3rd tier schools
3rd tier schools
There seems to be a lot of late season activity for 3rd tier. aNY Thoughts on this?
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shadowjack
- Posts: 2140
- Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2012 9:49 am
This is when they come out. It is getting late in the season and teachers are getting desperate in a way they might not have been 3 months ago. Also, some teachers have made a late decision to leave the home country and go teach overseas. These newly naive international teachers are very appealing for the 3rd tier schools...
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higgsboson
- Posts: 150
- Joined: Mon Jun 14, 2010 1:13 am
3rd Tier schools have their charms.
First of all, they'll hire just about anybody, at any time and usually all you need is a degree. Once, I worked at 3 different 3rd tier schools in 3 different countries and in a period of 10 months. It was one of the most amazing years of my life.
Second, you don't have to do jack shit. Just showing up to class with work sheets is probably enough, and all those work sheets wind up in the trash anyway.
Third, if you look around, the money isn't so bad and that year I did 3 schools, 3 countries all in 10 months, I actually saved close to $10,000.
You could do far worse as teacher than land at a 3rd Tier school in some exotic foreign land. You could end up teaching at an inner city Chicago school for example.
First of all, they'll hire just about anybody, at any time and usually all you need is a degree. Once, I worked at 3 different 3rd tier schools in 3 different countries and in a period of 10 months. It was one of the most amazing years of my life.
Second, you don't have to do jack shit. Just showing up to class with work sheets is probably enough, and all those work sheets wind up in the trash anyway.
Third, if you look around, the money isn't so bad and that year I did 3 schools, 3 countries all in 10 months, I actually saved close to $10,000.
You could do far worse as teacher than land at a 3rd Tier school in some exotic foreign land. You could end up teaching at an inner city Chicago school for example.
I totally agree with higgsboson here. If you are a young international teacher who doesn't mind spending 1 - 2 years getting their " feet wet " in working / traveling at the same time in the international circuit, 3rd tier schools can be quite positive. In fact, many of these 3rd tier schools are better than any inner city school in major cities in North America. But of course, if you do plan to make international education teaching as your career for a very long time, 1 - 2 years in these types of schools is enough. After the 2nd year, it's time to move onto "better" schools. However, if you're quite happy and satisfied teaching at a 3rd tier school bc of the excitement of challenges and certain positive rewards that go with it, then stay.
I agree that this is when the lower tier schools come out. They know that they can't compete with better schools so there's little point in wasting the energy. However, a lot of lower end British schools do advertise on the Times Educational Supplement website very early, but that really is attempting to attract the "newbie" first time overseas teacher. They'll focus a lot on working in an exotic location and very little on academic rigor. But therein comes the benefit. If you are just looking to enjoy a couple of years somewhere exotic and then go home then why not enjoy a couple of ears easy work in a lower end school. The majority of students in lower tier schools will likely be locals, so you get to experience a little of the culture as well. As long as you get paid and get your holidays then why not? If you decide you like it and want to stay overseas longer then there's nothing stopping you. Additionally, if you were interested in going in to admin but not too well qualified then starting in a lower tier school might not be a bad idea.
It might not feel good to say to you friends "yeah, I work in a bottom end school", and it might be a bit embarrassing when you read about people slating the place, but everywhere serves a purpose. I worked in a low end school earlier in my career and had a great time. I learned a lot, had good fun cooworkers, and would go back again if they paid loads of cash. But they don't, and that's part of why they are lower tier.
It might not feel good to say to you friends "yeah, I work in a bottom end school", and it might be a bit embarrassing when you read about people slating the place, but everywhere serves a purpose. I worked in a low end school earlier in my career and had a great time. I learned a lot, had good fun cooworkers, and would go back again if they paid loads of cash. But they don't, and that's part of why they are lower tier.
I also have a few friends who currently work at 2nd tier or 3rd tier schools and they enjoy it well enough. Of course, the major complaint is salary or lack of certain benefits ( e.g. medical etc ), but housing is more often than not, provided, the locations are pretty amazing, the student & parent populations are small, friendly, highly supportive and there's a lot of adventure to be had. If the 3rd tier is truly a bad experience, at least, you can learn from it. Also, remember that bad experiences ( even godawful ones ) happen at any types of schools ( premier, 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc )...while the best ones can also happen at such schools.
Reply
This is the time the third tier school positions come out for generally 2 reasons: competition and availability. 1) This is when 3rd tier schools are most competitive. The 1st tier schools wrapped up recruiting in February, the 2nd tier schools then picked over the left overs and finished in late march/early april. Now the third tier schools can extend their time, resources and energy on the teachers that have fewer options and are more inclined to "settle" for whats out there.
2) Many of the 3rd tier schools are basically public schools or local schools and have a lot more regulation they have to follow about recruitment and personnel, this is about the time when they find out what their hiring needs are, so its when they start to hire.
