Thoughts please
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Chicagogirl
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Sun Jan 19, 2014 1:13 am
Thoughts please
Hi all, am wanting to hear your thoughts on taking a position at a for profit chain school in Abu Dhabi or a school in Moscow. It’s really important that I have a work life balance (not into working very long hours) and strong leadership. Other concerns I have are the extreme weather in both places. I am American so my thoughts on Russia are a bit biased.
Re: Thoughts please
the moscow school is better in all areas except for perhaps the long hours you don't want.
weather in abu dhabi from nov. to march is great. in moscow, the winters are long and dark.
as for the US-RUS relationship, it seems like it has never been better?!! anyone? anyone? mueller? mueller - i mean bueller? my condolences.
what is written on the paid side is pretty accurate, not sure if you're the one who posted it or not...
best of luck!
v.
weather in abu dhabi from nov. to march is great. in moscow, the winters are long and dark.
as for the US-RUS relationship, it seems like it has never been better?!! anyone? anyone? mueller? mueller - i mean bueller? my condolences.
what is written on the paid side is pretty accurate, not sure if you're the one who posted it or not...
best of luck!
v.
Response
Both of them have severe weather, which do you prefer hot or cold? The work life balance will be about the same, just different types of tasking and different time allocations. Youll have a lot more to do with the time you have in Moscow than you will in Abu Dhabi (unless shopping is your thing).
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Chicagogirl
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Sun Jan 19, 2014 1:13 am
Re: Thoughts please
@PsyGuy I keep reading that at the school in Moscow you work really hard, but people do not go into detail. So Im trying to figure out what they are referring to. Do they make you stay late, are you working weekends, are you continuously putting on events? If you or someone else knows can you please elaborate.
Reply
@Chicagogirl
You can break an IE tasking into three categories (P3); Performance, Preparation, and Production (theres actually a fourth, but its not all that relevant). Performance is the easiest to understand its the sage on stage, your presentation, your front of the room student eyeballs on you tasking. Preparation is all the tasks you do that heavily include the creativity component of thinking about 'stuff' (technical term). Production is all the making 'stuff' from writing exams and reports to marking/grading work, etc.
At the Moscow IS your doing a lot more higher level work in those tasks, but its not a lot. Its not like a long checklist of tasks its you have these vague ambiguous objectives that as you think about breaking down starts to look like a lot of work, you can see the journey your going to want to take to get to the objective you want and it looks like a long trip without a lot of guidance along the way. They dont make you stay late, you just have these high expectations and have to get X work done, and it often means working outside your contract hours to do it to the satisfaction thats going to be acceptable. The Moscow IS just isnt going to let you phone it in.
At the Abu Dhabi IS its low level work, but theres a lot of it, and a lot more of it is going to seem like 'busy work', where youre saying to yourself, ""this is stupid and a waste of my time, and Im spending more time marking/grading than the students spent in writing it.""
Some ITs would rather just put earbuds in, get coffee and grind out the work with their brain half on autopilot. Some ITs would rather be awake at night thinking through something that in the grand scheme of things is not anywhere near curing cancer, all for a side comment of good work, and moving on.
Do you want to be the big fish in a little pond of other big fish and compete on that level and all the stresses that come with it, but getting to be a big fish, go too Moscow. If you want to be a little fish in a big pond with a bunch of other little fish, and do the routine fish thing youd do anywhere over and over, go too Abu Dhabi.
You can break an IE tasking into three categories (P3); Performance, Preparation, and Production (theres actually a fourth, but its not all that relevant). Performance is the easiest to understand its the sage on stage, your presentation, your front of the room student eyeballs on you tasking. Preparation is all the tasks you do that heavily include the creativity component of thinking about 'stuff' (technical term). Production is all the making 'stuff' from writing exams and reports to marking/grading work, etc.
At the Moscow IS your doing a lot more higher level work in those tasks, but its not a lot. Its not like a long checklist of tasks its you have these vague ambiguous objectives that as you think about breaking down starts to look like a lot of work, you can see the journey your going to want to take to get to the objective you want and it looks like a long trip without a lot of guidance along the way. They dont make you stay late, you just have these high expectations and have to get X work done, and it often means working outside your contract hours to do it to the satisfaction thats going to be acceptable. The Moscow IS just isnt going to let you phone it in.
At the Abu Dhabi IS its low level work, but theres a lot of it, and a lot more of it is going to seem like 'busy work', where youre saying to yourself, ""this is stupid and a waste of my time, and Im spending more time marking/grading than the students spent in writing it.""
Some ITs would rather just put earbuds in, get coffee and grind out the work with their brain half on autopilot. Some ITs would rather be awake at night thinking through something that in the grand scheme of things is not anywhere near curing cancer, all for a side comment of good work, and moving on.
Do you want to be the big fish in a little pond of other big fish and compete on that level and all the stresses that come with it, but getting to be a big fish, go too Moscow. If you want to be a little fish in a big pond with a bunch of other little fish, and do the routine fish thing youd do anywhere over and over, go too Abu Dhabi.
Re: Thoughts please
I seem to be missing something.
Moscow has multiple international schools.
Abu Dhabi has more than one for-profit chain.
Yet this thread seems to speak as if we all know exactly which school.
Hmmm...
Moscow has multiple international schools.
Abu Dhabi has more than one for-profit chain.
Yet this thread seems to speak as if we all know exactly which school.
Hmmm...
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Chicagogirl
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Sun Jan 19, 2014 1:13 am
Re: Thoughts please
@PsyGuy thanks, along the lines of what I was thinking but didn’t want to assume.
Re: Thoughts please
I've never worked in Abu Dhabi but I have worked in for-profit schools. My personal experience is that if you are willing to keep your head down and disconnect from caring about the school in general you can get by okay. Any time you try to make things better on a policy level you will meet a brick wall. If you don't mind just doing your thing and going with the flow, it's tolerable (assuming there are other reasons to work at that school or live in that region).