That is not really an outrageously huge salary for NYC. Anyway, in my opinion the outrage in the US is the large salary for admin. Especially superintendents and assistant superintendents. At least in Texas, you want to make money in education you become a supt. or an athletic director/head football coach. The teacher in the classroom is where the rubber hits the road and if you want great results, pay them accordingly. I do not like the "I'm not in this for the money" bit. I am. OK, life transformation and being a super teacher is job one, but pay me well....I will not complain.

Point Blue Jay...Senator, you insulted the educators of my country. I do not even accept the concept of first second and third world, but there are many dedicated American teachers domestic and international.

Why leave America? Well, the salary the original poster mentioned is nice and it would be great to live in NYC, but other than that, why NOT leave America? When I am gone, I miss my mother, and Skype helps with that. Sure I have friends here, but I make incredible friendships where ever I go.
Seriously, why not???

Same here, shadowjack.

Congratulations on picking up on my sarcasm, dude. :wink:

Hi all. I am from the USA, though I hold close ties to Mexico, so I am an "American" through-and-through. I am a language teacher and I hope and pray that I am a pretty decent one. Several times in my professional international school teaching career I have encountered situations involving different forms of curriculum, ways of presenting curricula, communication in English etc. Mostly with Australians and people from New Zealand, but also from Great Britain and other places. The US takes such huge hits as being poor in the quality of public education that it provides that I am sometimes unwilling to attempt to defend it. However, I will now do so by saying the criticisms are often without merit in that they do not factor in the socio-economic restraints of the "American teacher".

That is one topic.

The other topic I want to put forth is that I was made "hot and bothered" by the insistence at a former school of using the "British" system of spelling. To me it was in no way international and as a language teacher I balked. Was this wrong? I do not think so, but I would like to hear from others.

Cheers.

I have used tap water for brushing my pretty little teeth everywhere...well, unless the tap ran black or something. Drinking it directly is another ball game though. I would NOT.

Very important that schools hook new teachers up with other teachers for this reason. I am suspicious of schools that do not do this (and many don't). You learn interesting things. Like bring manila folders or construction paper as you know it does not exist in this country, etc.

It will not make a difference about the number of Master's degrees you have. Not with any school I have dealt with. One or five, no difference.

As a language and social sciences teacher, I cannot really give you any pearls of wisdom about the best fair for a maths person, but most students I encounter teach ME about computers, not the other way around. It does not seem to me that there is a huge sense of demand for "computer teachers", though, of course, computer competence is basically a must. Maybe I am wrong on this.

To be clear, do you have a Master's degree in any subject? If you do, then undergraduate courses would be fine. If you do not already hold a Master's degree, I would get one. Math being a great field in which to do so.

Always very helpful to me to hear of others' experiences. Sounds similar to my experience at Cambridge except there was a huge blizzard thrown in the mix that interfered with the cocktail schmoozing. My wife and I did accept positions.

Again, thanks for taking the time to share.

It is a legit question to raise... When and how do you teach the basic skills and still stay committed to the Unit of Inquiry? I think that the answer is that you work hard. I too like the PYP philosophy and I am committed to its practice. You certainly do not need to go to Europe to find top international schools that use the PYP program.

Asia is a very large piece of real estate. I think that the New International School Thailand in Bangkok would be a great place...but there are so many great IB schools out there.

I am going to Vietnam and every one of the new colleagues I have spoken to so far seem like "Tier 1" educators and are coming from excellent schools. I do not feel that I am going into a second-rate country or school. Only time will tell. Albert49, I appreciated what you had to say.