Teaching math/science abroad with incomplete MS?

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boss14
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Joined: Sat Sep 05, 2015 1:10 pm

Teaching math/science abroad with incomplete MS?

Post by boss14 »

I was working on an master's in STEM in the US and finished all the requirements including nearly finishing the thesis, but am thinking about dropping out since it looks like it will take another year due to some complications on my thesis and personal reasons I won't get into here. Thus, I would have an incomplete Master's in STEM on my resume

However, I think teaching may be for me because I've taught as a TA for 2 years and have also led English discussion groups for English learners. However, I don't have any teaching licenses/credentials and don't want to spend another year getting a Master's in Education. I'm interested in teaching in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and China. I'll also consider Europe and South America

I have some questions about teaching math/science in those countries:
1. I've heard some "low-tier" schools hire those with just BS degrees, but those have terrible working conditions with fights and stuff. Based on my background, do I have a chance at getting hired at any "reasonable" school without those awful work conditions? Can anyone provide more details as to how bad these schools are?

2. What qualifications would I need if I wanted to teach at mid-tier+ high school, college, or schools for adults? Is there any advantage for having an incomplete master's in STEM as opposed to just a BS?

3. I heard that it's possible to teach in the international divisions of local high schools in china with just a BS and incomplete MS in STEM and without a masters in education. Do you know if this is true in the other countries?

4. If the job is typically 9-5 M-F, how much of the time is spent with students, preparing lessons, dealing with coworker teachers and politics, and other time? How does it compare to typical office jobs in the US?
wrldtrvlr123
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Re: Teaching math/science abroad with incomplete MS?

Post by wrldtrvlr123 »

There are schools that would hire you and many of those would be less that ideal working conditions and/or less than ideal locations. A fair amount could be reasonable places to work in reasonable locations but you would certainly need to do your research.

Your biggest shortcut to raising your chances (if you do not want to complete your masters) is to get certified in some state. There should be (I haven't looked in a while) states where they are desperate for science teachers and where your total credits (and passing some tests) would get you some type of certificate.

Being a "certified teacher" will open many doors for you. As for experience, you need to add some actual experience teaching the subject you wish to be considered for. Even substituting (and even better a long term sub job in a science position) would count for more than TA or ELA experience.

In short, you may find a survivable school that would hire you without some type of certificate and/or relevant experience and be able to get on the job experience there BUT it would not likely be a fertile environment for establishing and developing your teaching skills in the long term. I sense you are in a rush, but taking time to get established in your chosen field before jumping overseas would serve you better in the long term.

Another way to go would be to find an internship at a good school overseas but that would also likely require some type of certification.
marieh
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Re: Teaching math/science abroad with incomplete MS?

Post by marieh »

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Last edited by marieh on Mon Sep 14, 2015 10:20 am, edited 2 times in total.
PsyGuy
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Post by PsyGuy »

You have a pretty close to zero probability of being hired at a decent IS with your resume. If they really are a decent IS why would they hire an unqualified IT, there are lots of fully qualified and experienced ITs who would like a decent IS.

Third tier ISs have a lot of variability but the bottom of the third tier ISs are pretty bad, they are the bottom of the tier for a reason, most of them are train wrecks about to happen or smoldering wrecks. ITs take the job because they cant do better, or they are stuck in country (married to a local, etc.)

If you wanted to teach secondary the bar to entry is a first degree (bachelors), a professional teaching qualification and 2 years post certification experience. For 2nd tier (depends how you define mid tier) you need AP experience or preferably IB training and experience (a lot of second tier ISs are IB ISs) and on average about 4-6 years of teaching experience. Most of the candidates you will be competing with also have advance degrees and previous IS experience.

An almost completed Masters in anything is worth nothing. All it really says is you cant finish what you start.

A lot of ITs do not have advance degrees, they have Bachelors degrees, but what they do have is professional teaching qualifications.
Yes there are international academies in many parts of Asia including China (Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, etc) it is less common int he little tigers such as JP, HK, and SG that dont require an advance degree or teaching qualification. Your not really a teacher though, your an ESOL instructor who is teaching EAP (English for Academic Purposes). Again, the incomplete masters means nothing.

