derPhysik - While you might think that this set of teachers is overpaid relative to others, or that set is overpaid, relative to others, the truth is that in a good international school they work as a team. Most good international schools work hard to get the best teachers, pay them well by most standards, treat them well, and strive to keep them as long as possible (6 to 8 years or more). Most schools will not negotiate with you unless they are well and truly stuck. At the same time, you are recruiting into a buyer's market - there are TONS of teachers recruiting and superintendents have their pick of the crop. I would think your best chance of bargaining would be at the late Bethesda Fair - schools there can be pretty desperate - but are almost always NOT the top tier schools.

Our PE teachers spend a ton of time outside in 80 degree plus heat, put up with larger class sizes and deal with chidren who are less and less skilled as electronic entertainment supplants (for many of them) physical entertainment. IMHO they earn every penny they get. There is much more evaluation and marking on a regular basis in PE than you think - students who think they deserve an A have parents who want solid evidence on a regular basis of why they only got a B. Teachers who aren't rigorous tend to get over-ridden on the mark due to poor assessment practices and their contracts not renewed.

Just my 2 shekels/halalas/dinars from the Arabian Peninsula.

Hi Jill!

As a Canadian oversears, I can let you know that if you are applying to your first international job, you will not get the top-tier schools looking at you. However, thare are many schools looking. You have just missed out on the Atlanta fair for the South American schools; however, Queens is coming up. Queens takes place either right before or right after Boston/Cambridge for Search and ISS.

If you are serious about teaching overseas, go to a job fair. As an experiencd teacher, you will be in demand. Make sure you do your research on the schools that interview you and understand that at the job fair, they are seeing a lot of people quickly and when the offer is made they expect an answer fairly quickly. If they really want you they will give you bit of leeway, but usually an hour or two is what you get.

Good luck with your job hunt. Also, if you don't belong to Tieonline, do so, and if you don't have a job by March or April, then watch TIE carefully for new postings and think about a summer job fair if necessary. Otherwise, if you are unsure or want to wait, contact Search Associates or ISS and sign up with them.

You don't say if you are married or have children, but understand that a non-teaching spouse is not an asset. Two teaching spouses with two or three kids is very do-able though!

Hope this helps,

shad

I am sure you will find a school - it is an international teacher's market and with teacher shortages at home, there is a teacher shortage abroad.

Even if you can't get to a school of choice, you certainly can get to a region of choice. Do your homework though.

Keep us posted on how you do!

So how did it go in Atlanta? Our friends currently overseas are now headed for South America and happy about it.

Trojan,

One thing to remember with overseas schools - you are a commodity. Some years your 'flavor' is in demand, other years it isn't. Nothing to do with the prestige of the school.

There is one thing to consider from an overseas school's viewpoint:

What if your wife is keen on going where the school is, you are keen, but, when you get there you find that your wife's only connection to anything is you. Your staff is tight, but don't know your wife and end up doing stuff with other staff couples who are both teachers (kids or no kids). How does you wife feel then?

Second scenario - you go, same as scenario 1, but your wife realizes after two months of basically doing nothing and not having much to do as the dollar has dropped in value again (don't laugh - with this crisis nobody knows what is going to happen and the US is TREMENDOUSLY in debt. My friends lost 20% of their salary over the past couple of years due to the dollar's decline, though it is better now).

If you wife is unhappy, you will be unhappy. If you are unhappy, your work will suffer. If your work suffers, you end up wanting to leave. If your wife leaves, usually you will leave.

Just to be realistic, this happens. Not saying it will, not saying it won't, in your case. Just that it is one of the things that schools have to take into consideration.

You should be able to find jobs no problem. Be upfron with the interviewers and contact schools you are interested in before hand. Make sure that they are aware -but also provide ample evidence of your non-credentialed spouse's teaching experience.

