I'm new to the international schools teaching scene and will be attending the San Francisco job fair in February. I've submitted my application materials at ISS, but am fairly clueless about the whole process of working the fair and signing up for interviews.
I'm a tenured English professor with four kids, so I'm not sure if I'm that hirable, to boot, and would imagine we'd have to buy tickets for some or all of the kids if someone picked me up.
Job Fair tips for n00bs.
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ISS is a lot more laid back then SA fairs, you could call it "casual".
Are you certified? I take it you have a trailing spouse and four kids?
Honestly, your going to end up very frustrated and disappointed with the ISS fair. Your way too expensive of a hire to fill an english classroom, and many recruiters are going to consider you a teacher tourist. You dont see many bottom tier schools that it wouldnt make a difference at, but the upper tier schools wouldnt consider you an investment worth having, sorry. If you have any hope of the EU youd starve with 4 kids and a trailing spouse.
Are you certified? I take it you have a trailing spouse and four kids?
Honestly, your going to end up very frustrated and disappointed with the ISS fair. Your way too expensive of a hire to fill an english classroom, and many recruiters are going to consider you a teacher tourist. You dont see many bottom tier schools that it wouldnt make a difference at, but the upper tier schools wouldnt consider you an investment worth having, sorry. If you have any hope of the EU youd starve with 4 kids and a trailing spouse.
Thanks for the help, I've located some useful threads. I'm fairly certain I can get up to a three year leave of absence from my institution, so I suppose that might still qualify me as a tourist. My spouse is in the middle of a Master's degree and has done a lot of work at writing centers. We would be fine with the Middle East, as well as the EU and Asia.
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jbiersteker
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shadowjack
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Craniac, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University is looking for English professors/lecturers
www.ksau-hs.edu.hs
Not a bad place to work and better than most universities in Saudi as an employer/workload/balance of life...
www.ksau-hs.edu.hs
Not a bad place to work and better than most universities in Saudi as an employer/workload/balance of life...
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shadowjack
- Posts: 2140
- Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2012 9:49 am
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@craniac
I got the feeling that since you avoided my question asking if you had a teaching certification, meant you didnt have one.
For a tenured professor the two years experience isnt as big an issue as the everything combined. No certification is usually a deal breaker for an IS, they cant get you a visa/permit.
If you wanted another agency id try SA their requirments are usually lower, and they have options to get you access to the database. You could market yourself as a curriculum coordinator or admin and your wife could approach them as an intern.
Your biggest problems though are:
1) No matter how you spin it your a teacher tourist. You KNOW your leaving in three years, and they know your going back, and the problem is they then have to ask "why" your doing this, and the assumption and rightly so in many cases is that you really just want to travel and instill some culture in the kids. To a recruiter that means your their for the travel experiences first and the teaching work second.
2) Your too expensive, 4 kids and a trailing spouse is a death sentence to fill one classroom. Even at QSI you wouldnt be at the top of their list (though id contact them). Your wife working on a masters, means she has a Bachelors and writing center experience equals tutoring, which counts for nothing. ISs dont usually have writing labs/centers, and that activity would be tutoring or at best learning resource (which she would need a librarian certificate or a SPED/ELL certificate).
3) I get the sense from your approach to this and many recruiters admins would feel the same way if you approached it the same that as a tenured professor you think your better then K-12 teachers? Be honest, you do just a little bit?
I know your doctorate qualifies you to lecture college students (and ill be the first to agree that having done both there is very little difference from a university freshman and a DIP2 student), but there is a reason why K-12 teachers have to have special training, education, and certification to teach, its as Harry Wong says (and I dont like Harry Wong) lecturing and teaching are not the same thing. Ill save you the long speech about the differences, but while its not rocket science they are different. Just comparing classroom management would be worlds apart for the two.
4) Already touched on this but your not qualified. You not only dont have a certification, or K-12 experience you dont have IB, IGCSE, AP, or any other curriculum experience either. Putting you in a classroom I would have to think all youd do is lecture from the textbook, and theres nothing wrong with that but its like hiring a repair person who only has one tool in their belt. What do you know about developmental and learning psychology? What about differentiation? What is your classroom management plan? What are your extrinsic and intrinsic motivation schemes? Any recruiter is going to have a WHOLE lot of other concerns and questions, that having a doctorate just doesnt prepare you to answer.
I got the feeling that since you avoided my question asking if you had a teaching certification, meant you didnt have one.
For a tenured professor the two years experience isnt as big an issue as the everything combined. No certification is usually a deal breaker for an IS, they cant get you a visa/permit.
If you wanted another agency id try SA their requirments are usually lower, and they have options to get you access to the database. You could market yourself as a curriculum coordinator or admin and your wife could approach them as an intern.
Your biggest problems though are:
1) No matter how you spin it your a teacher tourist. You KNOW your leaving in three years, and they know your going back, and the problem is they then have to ask "why" your doing this, and the assumption and rightly so in many cases is that you really just want to travel and instill some culture in the kids. To a recruiter that means your their for the travel experiences first and the teaching work second.