I agree with higgsboson on his points in general. Many of the third tier schools are just EP schools with international in their name. The school is really just looking for a western face and an english speaker, and you can get away in a number of places with worksheets and showing videos.
In many of even the third tier schools, your going to find a better work environment then where you would in say an inner city school in Chicago or Los Angeles. In some places the, such as Japan for example the third tier schools are better then even the more affluent public schools in the west.
A couple other benefits:
1) Some teachers arent looking to build a career out of IT. They want to be basically a tourist teacher; live in a certain part of the world, where the job is just a means of funding the experience. Places like Japan and european countries along the Mediterranean (such as Spain and Italy). It doesnt make sense for them to spend years working their way up to a good school in one of these places, for them what matters is being there now. Third tier schools are a way of getting into these regions relatively quickly.
2) You not only can get away with the bare minimum in the classroom but your other duties that would bother a teacher and interfere with your non work time like meetings, conferences, extra curricular's, professional development, etc dont usually exist. Basically when your done or when your duty schedule is over you can go, and you can leave everything back at school, no taking your work home with you.
3) You dont have to care. The vast majority of your students really wont speak or understand english well enough to really engage you either in the classroom or outside the classroom. Parents wont be very proficient (most of the kids understand english better then their parents) either. Some of your classes may also be very large. As such your not going to have the opportunity to really get to know your students too well if you dont extend the effort, and no ones going to require that you do. Basically you can collect the money without feeling too guilty.
4) You have a lot of power. 3rd tier schools are always recruiting somewhere and at the end of the day you dont have to do anything that wont get you fired. If you get told to do a speech tournament on Saturday, or english corner after school, just dont show up. The school can tell someone else to do it, or they can fire you and thats really it. If it is something that would get you fired, you can always get another job at another 3rd tier school.
We would be reminisce if we didnt discuss some of the problems with tier 3 schools, in addition to the trend that horror stories are more common of tier 3 schools:
1) Admins tend to be horrible. Either they are very inexperienced and bound to make mistakes and errors, that will effect you, or these are the schools where monster admins go before they can retire. You cant count or expect leadership and support from a 3rd tier school. An admin may side with you or support you, but the moment your more work then your worth, thats when its going to end. This extends to the various support roles mainly human resources as well. You have to be able and willing to protect your interests by yourself.
2) Your coworkers are incompetent. Most 3rd tier schools hire a handful of western teachers and the rest of the school will be made up of locals. These teachers may have a subject degree (or F&F of ownership), but they are very unlikely to be professional educators. Of the handful of western teachers many of them will be inexperienced. If you have a decent resume you will likely become the unofficial trainer or mentor. You are likely to see one or two veteran teachers among the western OSH teachers as well. These are the people to watch out for, you dont end up at the bottom of the barrel in an IS with a decent resume for nothing. These are the teachers who couldnt pass a background check, for various reasons (recently a D.C. teacher was caught in Nicaragua on the run for child pornography. While there he worked in several schools as a "tutor"). of the local staff you will have veteran teachers who despite their years of experience make less then you as a newbie. Some of them will resent you for it.
3) You have no protections. Even though even in upper tier schools the feasibility of protecting your rights or enforcing your contract are very difficult and expensive to do, upper tier schools at least have a reputation to protect. 3rd tier schools have no such reputation, they dont care if they get trashed here or if you report them to an agency.
As such these schools really only have their finances to protect. Everything at the school is based on reimbursement, and as such reimbursements are usually late or their are waiting periods before your eligible for reimbursement.
4) You arent going to grow. From a third tier school you basically can move up to a 2nd tier school, but if your qualified and have a couple years of home experience you can usually start at a 2nd tier school somewhere to begin with. No recruiter is going to weigh heavily your experience at a 3rd tier school, considering most of them are EP schools or ELL schools. Your also very unlikely to get a decent reference, the rational being if your leaving you werent a good fit for the school anyway, and some admins will use a bad reference to keep people from leaving. Even so a good reference isnt going to count for very much.
Your not likely to get any real training or transferable experience. Even 3rd tier IB schools wont really train you. the rules require that someone in your subject group be trained and thats going to be a F&F or a long time teacher. Not someone on the revolving door path, and such schools will use training as an enticement to get you to stay longer.
5) The money sucks, and your more likely to get ripped off.
2) Many of the 3rd tier schools are basically public schools or local schools and have a lot more regulation they have to follow about recruitment and personnel, this is about the time when they find out what their hiring needs are, so its when they start to hire.
I agree with higgsboson on his points in general. Many of the third tier schools are just EP schools with international in their name. The school is really just looking for a western face and an english speaker, and you can get away in a number of places with worksheets and showing videos.
