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COMMONPLACE BOOK
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Useful tools for reflecting on personal levels of international readiness and adaptability
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International Skills & IQ
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International Experience
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Preparation for the International Job Search
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Found on: http://myworldabroad.com
After reading the above articles and taking a few quizzes on the My World Abroad site, I am left to ponder two aspects of the complexity of international teaching. The two I've chosen are:
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Adaptation/Coping Skills
This aspect was interesting to me because although I live in Vietnam I teach at an international school for Korean expat students so I am exposed to and aware of many cultural differences between SE Asian demographics that I could not have imagined before living abroad. I personally enjoy the differences in architecture, food, clothing, music, etc. and have appreciated the challenges to adapting to what I'll call 'manners'.
In some aspects, I admire the politeness, courtesies, and traditions that these different cultures have to offer. And then I've found myself surprised and shocked at some things I have found disrespectful or rude from my perspective. Queues, spitting, nose picking, driving, eating with mouth open, elevator etiquette..
It is a practice of patience some days to not think of this behavior as a personal affront. I recognize my feelings of superiority (wrong word) that my way is better, but immediately have to remember that there are probably a lot of things I do that are regarded as rude and disrespectful too.
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I am planning on moving to Qatar and already have anxiety about the driving and the migrant workers situation. This is an area I need fuller development on.
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Reintegration
Marketing Your International Experience to Employers
I really enjoyed reading the article about reapplying for jobs back home. I am torn between wanting to move back fro retirement to be closer to my family, or if I want to continue staying out here. It was eye opening
From http://file.myworldabroad.com/QuickGuides/Marketing-Experience.pdf
POSSIBLE EMPLOYER ASSUMPTIONS:  Returnees have emotional re-adjustment problems: They have trouble accepting a North American lifestyle.  Returnees are too exotic: They have adopted alternative lifestyles and can’t be team players. They are excessively individualistic and independent. Their differences are threatening.  Returnees are flighty: They don’t really want permanent jobs or long-term responsibilities. They will soon be off traveling again.  Returnees have health problems: They may have strange tropical diseases.
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From http://myworldabroad.com/blog/14455/your-international-iq
 Political, economic and geographic knowledge:
Knowledge about the international aspects of your field:
Cross-cultural knowledge and skills:
Personal coping and adapting skills
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Where it said the conversations are different, not the regular local news, general perspectives or talk about the weather and teh cost of home repairs.
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RECORD IT:
Write for 10-20 minutes about your motivations for teaching internationally.
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I was motivated by travel and wanting new experiences. I was inspired to work for the united nations in a refugee camp and hopefully use my skill to read government-ese to help people fill out documents and teach them language (English or French) and cultural expectations to immigrate to other countries. Then it became soley a matter of wanting to live somewhere else. I considered working in Barbados, being an airline steward or even working on a cruise ship. I finally decided to take a 2 year sabbatical when my daughter finished high school to do a CELTA and try teaching. I found not only my outlet for travel and new adventure, I found my passion.
It has opened up more to me than I could have ever imagined, I am changed forever as a result and know that I continue to grow so much more exponentially tham if i were still sitting in a cubicle back home. I feel very lucky, through the sheer lottery of birth to have been born with the privilege of being white, from a developed country and to be fluent in two dominant languages: English and French. I am lucky that I had the abilities, means and opportunity to pursue a post secondary education and that I had good jobs that afforded me a lifestyle in which I could travel in the first place. I feel lucky that in comparison to other expatriat I did not move abroad for better opportunities or for financial reasons. I meet a lot of young people, particularly form the UK and Ireland, who report that there is a shortage of jobs and the cost of living on their own is too expensive. Their economies are suffering and many did not intend to be teachers but mainly wanted out of their parent's basements. I also am aware of the plight of many teachers in Canada, including NB where teachers wait several years before they secure their "Contract B" (I'm saying this in French so not sure if it applies nationally).
I guess I'm getting more into gratitude than motivation...
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Travel, broadening my perspectives, being in a warm climate, life-long learning, fascination with humanity and desire to understand the complexities of our nature, ability to be creative, a good mix of team work and autonomy in my position, the rewards and satisfaction that comes from helping students achieve their goals, interesting and engaging conversations with people all over the world, ongoing reflection and adjustment of my beliefs and perspectives.
I think my reasons for initially moving abroad were superficial. It mattered mostly that I'd have warm weather and a decent standard of living. These past 6 years have changed me and my reasons for staying are much more deep rooted.
