I'm sure anyone in the IE world has heard the term "cast your net far and wide" many times. While I believe there is a lot of merit to this, there is only so much you are willing to put up with when moving to a new post.
Thus my question is, what are some non-negotiables for you when looking for a new post? For me it is:
a) a safe location
b) good air quality
c) non-profit (or not-for-profit) school
d) no cell phones allowed during the school day
Besides these, everything else I tend to be open to when looking for a new post.
So, what are your non-negotiables?
Non-Negotiables
Re: Non-Negotiables
If they promise you something specifically during the interview, ask them to include it in the contract. Mere words will do no good to you.
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Heliotrope
- Posts: 1168
- Joined: Sun May 13, 2018 1:48 am
Re: Non-Negotiables
a) Safe location - Agree
It's hard to know which countries to include in the safe-list though, as there's crime in every country. Singapore is undoubtedly safer than Venezuela, and there are a lot of countries that are obviously considered 'safe' or 'unsafe' by most, but there are also a lot of countries that will feel safe enough for some, and unsafe for others, depending on their tolerance and on how informed they are. Some countries are safe in you stay in a certain bubble, but is that acceptable? For me it would also depend on other factors. For example, I might tolerate a certain risk of being pickpocketed (or other non-violent crimes) if the school, savings potential and air quality are all great, it's a good location for travel, and certain areas of the cities are safe.
b) Good air quality - Agree
But again, what's 'good'? And the same as with #1, other factors will tolerate what I will be willing to accept, assuming I can buy good air filters. There is a certain amount I will not tolerate, regardless of how great the school and other factors are, but it's hard to know now what that would be.
c) Non- or not-for-profit - Agree
I mean, if there's a great for-profit school where I wouldn't notice that it's for-profit, that would be ok, but I haven't read about one of those yet.
d) No cell phones allowed during the school day - Partly agree
It would be my preference, but it's not a non-negotiable. I would want to have the option to ban them in my classroom of course.
I would add:
e) Good healthcare facilities
I'm fine with travelling to another country for major surgery, but I want a decent level of care for anything that can't be scheduled.
f) Savings potential needs to meet my threshold
I don't want to teach past age 60, so I need to be able to save a certain amount per year. After that amount is met, I don't really let savings potential sway me too much.
g) No unjust pressure from parents/admin to adjust grades
How rich or influential a student's parents are should never affect my grading.
h) Work-life balance needs to be reasonable
I don't mind working hard, but coming home at 5pm every day of the week, being required to work on Saturdays or Sundays more than a few times, or having significantly more contract days than the average international school are all unacceptable. I work to live, I don't live to work.
It's hard to know which countries to include in the safe-list though, as there's crime in every country. Singapore is undoubtedly safer than Venezuela, and there are a lot of countries that are obviously considered 'safe' or 'unsafe' by most, but there are also a lot of countries that will feel safe enough for some, and unsafe for others, depending on their tolerance and on how informed they are. Some countries are safe in you stay in a certain bubble, but is that acceptable? For me it would also depend on other factors. For example, I might tolerate a certain risk of being pickpocketed (or other non-violent crimes) if the school, savings potential and air quality are all great, it's a good location for travel, and certain areas of the cities are safe.
b) Good air quality - Agree
But again, what's 'good'? And the same as with #1, other factors will tolerate what I will be willing to accept, assuming I can buy good air filters. There is a certain amount I will not tolerate, regardless of how great the school and other factors are, but it's hard to know now what that would be.
c) Non- or not-for-profit - Agree
I mean, if there's a great for-profit school where I wouldn't notice that it's for-profit, that would be ok, but I haven't read about one of those yet.
d) No cell phones allowed during the school day - Partly agree
It would be my preference, but it's not a non-negotiable. I would want to have the option to ban them in my classroom of course.
I would add:
e) Good healthcare facilities
I'm fine with travelling to another country for major surgery, but I want a decent level of care for anything that can't be scheduled.
f) Savings potential needs to meet my threshold
I don't want to teach past age 60, so I need to be able to save a certain amount per year. After that amount is met, I don't really let savings potential sway me too much.
g) No unjust pressure from parents/admin to adjust grades
How rich or influential a student's parents are should never affect my grading.
h) Work-life balance needs to be reasonable
I don't mind working hard, but coming home at 5pm every day of the week, being required to work on Saturdays or Sundays more than a few times, or having significantly more contract days than the average international school are all unacceptable. I work to live, I don't live to work.
Re: Non-Negotiables
@Heliotrope- those are some great points. As someone who takes my health for granted, I didn't think about good healthcare facilities.
