The International Schools Review Forum

With my rose colored glasses off (and thanks to a lot of great info from all of you), I've realized that in order for our family to have any kind of chance of teaching abroad, we have a lot of planning ahead/work to do. My husband is currently a HS science teacher in his 8th year and we have 4 kids.

IF my husband and I decide that international teaching were our ultimate goal in a few years, I would consider getting certified as either a PE teacher or a Library Media Specialist (yes, I know - kind of opposite ends of the spectrum, but I would not be happy in a traditional classroom setting and those two jobs are the only teacher jobs I could really see myself enjoying).

I know that the 4 kids would still be an obstacle, but after much deliberation, we can't agree on which one to get rid of, so they'll have to stick around. ;)

So kids aside, in your experience, which of those jobs combined with a science teacher would make us more marketable in the IT world?

Disclaimer: I am not an International Teaching expert. :) This means, take my opinion with a grain of salt.

I would think PE would be more marketable.

My experience only, but at my school, the librarian and all of the library staff are locals. I can't say I really know of any schools here that have Western librarians, but that is a blanket statement and I am sure there are some great schools that do hire Western teachers for the library.

However, I know of MANY Western PE teachers and see plenty of openings in schools for PE teachers.

The big question that would be raised was you would have 0 years experience, unless you waited and got 2 years. The second biggest one is that a family of SIX is extremely hard to fit internationally. Your best bet would likely be QSI - but at a QSI school you would likely be teaching multiple subjects due to the small student population of the school.

just my thoughts...

My husband teaches HS Science, and I'm a librarian (as well as a few other things). We just got our first international jobs. No kids for us. I'm obviously not an IS veteran, but I can share my job-hunting experiences from this year.

intlskipper may be right that some schools hire local librarians. In fact, we emailed with a director this year who had a job posted on Search but said he was trying to find someone local before the fairs started. (I think he did, too. The job disappeared early.) However, there are still plenty of library jobs posted for overseas hires, and it's a pretty rare qualification, which means less competition.

Having said that, the number of schools hiring for science & library at the same time is not huge. With your family, it seems like your options would be limited. Also, you should know that a lot of librarians have technology responsibilities in addition to all the booky, researchy stuff.

I have four years of experience (two in the classroom and two in the library). Without going to a fair, we got interview requests from five schools, and only one of them had a library opening. The other schools were interested in my other qualifications. The science husband is the big draw for them; they just try to fit you in where they can. :)

I do hope you find a way to get overseas, but I don't know that library is the way to do it. With no experience and no other certificates, I think you would have a very difficult time finding a school willing to support your family.

Thank you, everyone, for your input. I really do appreciate it.

I have been thinking long term and am willing to do my 2 years of experience here if this is a route we decide to take down the road. As far as having extra duties with either PE (like health classes) or Library (technology stuff), those would be fine with me. Especially technology stuff, as I spent my 4 years of college as a TA for the technology in education class and managing the El Ed computer lab and loving *almost* every minute of it.

Housingwise, I totally understand the family size issue. But I also don't subscribe to the idea that every child must have their own room. Actually, I think it's absurd. So if given the chance of moving abroad to a small, but liveable space or staying here (where we have them sharing rooms anyway), I'll take the small space and the experience that comes with it.

What about air fare and tuition? I get the impression that many schools would only cover a portion of the expense for four kids. You've decided to keep all four kids, but you may have to choose which ones get an education. ;)

Have you thought about teaching computer? Do you live in a place where it's easy to add certs? If I were you, I would try to get a few different qualifications. In fact, my state requires two years of certified teaching experience before you can get the LMS cert, so you have to start as something else.

I need to say it but no matter how you cut it its a science teacher, 4 kids and a trailing spouse. Its not going to happen, here is the problem: to be a librarian, you typically need a couple years of experience in a classroom before you can add a Library endorsement and this takes typically a masters degree in most states. On top of that library positions have VERY low turnover, so you may be waiting a very long time to get a position. The extended problem as i mentioned before is where do you get the experience to get the library certification? P.E. is another field with very low demand and very low turnover. You could be waiting a decade for a P.E. position to open up.

So where are you going to get the two years P.E. experience so that you can go back to grad school for 2 more years to be a librarian, after which you will be a librarian with zero experience.

So really the choice isnt PE OR Library its do you do PE or PE AND Library?

So you can get certified in PE though a variety of options, but then what? You spend years (like decade years) applying for PE positions? You have one certification (PE) and NO/ZERO experience, thats not going to overcome the challenge of 4 kids.

In anything but elementary/primary PE you would need to coach a sport.
Can you actually coach any sports? Why would a local school give your the team without any proven performance? Did you play any sports in college at the NCAA level?