The International Schools Review Forum

marieh wrote:
> "Teach Ready provides you 5 days of experience in a classroom as a teacher. You are
> not the teacher of record, and it is not your classroom, your just a guest teacher,
> and 5 days is not in any way going to prepare you for the education profession"
>
> The easiest way around this is to get a job at a Tier 3 or bilingual school for a
> year while you work on your certification.
>
> Regarding tdclark's original question: I am also a math teacher who completed the
> TeacherReady program through the above method. I had several job offers before completing
> the program, although they were mainly from lower Tier 2 schools or schools in questionable
> locations. Like bendetwile2, I ended up in Pakistan (there are three major ISs in
> the country) and am quite happy here. My understanding is that once you successfully
> complete your first contract, no one will care where your certification is from.
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Don't know much about Teacher Ready/Teach Now....

But, I would second this. I was first certified in Florida. I had a BA in a non-education area, took the tests, got a temporary certification (they were desperate for SPED teachers at the time) found a teaching job and along with my two years experience ended up only needing to take a couple of classes for a renewable 5 year professional cert.

With that and limited experience managed to get a couple of good int'l school gigs. I later went back and got my Masters degree in SPED in a online program for teachers already certified (so no student teaching etc required). With that I and a bit more experience landed my current dream gig with DoDDS.

So, having an alternative certification and no actual education program completion has not limited my opportunities. It doesn't prove anything and maybe I was just lucky, but I would agree that the important thing is getting certification and a bit of experience. You are then free to start working your way up the int'l school ladder and how close you get to your dream gig/school should only be limited by doing a good job (e.g. successful experience, getting good references) and the usual timing, right place/right time that everyone faces.

@wrldtrvlr123

A few important observations, first SPED and SEN/LS is not the same as content academic courses. SPED as you quoted was in very high demand, that was your in. In addition ISs that have SPED programs are better upper tier ISs. Second, you had 2 years experience which is the standard bar on entry into IE. SPED is not an assessed subject area. Even a Maths IT which is an in demand subject a recruiter is going to be weary of an IT with a certification and little to no experience especially at school leaving level.

I do agree that once you have demonstrated success in the classroom that matters more than how you were certified, which is why I qualified that response that training pathway is more important with inexperienced ITs who dont have a success record in the classroom.