It really depends on your teaching areas, experience, and number of children. If you are in high demand areas (higher level maths and sciences) and only have two children or fewer, Bangkok would be good. If you are in lower demand areas (elementary, humanities) or have more than two children, you might want to wait and go to London. Be aware that many schools will only support one dependent per full time teacher. I don't think there is a pat answer to this question as there are so many variables to consider.

Perchersk School in Ukraine is pretty good. I've had some friends who worked there and really enjoyed it. Kyiv is a great city and the troubles in the East are not affecting daily life to any great extent in Kyiv, but who knows what the future will hold.

I'm contracted for 38 hours/week. With planning and grading, I'd say I put in about 7-10 hours/week beyond my contract time either in the mornings before school or on the weekends. Of course there are times when I put in 15-20 hours/week beyond my contract. I would guess I average 45-50 depending on the time of year.

When I was in my first year of teaching, I only had two preps and I put in 65-70 hours easy. Now I have four preps and I put in 45 hours. I think you learn to be more efficient with your time and figure out how to spend less time on other issues as you gain more experience. You learn to figure out what is a priority. I wouldn't base the workload on your first year of teaching, but give it some time and see if you can whittle that time commitment down. As other posters have said, it isn't sustainable.

Finally, I would say I spend more hours working at an international school than I did in my home system. There are more outside requirements and usually you have more preps.

I wouldn't spend the money on Search or ISS. If you plan on applying to schools that interest you, TIE is a cheap option that collates school postings. They don't have as many as Search, but it is much cheaper (I think $30).

The only place that I've heard of where it is a problem is China. Even then, I know someone who had Hep C and still worked there -- the school pulled some strings and got them in. I've worked in three different countries and none of them had Hep C restrictions, so there are plenty of options out there.

MedellinHeel wrote:
>
> I've never even heard of someone putting their student teaching on a resume.

As others have said, if you have no teaching experience of course you put your student teaching on your resume. With multiple jobs under my belt now, I don't include it anymore, but I did use it to get my first job. I'm curious to know what you did include on your resume before you had any full time teaching experience.

I think being able to get IB experience during student teaching would look good on a resume, but I don't think many quality schools would let a student teacher take over an IB DP class -- there is too much at stake for the kids to allow someone without experience both in teaching and IB to be in charge. If you are shooting for MYP, then you could probably find some good schools that would take you on for student teaching.

With this in mind, I think a reputable school whether IB or not, might be a better goal. You'd make some good contacts and these can make or break a new teacher -- knowing someone who can put a word in for you will help you get a foot in the door where you otherwise would be just a name in a stack of resumes.

I have friends in Kyiv, and they are fine. The two big international schools are open and operating normally. They closed for a few days at the height of the protests and killings at maidan, but are open now.

It is possible to be hired directly for Kyiv. One year saw thirty new teachers and only four were transfers. It depends on the year, but there are always new hires at Kyiv. The smaller Eastern European schools like Sarajevo and Bratislava rarely see anything but transfers. They will try to push Kazakhstan, but will give you Kyiv if it is available.

As for quality, I would say it is low. Previous posters are right that the salary isn't too bad when you factor in bonuses, but I think the quality of the education is quite poor. They hire non-certified teachers with no experience and sometimes even hire people without bachelors degrees. Their educational philosophy is outdated and very poorly and inconsistently applied. We left because there was no way I would allow my children to be educated in that system.

That being said, if you are looking for a first international position, you could do a lot worse. If you don't have middle or high school aged kids, it might be ok for them.

I haven't lived or worked in Kazakhstan, but some of my former co-workers had. They did not have wonderful things to say, but also didn't think it was the worst place in the world. The biggest complaint was the expense of traveling out of the country during the breaks.

Last year when we were on the job market, we got a cold call/email from the intellectual school asking us to interview -- basically offering us a job. I started to look into them and was not impressed with the information I found. If you do a search, there was an extensive thread on the conditions at the school. There was some good insight from current and past teachers. From what I remember from that thread, a lot of the promises were not kept and the conditions were not great. The salary looks really good, but doesn't allow for as much savings as you would think given the cost of living. Look for that thread to get information from actual teachers there.

Depending on the country, you can often times bring up to a year's worth of a prescription. I would look into it and if it is allowed, I'd bring an entire year's worth so you don't have to worry about shipping or having to go home at Christmas. I've lived in three different countries and two of them allowed a year's worth to be brought in at a time. The third had everything available, so it was unnecessary. Also, depending on your health insurance, you can get the year's worth covered. If the insurance covers your home country, you usually just have to ask your doctor to write it out on the prescription that you are moving overseas and need the prescription filled all at once and then the pharmacist puts the request into the insurance company.

@Dawson
You seem to be saying that being gay isn't illegal in the ME as long as it is not overt. While you are right, most countries don't make it illegal to have feelings of attraction to someone of the same sex as you, I think others are arguing about the legality of living a gay life. Most, if not all, ME countries make having any kind of gay physical relationship illegal. So, yes, you can have any feelings you want, but you can't act on them in the ME. This is what I think most people would classify as making being gay illegal.

Hi sk,

My advice would be to take it. The odds of another offer with all those benefits covered coming up are slim. Less desirable locations can be an adventure and pave the way for more desirable locations in the future. Good luck!

The OP has a degree in Political Science. If he gets his certification in social studies, he will have the same thing as me -- a bachelors in his subject area with state certification.

Someone would have to be familiar with how a specific state does certification to know if the OP went through an alternative route or if that state just certifies in a different way. Now, it seems like many people are doing the TeacherReady program through FL, so international schools might come to realize that a FL certification could very well mean an alternative route, but I doubt many do know this at this point in time.

The only time I've seen this is when the school doesn't provide any of the "extras". If they don't pay for your housing or flights for dependents, it doesn't really cost them anything extra (except maybe insurance). I have a friend in the same situation in Western Europe, but she doesn't receive the extras for the family and they use the state health insurance. Also, only one of their kids is school-aged. I am not sure how many kids could go to the school tuition free. Many schools limit it to the number of teachers working, so you might only get one kid at school free.

The only option to look at might be QSI. I've known them to hire a single teacher with three dependents. They will cover housing, flights, and tuition for all of your kids. Your spouse would be extra for health insurance and flights.