2) Your too expensive, 4 kids and a trailing spouse is a death sentence to fill one classroom. Even at QSI you wouldnt be at the top of their list (though id contact them). Your wife working on a masters, means she has a Bachelors and writing center experience equals tutoring, which counts for nothing. ISs dont usually have writing labs/centers, and that activity would be tutoring or at best learning resource (which she would need a librarian certificate or a SPED/ELL certificate).
3) I get the sense from your approach to this and many recruiters admins would feel the same way if you approached it the same that as a tenured professor you think your better then K-12 teachers? Be honest, you do just a little bit?
I know your doctorate qualifies you to lecture college students (and ill be the first to agree that having done both there is very little difference from a university freshman and a DIP2 student), but there is a reason why K-12 teachers have to have special training, education, and certification to teach, its as Harry Wong says (and I dont like Harry Wong) lecturing and teaching are not the same thing. Ill save you the long speech about the differences, but while its not rocket science they are different. Just comparing classroom management would be worlds apart for the two.
4) Already touched on this but your not qualified. You not only dont have a certification, or K-12 experience you dont have IB, IGCSE, AP, or any other curriculum experience either. Putting you in a classroom I would have to think all youd do is lecture from the textbook, and theres nothing wrong with that but its like hiring a repair person who only has one tool in their belt. What do you know about developmental and learning psychology? What about differentiation? What is your classroom management plan? What are your extrinsic and intrinsic motivation schemes? Any recruiter is going to have a WHOLE lot of other concerns and questions, that having a doctorate just doesnt prepare you to answer.
Thanks for the suggestions. One of my email addresses is recumbents@gmail.com
I think I did a poor job of researching the market and need to either try to find the rare combination of someone who is desperate enough to forego the certification and can afford to fly us out there, which is probably unlikely.
We're just looking to go overseas for a year or three. I'll revisit the collegiate jobs as well.
Note: My wife is pretty flexible, and she is the one pushing the hardest to go overseas, but she is not excited about the limitations put on women in Saudi Arabia, especially not being able to drive.
I agree about their being differences with classroom management, etc. although I would say that Rhetcomp is a little closer than, say, a straight English lit degree. I rarely lecture. I have friends who teach at a local private school, and I find their work pretty impressive. At one of our local, private schools, only one of the doctorates teaching high school students has a certification, and they're somewhat frowned upon, apparently.
I think I did a poor job of researching the market and need to either try to find the rare combination of someone who is desperate enough to forego the certification and can afford to fly us out there, which is probably unlikely.
We're just looking to go overseas for a year or three. I'll revisit the collegiate jobs as well.
Note: My wife is pretty flexible, and she is the one pushing the hardest to go overseas, but she is not excited about the limitations put on women in Saudi Arabia, especially not being able to drive.
I agree about their being differences with classroom management, etc. although I would say that Rhetcomp is a little closer than, say, a straight English lit degree. I rarely lecture. I have friends who teach at a local private school, and I find their work pretty impressive. At one of our local, private schools, only one of the doctorates teaching high school students has a certification, and they're somewhat frowned upon, apparently.
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Yeah the "we just want to go overseas for a couple years", isnt an attractive selling point to an admin. You might get lucky with a school in the ME, but if the wife doesnt want to go their then it starts off as the nightmare trip, why go somewhere you dont want to be?
Looking at a university is your best option, and Id start with your home campus, im sure they have exchange programs and sister schools that would be a good start. Most schools colleges have programs in Europe or Asia (Japan mostly, though Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, etc are possible though less common), start there you could be the next groups faculty sponsor.
Im sure you really lecture, and you utilize a lot of project work and group discussion, but lets set our egos aside, its not anywhere near the same thing (though honestly at DIP2 i think students need more lecturing, as they seldom have the stamina coming out of IB to sit through long lectures).
Looking at a university is your best option, and Id start with your home campus, im sure they have exchange programs and sister schools that would be a good start. Most schools colleges have programs in Europe or Asia (Japan mostly, though Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, etc are possible though less common), start there you could be the next groups faculty sponsor.
Im sure you really lecture, and you utilize a lot of project work and group discussion, but lets set our egos aside, its not anywhere near the same thing (though honestly at DIP2 i think students need more lecturing, as they seldom have the stamina coming out of IB to sit through long lectures).
Ok, so I feel like a real parasite and carpetbagger, so let me give you some background--
We originally ran into a couple with multiple kids and a "trailing spouse" who had spent a couple of years in a middle eastern country teaching English to students transitioning to college. So we started out trying to land a gig there, but recent changes resulted in an enrollment drop so that dried up. The same source suggested hitting a job fair, and I conveniently didn't see the certification prerequisites, so then I began blundering around the forums and tacitly insulting everyone without understanding the lay of the land.
So thanks for the helpful advice and I'll focus on the university scene and quit making clumsy, unqualified attempts to poach jobs I'm not qualified for.
We originally ran into a couple with multiple kids and a "trailing spouse" who had spent a couple of years in a middle eastern country teaching English to students transitioning to college. So we started out trying to land a gig there, but recent changes resulted in an enrollment drop so that dried up. The same source suggested hitting a job fair, and I conveniently didn't see the certification prerequisites, so then I began blundering around the forums and tacitly insulting everyone without understanding the lay of the land.
So thanks for the helpful advice and I'll focus on the university scene and quit making clumsy, unqualified attempts to poach jobs I'm not qualified for.