As for work-life balance, I agree with you. While many IE strive for T1 schools, maybe having a lower stress job at a T2 or even T3 may be a smart move. My question is, when vetting a potential school, how do you go about finding out the school's work-life balance? Do you ask current faculty members?
As for work-life balance, I agree with you. While many IE strive for T1 schools, maybe having a lower stress job at a T2 or even T3 may be a smart move. My question is, when vetting a potential school, how do you go about finding out the school's work-life balance? Do you ask current faculty members?
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Heliotrope
- Posts: 1168
- Joined: Sun May 13, 2018 1:48 am
Re: Non-Negotiables
justme123 wrote:
> @Heliotrope- those are some great points. As someone who takes my health
> for granted, I didn't think about good healthcare facilities.
Yeah, imagine being at one of those mining schools in the jungle and suddenly being in need of an acute appendectomy.
> As for work-life balance, I agree with you. While many IE strive for T1
> schools, maybe having a lower stress job at a T2 or even T3 may be a smart
> move.
There are T1 schools where you can have a healthy work-life balance. I find that most of my colleagues at my tier 1 school who work till 5:30pm almost every day put pressure on themselves, and it's not admin who makes them work those long hours. My admin just care that you get the job done, and what they expect to be done isn't unreasonable at all. Those teachers feel they need to work many hours to be a good teacher. If you're efficient, you can get your work done and go home on time - working longer doesn't always equate to working better.
> My question is, when vetting a potential school, how do you go about
> finding out the school's work-life balance? Do you ask current faculty
> members?
Yes, and also teachers who left recently (last two years or so, sometimes longer if there haven't been major changes in admin).
And one opinion is not very useful, get a few. I used to find them using Facebook or LinkedIn, but nowadays I have a rather large network of former colleagues who have spread out over the world and now work at good to great schools, so I usually know someone at the schools I'm considering, or someone I know will know someone there.
> @Heliotrope- those are some great points. As someone who takes my health
> for granted, I didn't think about good healthcare facilities.
Yeah, imagine being at one of those mining schools in the jungle and suddenly being in need of an acute appendectomy.
> As for work-life balance, I agree with you. While many IE strive for T1
> schools, maybe having a lower stress job at a T2 or even T3 may be a smart
> move.
There are T1 schools where you can have a healthy work-life balance. I find that most of my colleagues at my tier 1 school who work till 5:30pm almost every day put pressure on themselves, and it's not admin who makes them work those long hours. My admin just care that you get the job done, and what they expect to be done isn't unreasonable at all. Those teachers feel they need to work many hours to be a good teacher. If you're efficient, you can get your work done and go home on time - working longer doesn't always equate to working better.
> My question is, when vetting a potential school, how do you go about
> finding out the school's work-life balance? Do you ask current faculty
> members?
Yes, and also teachers who left recently (last two years or so, sometimes longer if there haven't been major changes in admin).
And one opinion is not very useful, get a few. I used to find them using Facebook or LinkedIn, but nowadays I have a rather large network of former colleagues who have spread out over the world and now work at good to great schools, so I usually know someone at the schools I'm considering, or someone I know will know someone there.
Response
My list is somewhat different than yours. As to yours:
1) I guess I like safety, but what safe means to me is more along the lines of arbitrary law enforcement (since when cant I have a bottle of wine in a park), and a lack of civil unrest. The rest doesnt really matter much to me since foreigners and expats are usually given greater latitude. The only major increase in crime against expats and foreigners is petty theft (pick pocketing) and street scams. Both can be readily avoidable with a modicum of situational awareness and not looking like a potential target. The US by comparison has rather indiscriminate and rather high rates of gun violence targeted specifically towards DTs. That would worry me more and inconvenience me more in my daily routine than other forms of crime.
2) Air quality really only bothers me if its really bad air, okay air is fine for me. I dont have allergies, and air filters tend to be either conveniently available or easy to fashion (Its just a fan and a filter attached to one another). That being said if the air was terrible, i wouldnt consider a location very strongly but most of the places I would go for other reasons, just dont have poor air quality.
3) Non-Profit/Profit status is a non issue. So many ISs are poo hole ISs and they are non-profit. There are so many ways to run a non-profit IS for profit its not worth considering as a factor.
4) Mobile phones is less an issue for me as long as Im free to ban their use in my classroom. Its one of those factors that isnt really a factor as many ISs get to make their own rules and Ive yet to find an edu that actively encourages phone use in class or supports it.
5) Health Care I can see how the rural mining IS/DS/ES would be problematic, or an IS with a distant field site could be problematic, but ISs usually exist in places that can support them and thats usually a point after establishing reasonably advanced medical facilities. Though I would want to have access to major medical facilities for things like planned procedures and surgical procedures. I dont need a tier 1 trauma center locally though for most things.