The job isnt usually 9-5, almost all ISs have first bell at 8, with ITs required to be there sometime before that. ITs can usually leave 30 minutes after last bell (around 3:30-4) but you always have ASPs at least once a week plus meetings.
As to the rest, *looking around* "How long is a piece of string"?
Educators have three types of tasks: Preparation, Production, and Performance (well 4 "Presence", but thats another discussion). Preparation is the "thinking" and creativity tasks. Production is the "work" the documentation and bringing the resources together needed to deliver the lesson and asses it. Performance is the "show" of standing in front of an audience and performing the delivery while monitoring and interacting with the audience.
In an office type of position you have very high production, a moderate amount of preparation (depending on the nature of the office position) and almost no performance (the occasional, power point presentation, being the exception), what you do have is a higher degree of presence tasking.
As an IT you have a high amount of performance, the vast majority of your day is being on the "stage". Production is a moderate amount depending how you teach and how long you have been teaching. If your a literature teacher you may have all your lessons in the can and you need little time to prepare materials, and your at an IS where all the students are expected to get high marks so you just give mostly As and a few Bs for grades. You might be the type of teacher though who is creating a new curriculum from scratch and you teach science classes that involve lab work you need time to prepare materials and resources, in which case you may have a large amount of production.
Preparation also depends, if your teaching 1st year MYP you can probably think up a lesson or review the materials in 15 minutes. If your a drama IT and your students are having difficulty with the script because they are all ESOL students and you have no ESOL support and you ahve to figure it out yourself, because all the parents and administration are expecting the performance of Hamlet at the winter break, you have some thinking to do.

I know of no state that would give you a professional certificate for your partial masters, regardless of how desperate they are. Teacher certification is based on completing some form of EPP or ITT program, they arent about content so much as they are focused on the art and science of content delivery and classroom management. There are states that are desperate that would give you some form of emergency permit but it would only be valid for teaching int he district that recommends you for that certificate. There are states that issue a certificate to doctoral degree holders, but none for a masters or a partially completed masters. The closest state would be NC which will issue a certificate if you ahve experience teaching in a private/independent DS.

I do agree with WT123 that you need experience. TA work and discussion leader is worth nothing in IE. Your resume is essentially a Bachelors Degree and a lot of white space.
If as WT123 suggested you are ina rush, you may wish to consider the ESOL market and go from there. Certification would take you about a year, and then you would need a couple years experience in a classroom or as an IT intern before you would be visible to decent ISs.
boss14
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Joined: Sat Sep 05, 2015 1:10 pm

Re: Teaching math/science abroad with incomplete MS?

Post by boss14 »

Thanks for the replies. When you guys mention I need certification, is this program an example of a why to get it?
http://www.wgu.edu/education/teacher_ce ... ce_program
It says the fastest you can complete it is in a year. Is that true for other certification programs also?

And what about teaching in the international divisions of local high schools? Anyone know anything about this?
PsyGuy
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Post by PsyGuy »

Thats one program, there are others Teach Ready and Teach Now also work well for international teachers, but any state approved EPP or ITT program that provides recommendation to your regulatory authority will be fine. You can do a traditional university program or an ACP (Alternative program).

Yes there are international academies in many parts of Asia including China (Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, etc) it is less common int he little tigers such as JP, HK, and SG that dont require an advance degree or teaching qualification. Your not really a teacher though, your an ESOL instructor who is teaching EAP (English for Academic Purposes).
boss14
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Re: Teaching math/science abroad with incomplete MS?

Post by boss14 »

Thanks for the reply again

I had some more questions. Do you know anything about the kinds of students who go to those international schools? Are they mostly kids of American/British parents? And are the co-worker teachers also mostly from America/English-speaking countries?

I also forgot to ask: Do you know much of the time in international schools is divided between teaching the class, preparing lessons and extracurriculars, dealing with coworker teachers and politics, and other time?

Also what are the office politics like in international schools? How are they different from the politics in typical office jobs?

Also, from what I've heard, elementary school students are less likely to cause problems than middle and high students. If so, would are positions teaching elementary school students at international schools more competitive?

Also, I'm interested in teaching in universities also. Would I be eligible for university teaching jobs if my bachelor's or master's is not in Education?

And for teaching in the international divisions of local schools (aka, academys?), how are the working conditions compared to international schools? Do you have to work longer hours for lesser pay? Is it possible to get into these "academys" in countries like Malaysia and Taiwan? Or only in China?
sciteach
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Re: Teaching math/science abroad with incomplete MS?

Post by sciteach »

Boss14,

Apologies in advance if this comes across as a bit direct.

A lot of these questions about teaching in general would be covered in your teaching rounds in your undergraduate or masters degree.

I've also worked in the real world before teaching and I'll tell you that most of the time teachers work harder and for longer hours than most professions.

There are some teachers that work 8-5, but that's mainly either due to being lazy or they are so good at their craft that they have got what they need to do down packed.

In the first few years of teaching you will pull your hair out, be sleep deprived, question your ability to teach and recognise how much you don't know. This even happens to me some time and I've been teaching for a reasonable amount of time.

