid enough to think you've only applied to his school and will be waiting to see the outcome of that before applying to any others.

Personally I'd keep hunting right up until the very end, unless I'd found my absolute number 1 dream job (in which case, there'd be no point searching further).

I've signed a contract now, and I'm happy enough with the location and salary. But let's say next week ISB Bangkok call and offer me a job (yeah yeah, stop the laughter, it's just an example) then you can damn well bet I'll be dropping the first school like a hot brick. Contracts mean nothing next to your quality of life, and I would not turn down a dream job in a dream location just because of a sense of 'ethics'.

> Yes, PD sucks, and theres nothing wrong with being lazy.

Amen to that.