Hi there
New to the forum, but not to international teaching. After 20+ years teaching at home and abroad I have enough to finance a hiatus of around 12 months and plan to take time to smell the roses.
My question is about interviewing when I'm ready to come back. I know that I have no desire to work the hours that I am currently working. I've always thought that asking too much about timetabled hours in an interview made you sound lazy, but now I'm not so sure. How do people feel about pinning the interviewer down about: ratio of contact/non contact time; class size; number of classes per full-time teacher; equity of teaching loads within the school?
I've always been prepared to work hard, but I think that there is a tipping point between working hard for your students and an unreasonable load that makes it virtually impossible to do a great job.
Any thoughts on this?
After career break, how to achieve a change of pace
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phoenixrising
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Thu Apr 05, 2012 10:30 pm
Instincts
Your instincts are on target Id say. I'm comfortable with it as an admin (for the record im involved in the hiring process, but i dont actually have hiring authority). Many heads I think do get the impression that you sound lazy if you ask about workload during the interview, and id avoid it.
Really though this question doesnt belong in the interview, it belongs in the contract discussion when youve been offered a contract, and any decent school will have a part of the contract that describes or details the teaching or contact hours. Its just like the interview isnt the time to ask about salary, but if you can talk about how much money they are offering they have to be prepared and SHOULD be comfortable with talking about how much work they are expecting for that money.
I've found that while money/salary is very negotiable, teaching hours are usually not. The school has a good idea how many students and classes they need, and they arent going to bend so much knowing they are going to need you to teach 22 hours a week to meet their enrollment expectations. They are HIGHLY unlikly to break the position up and hire another person to make up the difference. Most schools also pad their teaching hours in a contract. For instance right now the position is only 18 teaching hours, but enrollment might change so they put 22 or 25 int he contract, so that they can have you work more, even if you actually never teach that many.
Problems for teachers are when schools make your salary contingent on a minimum number of teaching hours or when their expectation is they own you and feel they can heap any amount of work on you. That said some schools (AS London, comes to mind) pay very well, but you will earn every penny of it. As an admin I look at it this way. If we have to open another class and your our teacher for that subject either you have to teach the class, or we have to basically put a substitute in that classroom (who may not be qualified, and may not be informed on our program). I would rather negotiate an extra duty stipend or compensation with that teacher for the over hours. The other option is I simply add more students to your current classrooms and pay you nothing extra. So my advice is that if your offered extra for another class that you take it.
Really though this question doesnt belong in the interview, it belongs in the contract discussion when youve been offered a contract, and any decent school will have a part of the contract that describes or details the teaching or contact hours. Its just like the interview isnt the time to ask about salary, but if you can talk about how much money they are offering they have to be prepared and SHOULD be comfortable with talking about how much work they are expecting for that money.
I've found that while money/salary is very negotiable, teaching hours are usually not. The school has a good idea how many students and classes they need, and they arent going to bend so much knowing they are going to need you to teach 22 hours a week to meet their enrollment expectations. They are HIGHLY unlikly to break the position up and hire another person to make up the difference. Most schools also pad their teaching hours in a contract. For instance right now the position is only 18 teaching hours, but enrollment might change so they put 22 or 25 int he contract, so that they can have you work more, even if you actually never teach that many.
Problems for teachers are when schools make your salary contingent on a minimum number of teaching hours or when their expectation is they own you and feel they can heap any amount of work on you. That said some schools (AS London, comes to mind) pay very well, but you will earn every penny of it. As an admin I look at it this way. If we have to open another class and your our teacher for that subject either you have to teach the class, or we have to basically put a substitute in that classroom (who may not be qualified, and may not be informed on our program). I would rather negotiate an extra duty stipend or compensation with that teacher for the over hours. The other option is I simply add more students to your current classrooms and pay you nothing extra. So my advice is that if your offered extra for another class that you take it.
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liketotravel
- Posts: 105
- Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2012 11:58 pm
Congrats on taking a year off. I did a few years back and was a little worried about getting back in the game, but it wasn't a problem. I just told my new boss I sat in a hammock for a year and drank rum and cokes in South America and he said, "wow, thats my dream, you're the man".
It was really difficult getting back in the routine of teaching, but after a few months I was back in realilty and things are going well.
As for your question, I would ask in the interview what the class and student load is. These are legitimate questions if you keep them simple.
Personally my least favorite school and experience was when I had 15 hours a week and very little stress. My current school I have 25 hours and a bunch of responsibilities, but the school, students, staff, paychecks and city rock so I'm loving it. It makes the weekends and vacations feel well earned and I feel fortunate to have such an opportunity.
Good luck!
It was really difficult getting back in the routine of teaching, but after a few months I was back in realilty and things are going well.
As for your question, I would ask in the interview what the class and student load is. These are legitimate questions if you keep them simple.
Personally my least favorite school and experience was when I had 15 hours a week and very little stress. My current school I have 25 hours and a bunch of responsibilities, but the school, students, staff, paychecks and city rock so I'm loving it. It makes the weekends and vacations feel well earned and I feel fortunate to have such an opportunity.
Good luck!
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phoenixrising
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Thu Apr 05, 2012 10:30 pm
Thanks for your responses. I think that what I would ultimately want to find is a school where the load is reasonable in the first place - not to negotiate for a lighter load.
I guess we all know of schools where 'the streets are paved with gold' in the areas we are currently working. I'm just not sure it is so easy to find them when the time comes to move on if there is no word of mouth to rely on. This site provides some answers, but is not exactly objective ...
I wish that I'd known more about my current school, one with good reviews on this site, before I accepted the position.
I guess we all know of schools where 'the streets are paved with gold' in the areas we are currently working. I'm just not sure it is so easy to find them when the time comes to move on if there is no word of mouth to rely on. This site provides some answers, but is not exactly objective ...
I wish that I'd known more about my current school, one with good reviews on this site, before I accepted the position.