You might also consider registring with ISS or Search next time - they will be able to hook you up and give you a good overview of expectations (and yes, they would likely take you on as clients)

As for UNI being a main fair, it is the largest non-sponsored by ISS or SA fair going. I would say Queens in Canada is number 2. However, by the time UNI comes up, Toronto, Boston, Queens, and Cambridge (Mass.) have come and gone, so UNI has a lot of the smaller schools looking. I would add that there are other fairs, such as the Latin America fair that just finished in Atlanta.

Another good resource for fairs and schools is tieoneline dot com. I use them when I know we are on the move and then let my membership lapse when we are stable.

Goodl luck at UNI and keep us posted!

Hi Trojan,

I follow my wife around. She is in the medical field and needs specialized equipment. I teach and have always been successful at finding full time work that continues as long as we want to stay in the location.

I did contact both Search and ISS about going as a teaching couple (my wife's medical field would be a loose 'fit' within the educational field and she has her CELTA as well. Both responded with qualified 'yes, but send us her details'.

Never have signed up or gone to a job fair, but am on our third country so far!

At times I do feel disconnected - my motheris has cancer and we are going home at Christmas for the first time in ten years. We visit every summer though, and I was out in April of this year - that makes 3 times visiting :-)

I can see the time coming when giong home becomes less important. Some summers I feel more like staying here and lazing around the pool enjoying the 40+ C heat and drinking my mint lemonade while I relax, then work out, then go for a massage. Cheaper than travelling too - although we have been to Malaysia, Egypt, Jordan, and India in the last two years, not to mention Kuwait and Bahrain. We would have been a month in New Zealand and Hong Kong this break if it weren't more important to go home.

You never know what is going to happen in your life and you certainly won't know what awaits overseas unless you try it.

Good luck - and don't let the guilt get to you (when we went overseas for the first time in 1998, my wife's family laid a huge guilt trip on her - now we can't imagine not having gone overseas!)

[quote="Wanderlust"]To those of you who have been living abroad for several years...
do you ever feel guilty for being away from family and life-long friends for so long???? Best friend's children who don't know you, losing the last few years with a grandparent? The fact that I am late 30s, single and according to some at home, "losing all roots." I have an international soul but often the internal and projected guilt I am sent leave me in conflict.[/quote]

It is a school with a larger 30% - 40% foreign contigent. Good sports facilitites. Other facilities are older and falling apart compared to other schools. This is a for profit school, although all aspects of your contract will be honored and generally kids are ok to great. Acamically sound from what I hear.

Quite frankly, as a teacher who has friends in Egypt (not at the school I am recommending), and taught in other ME countries plus the UK and Canada, I would recommend Cairo American College (it is a high school) for your son. The campus is in Mahdi, where 80% of the expat community lives, and which is green and safe, and is very well-equipped. It is an extremly good school.

As for university, check out the American Uniiversity. Not sure of the exact name - just google American University + Cairo.

Good luck!

Hello Again EB

It could be that they are waiting for someone else to give them an answer which never really comes. Some questions don't have a simple answer over here in Saudi. This is also the time of month/year where everything is culminating - sports banquets, music festivals, etc.

If you don't get an answer within a week, just send a nicely worded reminder.

Hope this helps,

Shad

Hi EB - what school are you going to? I am at the big US school in Riyadh.

I use skype and Yahoo Messenger. I use Yahoo Messenger out to call phones back home because it is cheaper than skype. 10 bucks gets me around 600 minutes with no expiry on using the time. It automatically reloads my 10 bucks when I get low.

I was talking from Penang Malaysia to my family last Christmas and while it was not perfect, it was bearable, and cheap.

Your school will have all of these programs blocked and you will have to use them at home.

Hope this helps,

shad

At our school, we raise money to send orphans to school, have contests to bring in sports equipment, send students to other countries to work with Habitat for Humanity, etc.

It is still possible to deal with social injustice, although not necessarily at the local level (which I honestly would not want to get involved in while in this country).