As such - I would recommend that it might be best to complete your degree and closer towards the finish then think more seriously about teaching internationally.

Most of the international schools that will employ new hire teachers are the schools that you do not want to work at. New teachers need a strong mentor and support to help them as they learn. Working in a highly toxic environment with no support is probably the worst way to start teaching.

Some international schools have interns but they don't get paid much but at least should have reduced teaching hours and some type of support.

There are of course always exceptions to the rule. The university course I completed for my education degree was for people who had worked other jobs and completed another degree (it's now a true masters - even with the thesis component) so there was lawyers, architects, nurses, artists and musicians who completed the degree and many of them no longer teach now.

So to put it simple - if you want to work at a reasonable school you MUST COMPLETE a real teaching degree/diped/diploma/masters with certification. Most international schools will take a teacher with 3 years experience and a bachelors over a teacher with a masters but no experience in a heartbeat.

Teaching is all about experience - the more you have the more employable you normally are. In every interview I've had a HOS or VP / Prin. has not looked at which university I graduated from or course I completed but wanted to know about what I could do as a teacher.
PsyGuy
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Post by PsyGuy »

@boss14

1) For the most part no. You see the western students at the elite tier embassy ISs. Most ISs have a significant proportion of local or hafu students (hafu means the student has a western passport and is half western from one parent and half local ethnicity from the other parent). Many ISs are just local private schools with "international" in their name and hire westerners.

2) It depends on the IS, the range is huge. Some ISs its all politics (part of the "presence" factor), the teachers there are all veterans, and they likely have tenure. The differences among ITs at that level is trivial, and it all comes down to who likes you, etc. At other ISs an IT might spend a huge amount of time on preps (a prep is a class you have to prepare a lesson for) so they might have 4-5 different classes they ahve to prepare for. Tahst pretty brutal, but at some small ISs you might be the entire department or you share it with one person and their is no curriculum.
ASPs (extra curricular) varies at some ISs there are none, at some ISs there are a lot, typical expectation is one a week. Some of them are easier than others, such as sports, especially if you have to travel. Some of them like student government, are pretty much run by the students and you just have to be in the room.

3) The major difference in politics between an IS and a corporate job, is that IE doesnt (mostly) have any advancement opportunity. Your salary is based on your degree and years of experience, there is nothing to really get promoted to except leadership, which moves you out of the classroom. Sure their are junior admin rules such as coordinator and HOD (Head of Department) and other TLR (Teaching and Learning Responsibilities), but those are just extra duties that you either get an extra stipend for, release time, or an increased salary step, you are still on the teacher salary scale and your just doing more work.
Sicne there is nothing to move up too, the only real motivation is getting your contract renewed and getting a reference letter. The barrier for those is pretty low, as long as you dont do something to get dismissed, or dont really piss someone off (just be professional) you dont have any problems. In many ways if you dont play politics it wont have much of an impact on your IE life, you can avoid people you dont get along with, and keep your mouth shut and do the bauble head and everything will be fine. The exception is when your at an IS that isnt one of those ISs.

4) They both have different sets of problems. Primary students are still very young and defer to authority, they do what you tell them to do, but they also havent figured out how to control their emotions yet, and some students need constant redirection. Upper secondary students have more at stake, and while you spend less time in class attending to basic classroom management, they are far better gaming the education system, and at a certain point you arent going to make a difference anymore. If they are in year 11 and they have "checked out", you arent going to motivate them. Lower secondary is all about students learning to manage hormones and relationships. Thats why they go to school, to see their friends. Most of them would rather talk and play games on their computer then do anything involving learning, the good students are the ones that can suppress that desire. The trouble students are the ones that cant.
Primary vacancies are less competitive because everyone has a primary certification or their spouse does, their is a saturated market for primary ITs, the only exception to that is ITs why have strong PYP experience.

5) Depends what your teaching. In China you can probably get a 6K RMB appointment in a rural area with any bachelors degree. In Japan even a doctorate in TESOL isnt going to guarantee you a job, and if you do get one its a 5 year limited contract.

6) No, International Academies are little more than an ESOL program inside a local DS. They will all be local host nationals. Leadership will also mostly be host nationals. You will have mixed co-workers some will be local teachers some will be other ITs. You work whatever local hours are. Many of them an be long hours, and academies dont offer great compensation. They are typically third tier ISs.
Yes their are academies in Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, etc.

I do agree with ScieTeach, there are two components that make a resume for an IT what you can teach (degrees, credentials, etc) and what you have taught (experience) of the two experience is king.
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