Thanks everybody. Love the tote idea. That is better than a lot of extra suitcases. OTC and clothes since they don't have bigger sizes is a good idea. Thanks everyone!

I agree with Joe30. Just don't get a paper cut passing out those worksheets. On a serious note if you're at a school that is dysfunctional you probably have a lot of time to implement best practices and improve your teaching. Depending on your leadership I would probably keep it low key unless you know someone else in your school is also trying to improve. Since you're a decent teacher if you start saying things in staff meetings "Hey I've been trying this in my classroom and I wanted to share..." you might be perceived as a threat and could start to deal with some of the negative things this site helps teachers guard against.

So my wife and I got jobs in China! It will be me, my wife and the precocious toddler. We get a shipping allowance from our school. I've seen that some people ship things and some people just pack extra stuff in their suitcases. What are the pros/cons of each method? What do people bring to China? (If you're thinking chopsticks I'm one step ahead of you. Already packed)

Hi All,

My wife and I got a job in China and we have a toddler. Does anyone have any advice on helping a toddler adjust? I'm guessing its easier than a middle schooler. (He's okay w/ leaving his friends) He will be attending the preschool at the school we work at. How do you handle lack of car seats and other things? What stuff did you find was helpful to bring? How do you survive the flight? What would you have done differently if you had to bring your toddler again? Any advice would be helpful.

A new report just came out showing that up to 47% of occupations could be at risk of being replaced because of artificial intelligence. I'm by no means an economist but I'm guessing this could have some affect on the teaching profession. If Devos is successful in pushing more "school choice" I'm guessing that more teachers/more competition would be coming overseas. Again I'm no economist and have no data but I think it will have an affect.

https://arstechnica.com/business/2016/1 ... o-decades/

You're welcome. I'm not sure. QSI didn't have IB when I was there. Some questions that might help you: Can you find out does QSI actually use IB or would you only have IB experience in name only? What kind of IB experience are the schools you want to get into requiring from teachers? I think this might be a question more for Sid.

I worked at a QSI school for a few years then moved back to the states. It was my first international teaching job. I just accepted a position back overseas. (I'm guessing it only helped me in that I wasn't screened out of jobs that required overseas experience) One thing I noticed when I came back to the states was that I wasn't up to date with trends in education. Part of the reason was that QSI does all of its PD in house from other educators. A lot of the PD revolved around Mastery learning and no one uses that anywhere else so I'm guessing Sid and other recruiters aren't that impressed with any PD you get at QSI. I had a few friends/colleagues get into better school after QSI because they were either overqualified in the first place or had a plan to make their resume look better while at QSI. For example, getting another certification or a masters. If you're using QSI as a springboard to a better international school I would highly recommend having a plan to improve as an Educator that does not rely on QSI. The good news is that QSI will not work you to death so you will have time to work on this.

As far as the curriculum goes I noticed that what QSI does to create curriculum isn't exactly best practices. They have a bunch of teachers go out to Seattle for a conference and work together to create the curriculum. (These are volunteers who get a few perks in order for their volunteer service) It essentially boils down to this: QSI picks a textbook series it likes. It then almost literally copies and pastes the textbook objectives for their unit objectives. For example, Chapter I of a third grade math textbook will list several chapter objectives. If you go to Unit I of the 3rd grade math curriculum at QSI it will list those same objectives with maybe one or two differences. Now QSI will tell you that you can teach those objectives in any way you want as long as you teach those objectives and that is true. But since the objectives match the textbook almost exactly you can sense what ends up happening in most teachers classrooms to a certain extent.

Another problem is QSI has no problem having people teach outside of their certification area. For example we had a guy who taught 10 years of SPED in the states and they had him teaching third grade. I'm not alone in this but its pretty common knowledge that at QSI if you have a teaching license of any kind you are eligible to teach ELL. So for yourself, I would make sure they're not having you teach outside of your certification area. If you're a history teacher I'm sure a recruiter will be a bit confused as to why you taught PE or 5th grade ELL at QSI.

I think it also depends on what level you teach. Since QSI is a mastery level program by middle and high school kids learn to game the system and just keep retaking quizzes and tests to get a higher grade. Now we can argue how often that happens but the perception is definitely out there and I'm sure recruiters are aware of it. It's not really an issue in the elementary level.

The perception I received was that either recruiters took the view you worked at QSI so no your damaged goods or you worked at QSI and if you could survive there you'll be fine at our school.

In general you'll find three types of teachers at QSI

1. The family who has more that 2 kids and stays with QSI because QSI will accept bigger families when most schools won't.
2. People who hate and/or are reluctant to go to job fairs and will transfer around to other QSI schools. For some reason when I was there several teachers also went to Saudi Arabia. It was so many that we started referring to it as the QSI/Saudi Pipeline. These teachers did this because they were reluctant to go to a hiring fair
3. Newbies such as yourself who get a few years experience and then, hopefully, move on bigger better things.

Thanks Sid, my wife handled it diplomatically. Your right. It's not tricky I just was not familiar with this question and tend to be cautious.

Thanks for the detailed response Psyguy. That really helps. Also thanks to everyone else who provided responses. I was going to just press play and teach. I think this will helps give me direction. Joe30 I can't tell if you're throwing shade or not but I actually like that they want me to post a video. I have a kid so it helps that they want to see something before just hiring their teachers.

I'm thinking of getting an MA that will give me a reading certification. (I already have an elem edu cert) I've taught a few years and would like to teach just reading. (I'm passionate about it not doing it just for the salary scale steps) Any thoughts?

I last lived in Shenzhen three years ago. It wasn't as bad Beijing or Shanghai. I never saw someone wear a mask because of air pollution. We had our bad days in the winter and the only time I physically noticed it was on hard runs such as speed work or tempo runs. Then my throat would burn.

Some teachers were really worried about it. They stayed their two years to get their experience and then moved on to greener/cleaner air pastures. Other teachers seemed fine with it. Honestly, the ones who worried too much seemed to really psych themselves out. If I was that worried, as much as they were, I wouldn't live in China. I was looking at some schools in Myanmar and some of the reviews mentioned vipers. I'm sure some IT's would just shrug and deal with it but I'm not living anywhere that has issues with vipers. So I can understand the reluctance to deal with bad air.

Hi,

My wife and I have decided to eschew the job fairs this year. We've had a few Skype interviews and two schools want to see a video of a lesson of us teaching. (To be clear a video of me teaching elementary and my wife middle school) I was wondering if anyone has done this? If so what are they looking for in general and how long should the video be? Any advice would be helpful. Thank you