6) Savings is such a widely variable thing to so many people. I would say that discretionary coin is one of my priorities, whether that means living a higher than typical lifestyle or being able to meet retirement and savings goals. I dont want to be in a position of scraping buy every month or over holidays just to be able to live in a certain location or have a certain experience.
7) Inappropriate Grading Influence just doesnt mean as much to me as it used to. As long as there is some discretion in place and practiced between the top mark/grade and the passing mark/grade, I dont really care about policies prohibiting failures or below passing marks/grades. In some ways ISs where everyone gets high marks means it frees up time to focus on instruction and minimizes the amount of time an IT has to put into marking/grading.
8) Work Life Balance is probably my number one priority. Though I tend to agree that at a certain point the ITs putting in excessive hours either havent been teaching effectively enough to develop efficiencies or are the source of their own poor time management.
Where I do disagree with other contributors is the Iss where leadership has been careful not to put explicit and overt pressure on ITs, but they do so subtly with philosophies and policies that emphasis "getting the job done", "student success is priority 1", "students come first". Those types of environments are rather insidious and tend to reward effort and time rather than productivity while chasing the tails of student performance at extreme costs.
Where I disagree with @justme123 is usally you find tier 2 ISs to be the most taxing as opposed to lax as they try to improve their ranking and tier status. Tier 1 ISs can be very comfortable with work life balance if the leadership and ownership are content to just keep doing what they are doing. Upper tier 3 ISs can be very nice work experiences.
1) I guess I like safety, but what safe means to me is more along the lines of arbitrary law enforcement (since when cant I have a bottle of wine in a park), and a lack of civil unrest. The rest doesnt really matter much to me since foreigners and expats are usually given greater latitude. The only major increase in crime against expats and foreigners is petty theft (pick pocketing) and street scams. Both can be readily avoidable with a modicum of situational awareness and not looking like a potential target. The US by comparison has rather indiscriminate and rather high rates of gun violence targeted specifically towards DTs. That would worry me more and inconvenience me more in my daily routine than other forms of crime.
2) Air quality really only bothers me if its really bad air, okay air is fine for me. I dont have allergies, and air filters tend to be either conveniently available or easy to fashion (Its just a fan and a filter attached to one another). That being said if the air was terrible, i wouldnt consider a location very strongly but most of the places I would go for other reasons, just dont have poor air quality.
3) Non-Profit/Profit status is a non issue. So many ISs are poo hole ISs and they are non-profit. There are so many ways to run a non-profit IS for profit its not worth considering as a factor.
4) Mobile phones is less an issue for me as long as Im free to ban their use in my classroom. Its one of those factors that isnt really a factor as many ISs get to make their own rules and Ive yet to find an edu that actively encourages phone use in class or supports it.
5) Health Care I can see how the rural mining IS/DS/ES would be problematic, or an IS with a distant field site could be problematic, but ISs usually exist in places that can support them and thats usually a point after establishing reasonably advanced medical facilities. Though I would want to have access to major medical facilities for things like planned procedures and surgical procedures. I dont need a tier 1 trauma center locally though for most things.
6) Savings is such a widely variable thing to so many people. I would say that discretionary coin is one of my priorities, whether that means living a higher than typical lifestyle or being able to meet retirement and savings goals. I dont want to be in a position of scraping buy every month or over holidays just to be able to live in a certain location or have a certain experience.
7) Inappropriate Grading Influence just doesnt mean as much to me as it used to. As long as there is some discretion in place and practiced between the top mark/grade and the passing mark/grade, I dont really care about policies prohibiting failures or below passing marks/grades. In some ways ISs where everyone gets high marks means it frees up time to focus on instruction and minimizes the amount of time an IT has to put into marking/grading.
8) Work Life Balance is probably my number one priority. Though I tend to agree that at a certain point the ITs putting in excessive hours either havent been teaching effectively enough to develop efficiencies or are the source of their own poor time management.
Where I do disagree with other contributors is the Iss where leadership has been careful not to put explicit and overt pressure on ITs, but they do so subtly with philosophies and policies that emphasis "getting the job done", "student success is priority 1", "students come first". Those types of environments are rather insidious and tend to reward effort and time rather than productivity while chasing the tails of student performance at extreme costs.
Where I disagree with @justme123 is usally you find tier 2 ISs to be the most taxing as opposed to lax as they try to improve their ranking and tier status. Tier 1 ISs can be very comfortable with work life balance if the leadership and ownership are content to just keep doing what they are doing. Upper tier 3 ISs can be very nice work experiences.