Tier 1s are tier 1 for a reason. So there are greater expectations and pressures/demands on staff than at lower tier schools - but don't imagine that lower tier schools are also not high pressure or can not also be high pressure.
The trick is to find a school that (for you) has the right balance of pressure/incentives/remuneration/situations that makes it a happy place for you and yours.
Laid Back Schools (No Reviews)
Response
In response to the now locked previous thread of the same title.
In general tier 1 ISs own you, lots of demands, expectations and tasking. The issue is the students, many tier 1 and elite ISs accept international students that arent always the most motivated. Its not a lot and many of those students would do fine back in their HOR where they may have been honors or G&T students, but really they just want to play video games or post and comment on their photos.
What I would suggest looking for if you want a more relaxed workload is to find a DS (or IS) thats selective with competitive admissions. These are the DSs/ISs where students are motivated (externally/internally), and dont need to be carried by an IT/DT. You dont have to plan for re-teaches, because students will figure it out, outside of class, and in many (Asian) cultures they wont ask questions, because they dont want to lose face. If they dont understand something they will youtube or google it. They likely will have access to a tutor who will edit, and proofread their essays and assignments. You can assign 5, 10, 20 page essays and do very little work in marking them, just give the students the same grade as they have earned before and move them up a mark over the course of the year. You can give students a project type of task such as a debate or a presentation and sit at your desk and look at cat photos and they will do it without huge amounts of direction. You can create a classroom rule that requires students peer edit work before asking you, which will solve at least half the problems your asked.
I also cocur with @SJ, so many ITs are set on elite tier 1 ISs, the real secret to success and happiness in IE is finding an IS and location that is the right 'fit' for YOU.
In general tier 1 ISs own you, lots of demands, expectations and tasking. The issue is the students, many tier 1 and elite ISs accept international students that arent always the most motivated. Its not a lot and many of those students would do fine back in their HOR where they may have been honors or G&T students, but really they just want to play video games or post and comment on their photos.
What I would suggest looking for if you want a more relaxed workload is to find a DS (or IS) thats selective with competitive admissions. These are the DSs/ISs where students are motivated (externally/internally), and dont need to be carried by an IT/DT. You dont have to plan for re-teaches, because students will figure it out, outside of class, and in many (Asian) cultures they wont ask questions, because they dont want to lose face. If they dont understand something they will youtube or google it. They likely will have access to a tutor who will edit, and proofread their essays and assignments. You can assign 5, 10, 20 page essays and do very little work in marking them, just give the students the same grade as they have earned before and move them up a mark over the course of the year. You can give students a project type of task such as a debate or a presentation and sit at your desk and look at cat photos and they will do it without huge amounts of direction. You can create a classroom rule that requires students peer edit work before asking you, which will solve at least half the problems your asked.
I also cocur with @SJ, so many ITs are set on elite tier 1 ISs, the real secret to success and happiness in IE is finding an IS and location that is the right 'fit' for YOU.
Re: Laid Back Schools (No Reviews)
@Dave:
"What I would suggest looking for if you want a more relaxed workload is to find a DS (or IS) thats selective with competitive admissions. These are the DSs/ISs where students are motivated (externally/internally), and dont need to be carried by an IT/DT. You dont have to plan for re-teaches, because students will figure it out, outside of class, and in many (Asian) cultures they wont ask questions, because they dont want to lose face. If they dont understand something they will youtube or google it. They likely will have access to a tutor who will edit, and proofread their essays and assignments. You can assign 5, 10, 20 page essays and do very little work in marking them, just give the students the same grade as they have earned before and move them up a mark over the course of the year. You can give students a project type of task such as a debate or a presentation and sit at your desk and look at cat photos and they will do it without huge amounts of direction. You can create a classroom rule that requires students peer edit work before asking you, which will solve at least half the problems your asked."
Ah a true professional speaks...
Fatuous advice by the way. Try this approach at a selective Asian international school - and you'd last about ten minutes before being fired.
