Page 1 of 1

Stay or go--how do you make a decision?

Posted: Sun Sep 29, 2019 8:47 am
by readmore2
It's come time to let my school know if I'm staying next year. How do you balance personal and professional needs? Personally, our family would rather stay in our current country. We love the culture and our friends here; my son loves it and has lots of friends. Professionally—for both my husband and I—it’s time and FAR past time to move on from our current school. Moving to another school in the country is impossible; I'm in a tiny country and I'm in a unique position which usually only has one or two in a school (think counselor, IT manager or librarian). I feel like I’m on a stupid see-saw. I talk myself into one side, and then talk myself into the other side. This is our first international school teaching position and we've been at this school for 6 years. How do experienced ITs make this decision?

Re: Stay or go--how do you make a decision?

Posted: Sun Sep 29, 2019 9:52 am
by fine dude
Depends on your career goals:
A. If saving a big nest egg and moving back to your home country eventually is your goal, you'd aim at established schools in the Middle East or SE Asia.
B. If you want a more balanced lifestyle with clean air, water, and a decent pension to bank on, W.Europe should be high on your list.

Response

Posted: Sun Sep 29, 2019 1:38 pm
by PsyGuy
What do you mean, the decision to leave or stay is already done? You parsed all the metrics, youve already made the decision, you said so yourself "it’s time and FAR past time to move on from our current school." When its that time its that time. There isnt a decision to make anymore, thats not your problem, your problem is guilt. You left your social comforts and support group before when you left from your HOR for IE in your current location, sure you had feelings of loss, but you did it then and you can do it again. Your new friends will stay your friends in the future wherever you go (if they were real friends) and you know you will meet new friends in whatever location you settle on and in. You feel guilty about tearing your son away from all the same things. We cant really help you with guilt, aside from telling you everything will be okay, that children are resilient and adaptive to change. The same advice we give everyone who struggles with uprooting their family from home and moving across the planet into IE their first time. You just need to stop fretting over the dead elephant in the room, time to move on, nothing is going to change that 1) Its an elephant, 2) Its dead, 3) its in your room. Time to find a new room.

Re: Stay or go--how do you make a decision?

Posted: Wed Oct 09, 2019 9:17 pm
by expatscot
Missing one key element here - at what stage is your son in education? As a parent, that for me would be the key. If he's going into DP / A Level, do the subjects on offer at your current school match your son's interests? If he's younger, where is he in the school process - if he's mid-IGCSE, then don't even think about moving - or is he in primary where the loss of friendships might be less traumatic than for a 15 or 16 year old?

You like the country, but do you like the school? Could you stay there for two or three years, or even one more year while you work on building up contacts and looking around?

Discussion

Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2019 5:37 pm
by PsyGuy
I dont entirely agree with @expatscot, so much of those factors require the ability to compare programs between two ISs, and you cant get to that until your recruiting and actually have two (or more) ISs to compare.