I live and work in China as an international school teacher. I think those are pretty good wages for a first year teacher at a school. If I were you I would take the advice of a previous poster and try to get some idea of what taxes would run you. I know my school pays the equivalent of about 40% of my salary as tax on my salary and benefits. This will vary from province to province and city to city though so that isn't meant as a definitive number for you. I think if the taxes are manageable then the money and benefits are pretty good.

Just a sample of my experiences at a small school with a student population of 167
*more family friendly
*great students
*greater sense of camaraderie among staff
*more opportunities to impact school policies
*could be big fish in small pond when I wanted to be
*fewer resources (both physical and PD)
*fewer choices for my own kids
*only MS science teacher
*compensation was not adequate

A sample of my experiences at a big school with a student population greater than 1800
*unlimited classroom budget (literally wish and it is mine kind of situation)
*great students
*multiple department colleagues to share triumphs and defeats with
*bureaucracy up the ying yang, if there isn't a form for it then we need to create one
*compensation and benefits are excellent
*staff I don't recognize even after 4+ years of working at the school
*change is slow in coming, yet
*always the need to keep up with the latest and greatest

I have enjoyed my experiences at both.

If you want some entertainment go to a conference session that Hallam is presenting and just sit back and enjoy. The last one I saw pitted two financial advisors against him. The fireworks were pretty spectacular.

I'm not convinced Shanghai is a hardship city, but to each his own

The salary isn't overwhelming but its probably enough for a single. You'll need to keep close tabs on the apartment as the quality can vary greatly as will the location with regard to the school and you want to make sure they aren't hiding a boarding situation. My biggest question would be around the insurance, exactly what level of care do you get in China and does it cover you when you are outside of China?

China and Paraguay apparently

China can be as cheap or expensive as you want to make it, which is a nice option. You can literally dine for pennies one night and $1000/diner the next night.

The question I have is, why wait to apply? Once each of you get your certification what is the benefit of not applying to international schools immediately? If a school isn't interested or can't hire you then they won't contact you, but if they are interested and can hire you then you end up with an interview and possible job. If you don't feel the school is good enough then you interview for the experience. I recognize there are cost to applying, both financial and emotional having paid them myself, but the sooner you apply out the sooner you will have the job you want.

For me you have already made the important decision and are ready to move overseas and I'm not convinced that there is any value to staying in the states if you can move overseas sooner rather than later. The unfortunate reality is that you can always be doing something to make yourself more marketable and some point you just have to take the leap.

Having gotten two good jobs, that allowed my family to explore SE Asia and Europe, at the Iowa fair I would dispute the notion that it's a "dump" fair. I would imagine SF might be along the same lines. Schools are looking to fill jobs all the time and you never know what they will fill when.

I agree with some of the previous posters that job fair timing is not your friend now if you are looking for a job for next fall, however lots of teachers get jobs outside the fairs these days. It probably requires more time and patience but it can be done.

The two year leave is not an issue. Our second time overseas was done within the limits of a leave and we did return to our home district. At no time did any admin ever make a comment about us being a tourist teacher. We took another two year leave 4 years later and at the end we were prepared to cut the ties. The only difference between the two experiences was the email we sent to our district back home.

Good luck in your search.

Only because you made those criteria up in your own mind. I have taught at a number of schools, some of which would not meet your selective criteria for a Tier 1 and yet it met my needs perfectly at the time. I am now at a school that meets all YOUR criteria (and its far from perfect) for a tier 1 and its meeting my needs, but it wouldn't have 20 years ago . Your criteria are exactly that, yours and nobody else's. If it works for you then more power to you but to judge other teachers' choices based on those same criteria is crap.

Then again the entire tier discussion is theoretical so does it really matter what one person thinks anyway? Christian values might make a school more preferable to one teacher than another, just like any quality might make any school more preferable to one teacher than another. If you are interested in living in Shanghai there are a number of good schools that fill the same checkboxes, and other checkboxes that the other schools don't. It doesn't mean they are better or worse, just different.

In my experience it certainly happens but its not common at all.

PsyGuy wrote:
> @ReadytoRun
>
> How much do you need to know to teach PHE? If its just some warmup exercises, and
> throwing some balls out, you dont have to know very much.

first, do you say crap just to get people going and second, I know I lot of teachers who do warm up exercises and throw balls out who would love to run you through their program just to see what you would look like coming out the other side.

Why in the world would you unfairly denigrate our colleagues on a board read almost solely by teachers, oh right I forgot.

Twoteachers, that is what we experienced particularly with the fool in Manila

There is more learning happening when kids learn to code than simply learning a particular coding language. Whether its applicable 20 years from now isn't the point.