"What I would suggest looking for if you want a more relaxed workload is to find a DS (or IS) thats selective with competitive admissions. These are the DSs/ISs where students are motivated (externally/internally), and dont need to be carried by an IT/DT. You dont have to plan for re-teaches, because students will figure it out, outside of class, and in many (Asian) cultures they wont ask questions, because they dont want to lose face. If they dont understand something they will youtube or google it. They likely will have access to a tutor who will edit, and proofread their essays and assignments. You can assign 5, 10, 20 page essays and do very little work in marking them, just give the students the same grade as they have earned before and move them up a mark over the course of the year. You can give students a project type of task such as a debate or a presentation and sit at your desk and look at cat photos and they will do it without huge amounts of direction. You can create a classroom rule that requires students peer edit work before asking you, which will solve at least half the problems your asked."
Ah a true professional speaks...
Fatuous advice by the way. Try this approach at a selective Asian international school - and you'd last about ten minutes before being fired.
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Lastname_Z
- Posts: 120
- Joined: Mon May 20, 2013 12:17 pm
Re: Laid Back Schools (No Reviews)
It's not the in-class teaching I have an issue with (in response to your examples PsyGuy). That's not what I mean by workload issues. It's more out-of-class responsibilities that bother me like several emails, meetings on meetings. Stuff like that. Things that admin say are supposed to help teaching, but seem to interfere with my ability to do the best job I can in the classroom.
Reply
@Lastname_Z
Oh those dont exist. The better an IS is the bigger it gets, the bigger it gets the more bloat you need in leadership. Leadership sit in nice offices most of the day and how they demonstrate productivity is meetings, otherwise your leadership would be watching cat videos and pictures of food on Facebook. If you dont have meeting your either unorganized/incompetent or your not efficient/effective, both of which can be addressed by having meetings to identify the issue, address the issue, create a mission statement for the issue, build buy in with stakeholders, collect data, table the issue, repeat. If leadership hasnt had a meeting than what is leadership doing.
If you have yourself and a handful of students a stick and some dirt and thats your IS you can probably avoid a lot of meetings, but you have to be careful or someone is going to convince you that you need someone to manage the dirt and sticks, and the next thing you know you need to submit a PO request in triplicate so that you can go and make a pile of sticks.
The same is true with email, the better the IS the bigger it gets the more parents pay and the more they think they own you and that mentality permeates the IS. Then ITs get board and they start sending out emails like "Hey how would you like to start an interdisciplinary........" ::delete:: nothing good ever started with "interdisciplinary". The real trick is spending the afternoon setting up your email rules, filters, and bots so that you can create the appearance of attentiveness without committal.
If you dont want to be bothered find a third tier IS where only you and the other ITs speak English and are westerners. Then just do the bauble head.
Oh those dont exist. The better an IS is the bigger it gets, the bigger it gets the more bloat you need in leadership. Leadership sit in nice offices most of the day and how they demonstrate productivity is meetings, otherwise your leadership would be watching cat videos and pictures of food on Facebook. If you dont have meeting your either unorganized/incompetent or your not efficient/effective, both of which can be addressed by having meetings to identify the issue, address the issue, create a mission statement for the issue, build buy in with stakeholders, collect data, table the issue, repeat. If leadership hasnt had a meeting than what is leadership doing.
If you have yourself and a handful of students a stick and some dirt and thats your IS you can probably avoid a lot of meetings, but you have to be careful or someone is going to convince you that you need someone to manage the dirt and sticks, and the next thing you know you need to submit a PO request in triplicate so that you can go and make a pile of sticks.
The same is true with email, the better the IS the bigger it gets the more parents pay and the more they think they own you and that mentality permeates the IS. Then ITs get board and they start sending out emails like "Hey how would you like to start an interdisciplinary........" ::delete:: nothing good ever started with "interdisciplinary". The real trick is spending the afternoon setting up your email rules, filters, and bots so that you can create the appearance of attentiveness without committal.
If you dont want to be bothered find a third tier IS where only you and the other ITs speak English and are westerners. Then just do the bauble head.
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Lastname_Z
- Posts: 120
- Joined: Mon May 20, 2013 12:17 pm
Re: Laid Back Schools (No Reviews)
Haha fair enough. I guess I'm too naive/idealistic about what leadership is. I always envisioned the best leadership as being the one that focuses on bureaucracy/paperwork and keeping parents happy so that teachers can focus on teaching. I also probably hadn't worded my post well. I guess I have an issue when admin have made meetings for things that could have been emails or vice versa.
Either way it looks like it's just something I'll have to expect when I start to move up the teaching ladder and just cope with it (which I'm okay with).
Either way it looks like it's just something I'll have to expect when I start to move up the teaching ladder and just cope with it (which I'm okay with).