In many of even the third tier schools, your going to find a better work environment then where you would in say an inner city school in Chicago or Los Angeles. In some places the, such as Japan for example the third tier schools are better then even the more affluent public schools in the west.
A couple other benefits:
1) Some teachers arent looking to build a career out of IT. They want to be basically a tourist teacher; live in a certain part of the world, where the job is just a means of funding the experience. Places like Japan and european countries along the Mediterranean (such as Spain and Italy). It doesnt make sense for them to spend years working their way up to a good school in one of these places, for them what matters is being there now. Third tier schools are a way of getting into these regions relatively quickly.
2) You not only can get away with the bare minimum in the classroom but your other duties that would bother a teacher and interfere with your non work time like meetings, conferences, extra curricular's, professional development, etc dont usually exist. Basically when your done or when your duty schedule is over you can go, and you can leave everything back at school, no taking your work home with you.
3) You dont have to care. The vast majority of your students really wont speak or understand english well enough to really engage you either in the classroom or outside the classroom. Parents wont be very proficient (most of the kids understand english better then their parents) either. Some of your classes may also be very large. As such your not going to have the opportunity to really get to know your students too well if you dont extend the effort, and no ones going to require that you do. Basically you can collect the money without feeling too guilty.
4) You have a lot of power. 3rd tier schools are always recruiting somewhere and at the end of the day you dont have to do anything that wont get you fired. If you get told to do a speech tournament on Saturday, or english corner after school, just dont show up. The school can tell someone else to do it, or they can fire you and thats really it. If it is something that would get you fired, you can always get another job at another 3rd tier school.
We would be reminisce if we didnt discuss some of the problems with tier 3 schools, in addition to the trend that horror stories are more common of tier 3 schools:
1) Admins tend to be horrible. Either they are very inexperienced and bound to make mistakes and errors, that will effect you, or these are the schools where monster admins go before they can retire. You cant count or expect leadership and support from a 3rd tier school. An admin may side with you or support you, but the moment your more work then your worth, thats when its going to end. This extends to the various support roles mainly human resources as well. You have to be able and willing to protect your interests by yourself.
2) Your coworkers are incompetent. Most 3rd tier schools hire a handful of western teachers and the rest of the school will be made up of locals. These teachers may have a subject degree (or F&F of ownership), but they are very unlikely to be professional educators. Of the handful of western teachers many of them will be inexperienced. If you have a decent resume you will likely become the unofficial trainer or mentor. You are likely to see one or two veteran teachers among the western OSH teachers as well. These are the people to watch out for, you dont end up at the bottom of the barrel in an IS with a decent resume for nothing. These are the teachers who couldnt pass a background check, for various reasons (recently a D.C. teacher was caught in Nicaragua on the run for child pornography. While there he worked in several schools as a "tutor"). of the local staff you will have veteran teachers who despite their years of experience make less then you as a newbie. Some of them will resent you for it.
3) You have no protections. Even though even in upper tier schools the feasibility of protecting your rights or enforcing your contract are very difficult and expensive to do, upper tier schools at least have a reputation to protect. 3rd tier schools have no such reputation, they dont care if they get trashed here or if you report them to an agency.
As such these schools really only have their finances to protect. Everything at the school is based on reimbursement, and as such reimbursements are usually late or their are waiting periods before your eligible for reimbursement.
4) You arent going to grow. From a third tier school you basically can move up to a 2nd tier school, but if your qualified and have a couple years of home experience you can usually start at a 2nd tier school somewhere to begin with. No recruiter is going to weigh heavily your experience at a 3rd tier school, considering most of them are EP schools or ELL schools. Your also very unlikely to get a decent reference, the rational being if your leaving you werent a good fit for the school anyway, and some admins will use a bad reference to keep people from leaving. Even so a good reference isnt going to count for very much.
Your not likely to get any real training or transferable experience. Even 3rd tier IB schools wont really train you. the rules require that someone in your subject group be trained and thats going to be a F&F or a long time teacher. Not someone on the revolving door path, and such schools will use training as an enticement to get you to stay longer.
5) The money sucks, and your more likely to get ripped off.
The money is not an issue at certain crap schools.
Sometimes it is better to calculate your compensation per hour. Tier one schools will generally make you work hard for it, but it still looks ok. Tier 2, then that number will suck. Tier 3, it will either suck more, or be one of the best because of your light load and no extra crap.
A lot depends on how you use your flights, generally Aussies are screwed.
Sometimes it is better to calculate your compensation per hour. Tier one schools will generally make you work hard for it, but it still looks ok. Tier 2, then that number will suck. Tier 3, it will either suck more, or be one of the best because of your light load and no extra crap.
A lot depends on how you use your flights, generally Aussies are screwed.
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kuwaitikid
- Posts: 14
- Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2013 6:35 am