Best Strategy?

[PsyGuy]

Teachers move around a lot, at least until they get to the first tier and are in their dream position.

Singles arent the preferred choice, couples without kids are.

The typical bar to entry is 2 years for an IT, people enter sooner but its not the norm, and you dont have those two years of POST CERTIFICATION experience.

Kids = Cost. Thats the rule, Schools arent anti-family, they are anti cost. Most schools give FULL tuition waivers, not discounts though that explains your "housing allowance" the school is giving you X allowance and your giving them back X tuition. Its all the same pool of money.

Your a marketing professional so lets look at some cost outlays (Visa and Document costs were omitted either they are trivial or insignificant):

Single Teacher:

Airfare $2000 RT (Average)
Documentation $200
Insurance $600/month*, 6000/yr+
Tuition Waiver $0
Housing $800/month (Average), 8000/yr

*(Even in WE countries with socialized medical systems, the employer pays a portion of the contributions that are assessed as taxes)
+ Assuming a 10 month contract, thats non annualized. Makes the math easier.

Cost per Teacher = $16,200

Teaching Couple:

Airfare $4000
Documentation $400
Insurance $900 (Couples pay less as a group when added to the policy), $9000
Tuition Waiver $0
Housing $1200 (Most schools give a 50% increase over the single, some schools give them the same housing), $12,000

Cost Per Teacher = $12,700

Teaching Couple with 4 Kids (You):

Airfare $12,000
Documentation $1,200
Insurance $1,700 (Couple rate and 1/3 the single rate per child =$200), $17,000
Tuition Waiver $30,000 (You have 4 kids but only 3 are school aged, average value of a tuition waiver is $10,000)
Housing $1500 (You have 4 kids plus you is 5 rooms, but you say you can use a 3 bedroom, and this is the Average in Germany), $15,000

Cost Per Teacher = $37,600


You cant look at those numbers and conclude thats kids dont have a cost, and they add nothing to the school value. You can argue that their are more white faces, and school do like that, but at that cost they can hire (and several do) child actors for their publications. They dont have a problem with the kids. 4 kids spread between 4 families staffs 4 classrooms at least and if their teaching couples it staffs 8 classrooms.
Good schools or heavily regulated labor environments wont let you undercut the contract. Teachers dont "bid" on contracts where the lowest contractor gets the job. Unions and labor ministries wont let you do that, or the schools reputation and standards of conduct wont permit that.

Lastly, you dont respect this profession. Its probably why you home schooled your own children these last 5 years. You think teachers are at some point underachievers, who teach because they couldnt cut it in their respective fields. The art teacher who couldnt become an artist, the P.E. teacher who never got a shot as a professional player. The English teacher who never wrote that great novel. The history teacher who never got into politics. You think teachers and teaching is little more then retial sales or fast food, a little training to get legal and then anyone can do it. Which is why you think you can get a certification and walk center stage and that the top schools in the world will bow down and be grateful that they should be getting a real academic, your professor husband in their classroom, since a professor is so over qualified to teach high school students. You thought your kids teachers were idiots and you of course could do better, and over the last 5 years you have, so if you can do it for them without a certification, or CLASSROOM experience, of course you can walk into a school and teach. Were not curing cancer, or making billion dollar business deals or marketing campaigns, were just babysitting kids so their kids can go to work.

[grdwdgrrrl]

May I say my two cents?

Psyguy is not gentle, but he's totally right.

We came across to Shanghai with one kid one Math teaching spouse and one non teacher. We were lucky, my spouse was a newly qualified teacher with a non teaching spouse and a kid, and we got a job. Why? Because we'd lived there before and the head was having difficulty keeping staff in Shanghai. We sold ourselves as old China hands.

Clock forward 8 years and two more kids and experience in IB and teaching at a tier1 school in another city in China with the other spouse getting a job too.

Then we were looking to move back to Shanghai or at least stay in China. After many interviews where we were told outright that with three kids in primary, we were not ideal.

So, I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. China is still a more difficult post than others but schools don't like to give away spaces and still need to make money.

Also, from experience, having smaller kids makes it difficult for working. One kid had to stay home for 3 weeks with an infection and if I hadn't been living in a country with very cheap domestic help, I would have been stuck. With no family around to lean on, you need some kind of backup.

[grdwdgrrrl]

I also must add, that I had colleagues who had been at the same school for over 8 years, who had grown their family to over two kids who were told that their contracts wouldn't be renewed because they didn't want to make space for them in primary. That is colleagues, plural.

If you look, many schools have a limit on free spaces for teachers' children, and then you have to pay.

[matt]

I've been reading this post with intrigue and usually am just a "lurker" but I must say to PsyGuy, you are ballsy and brutally honest. Your last reply was highly entertaining. Thank you for that. Don't go changing on us!

[btech]

All hope is not lost! I like PsyGuy's advice right here;

"Look into DoDDS, QSI, Aramco, they dont care about housing, but your (sic) not going to get into WE (Italy). "

These are not bad options!!

[seinfeld]

You need to pay attention to everything Psyguy is saying. I have friends who have 2 kids who find it extremely hard to find jobs in the "circuit". And they're qualified! Tax in Germany is 47% (I worked there), I don't know what it is in other WE countries but I'm sure it's similar.

The likelihood of you getting hired in WE is 0-5%. That's optimistic.

As Psyguy said "Look into DoDDS, QSI, Aramco, they dont care about housing, but your (sic) not going to get into WE (Italy)."

[PsyGuy]

Clarification:

You would actually find DoDDS difficult to enter at this stage, as you need 9/18 hours of professional education academic work, and the Minnesota Doctoral certification path doesnt award that credit, nor does an ACP program such as Teach-Ready. If you did get certified you would only need 9 hours of professional education coursework. Thats a far easier challenge to overcome then the four kids though.