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chilagringa
- Posts: 335
- Joined: Sun Apr 24, 2011 7:19 pm
Re: Laid Back Schools (No Reviews)
Latin American schools are pretty laid back from my experience so far (plus I know a lot of people who have worked at other Latin American schools since people often stay in the region.) As long as you have the classroom management skills to deal with chatty Latinos, it's pretty easy.
Reply
@Lastname_Z
Those leadership exist, the good ones, the ones who have an internal compass that knows its true north on ethics, values, best practices, fairness, etc.. The problem for them is two fold:
1) Leadership works for ownership. If ownership says do X, you dont stay in leadership for very long if you dont follow ownerships instructions. Many times the decisions of leadership is little more than a representative delivering the message. No one in leadership wants to invite conflict with faculty and staff, in many of those scenarios it would be so much easier to say yes, but they can only agree to what ownership lets them agree too. In other scenarios saying yes or agreeing would break the bank or some other challenge imposed by resource restrictions. Leadership would love to give you more salary, more technology, better apartments, new classroom resources, but the business office has to pay those invoices and there is only X available coin to leadership that they have discretion over.
2) For every one of those good leadership there is some very high multiple of leadership that isnt very good. Put one good leader in an IS with 9 other bad leaders and well quality generally follows a gravity gradient. You could have a new primary principal who is really good, truly one of the good ones, but if the HOS is just collecting coin until the next better IS opportunity and giving tours of the facility to new parents and the secondary principal is just trying to keep their head above water in an accreditation year, your assistant principal was internally promoted and is stuck in a "thats not how we do things" speech loop, and the business office is entirely run by the owners son, who needs some management experience, and is basically a spy, it doesnt matter how good you are, the best captain can only do so much with the ship they have. Too many holes and the only real issue is whether your going to go down with the ship or not.
Most leadership get to the point where they think more about their grand kids, family, and retirement than the job. At the end of the day most leadership got out of the classroom for one reason or another, and just cant do anything else and get paid for it. Most members of leadership saw leadership as a means to 1) Get further away from the stress of the classroom and 2) as a way to make a difference and effect change. They find out that its really just exchanging one supervisor for another and comes with more responsibility than anything else. Ask any admin/manager if they can truly create and effect change on their own initiative and the vast majority will confess that like you or any IT they have to ask someone and plead the merits.
Those leadership exist, the good ones, the ones who have an internal compass that knows its true north on ethics, values, best practices, fairness, etc.. The problem for them is two fold:
1) Leadership works for ownership. If ownership says do X, you dont stay in leadership for very long if you dont follow ownerships instructions. Many times the decisions of leadership is little more than a representative delivering the message. No one in leadership wants to invite conflict with faculty and staff, in many of those scenarios it would be so much easier to say yes, but they can only agree to what ownership lets them agree too. In other scenarios saying yes or agreeing would break the bank or some other challenge imposed by resource restrictions. Leadership would love to give you more salary, more technology, better apartments, new classroom resources, but the business office has to pay those invoices and there is only X available coin to leadership that they have discretion over.
2) For every one of those good leadership there is some very high multiple of leadership that isnt very good. Put one good leader in an IS with 9 other bad leaders and well quality generally follows a gravity gradient. You could have a new primary principal who is really good, truly one of the good ones, but if the HOS is just collecting coin until the next better IS opportunity and giving tours of the facility to new parents and the secondary principal is just trying to keep their head above water in an accreditation year, your assistant principal was internally promoted and is stuck in a "thats not how we do things" speech loop, and the business office is entirely run by the owners son, who needs some management experience, and is basically a spy, it doesnt matter how good you are, the best captain can only do so much with the ship they have. Too many holes and the only real issue is whether your going to go down with the ship or not.
Most leadership get to the point where they think more about their grand kids, family, and retirement than the job. At the end of the day most leadership got out of the classroom for one reason or another, and just cant do anything else and get paid for it. Most members of leadership saw leadership as a means to 1) Get further away from the stress of the classroom and 2) as a way to make a difference and effect change. They find out that its really just exchanging one supervisor for another and comes with more responsibility than anything else. Ask any admin/manager if they can truly create and effect change on their own initiative and the vast majority will confess that like you or any IT they have to ask someone and plead the merits.
Re: Laid Back Schools (No Reviews)
I think Latin America makes sense.