Teachers are a special type of people. Whenever teachers gather, it's teacher time. It's probably super annoying to non-teachers. Teaching is such a unique profession that offers various challenges and amazing experiences. And great holidays! When you start talking international teaching, it's a whole bag of crazy.
It's taken me awhile, but I have concluded that no matter where you go, what you do, or how you do it, there will be people around you who suck. At first international teaching seemed like a great opportunity to be around a bunch of like-minded people who loved children, travel, and adventure. After a short time at Woodstock, I realized how misleading my previous claim was. Obviously, I did find those people, and they are my people. The rest of the crew, however...
The other side of the international coin is the crazy bag. International teaching has lots of pros that draws in a certain... lazy-crazy crowd. We coined this term as le cray! Most international schools pay well (WS being the exception to that rule). People who work at international schools like money, which can be confusing to the profession in the USA. Typically, labor is very cheap in foreign countries. Hiring a nanny, cook, or house cleaner is very affordable and quite common. Having help in school is also very common. At WS, I had three gym helpers who were in charge of setting up equipment, taking it down, organizing, etc. More times than not, it was easier to do myself, but at times, it was awesome. In China, there are sooo many ladies up in the school milling about and "cleaning" or more likely gossiping. Either way, they're there.
So first, it's possible for many international teachers to do minimal manual labor once at school and at their homes. The stranger part is that international teachers enjoy complaining. I know I do my fair share of complaining, but some of these people lack perspective. I used to live on a mountain people. A MOUNTAIN. Relax, we're in a city of 11 million people. You'll be fine. 10,999,999 other people seem to be coping well.
It's taken me awhile, but I have concluded that no matter where you go, what you do, or how you do it, there will be people around you who suck. At first international teaching seemed like a great opportunity to be around a bunch of like-minded people who loved children, travel, and adventure. After a short time at Woodstock, I realized how misleading my previous claim was. Obviously, I did find those people, and they are my people. The rest of the crew, however...
The other side of the international coin is the crazy bag. International teaching has lots of pros that draws in a certain... lazy-crazy crowd. We coined this term as le cray! Most international schools pay well (WS being the exception to that rule). People who work at international schools like money, which can be confusing to the profession in the USA. Typically, labor is very cheap in foreign countries. Hiring a nanny, cook, or house cleaner is very affordable and quite common. Having help in school is also very common. At WS, I had three gym helpers who were in charge of setting up equipment, taking it down, organizing, etc. More times than not, it was easier to do myself, but at times, it was awesome. In China, there are sooo many ladies up in the school milling about and "cleaning" or more likely gossiping. Either way, they're there.
So first, it's possible for many international teachers to do minimal manual labor once at school and at their homes. The stranger part is that international teachers enjoy complaining. I know I do my fair share of complaining, but some of these people lack perspective. I used to live on a mountain people. A MOUNTAIN. Relax, we're in a city of 11 million people. You'll be fine. 10,999,999 other people seem to be coping well.
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