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READ IT:
Atcha, R. (2009). Teaching in Nigeria. In C. Richardson & W. Richardson, (Eds.)., The Experiences of First-year teachers, pp 9-29. Youngstown, NY: Teneo Press.
https://ereserves.library.queensu.ca/ares/ares.dll?Action=10&Type=10&Value=82476
RECORD IT:
How does Rubina’s story capture issues of cultural complexity and personal growth in relation to international teaching? How is her story similar to or different from your own? Write for another 10-20 minutes on the intersections or differences between your experiences and Rubina’s.
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I think anyone who has moved abroad - even for a short time - can relate to Rubina's story. From the excitement, fear and anticipation of arriving to the challenges, torn feelings, confusion and frustrations of initial adaptation.
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I remember my first taxi drive form the airport to my hotel which was located in a dark alley off a very busy street. The driver had to teach me how to cross the road! And then show me how to navigate the addresses from street and shop signs. I felt lucky that he turned out to be so kind and not the murderer luggage stealer I had fears of him being on the way over.
Unlike Rubina I has thoroughly researched my new country and home city. I was surprised and then embarrassed ot find out that any traces or history of the war was long gone and not on the conciousness of this new generation that was born after it was long over. It was more vibrant than I had expexted and not as charming or as mysterious as the guide books had led me to believe.
There were alot of intersectionalities of cultural differences that I can see from Rubina's Canadian lense, even though our host countries (Nigeria and Vietnam) are quite different. Though I don't experience much religious divide, this is mainly a buddist country woth christian, confucist influences I do experience the same observation of a lack of critical thinking skills, ability to think outside the box. The students say their traditional schooling required then to memorize the Right answer, so they are often confused and afraid to make mistakes.
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I have also witnessed corporal punishment and also chalk it up to something I am uncomfortable with, will not participate in, but will not judge. To be fair, I witnessed corporal punishment in my own primary years in the 70's (strap or ruler on the hand) so perhaps my bar for tolerance is a bit low.
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respect for gender and age is also predominant here in both Vietnamese and Korean cultures. This works from pronouns, language and bowing (in Korean culture). My Korean co teacher last year initially found it difficult to tell me what to do because I was a female and older. He had lived in America for a year and had a good sense of humor so was able to express this to me because he knew it was culturally-based and had nothing to do with my approachability. His ability to identify and express this took the edge off and he had no problem bossing me around after that :)
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I would say the Vietnamese are very welcoming and warm, to the point where staff with sit with a lone diner because they don't want them to be alone. Having a meal by oneself is just sad. It used to annoy me since i wanted this time to reflect or read but it's impossible to be angry when you know their intentions are kind. Koreans - at least the Korean expats living in Saigon, are a bot more standoffish. They are polite, respectful and proud. They have a strong work ethic. Not very lavish with praise but generous with rewards.
I was touched by Rubina's description of her send off and how rewarding the relationships she forged with her students were. I believe this is the cornerstone of being a teacher - the connections you make and the rapports you build as human beings are so much more impactful than remembering what the 3 types of heat transfer are. Though I love creating fun and engaging lessons, this is done becuase I enjoy making the students happy, responsive and to tailor it to their needs and abilities. The small gifts, letters, pictures and "thank you"s are what keep me doing this year afetr year.
Although my current school is not a boarding school there are some similarities with student adjustment let's say. No the students aren't isolated form their families, but they do spend most of their waking hours with us teachers so we are playing multiple roles in their lives (teacher, coach, parent). Many of my students have fathers that are working in other countries and whose extended families are still in Korea. By fifth grade, most of my students have already lived in another country, and about 5% leave during the school year to move to another country. This means that we share the same experiences of being afraid having to adjust, make new friends and get used to a new way of living. Understanding that my students may be going through the same kinds of feelings I am helps me understand their behavior and motivations so much more.
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consider how the act of narrating experiences of international teaching can help teachers reflect on their personal and professional identities.
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Just from reading Robina's story made me feel like i wasn't the only one who had experienced or felt hese things mo eor less to the same degree, that it was normal and for each one of us who has done this - we really get a chance to learn about our selves - our values, our beliefs, preferences, boundaries, etc and really get to bounce that off of something to see iof they have any worth. To question our presumptions and find humor in the foible so the human predisposition.
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READ IT:
Hayden, M. (2011). Transnational spaces of education: The growth of the international school sector. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 9(2), 211-224.
EXCERPTS (cut and pasted)
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s this form of education proves increasingly attractive not only to the globally mobile expatriates for whom such schools were originally founded, but also to those seeking a competitive edge for their child in a globalised market.
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s are prepared for an ‘interconnected world’ (Cooke 2008) have led to national education systems becoming more obviously internationalised while at the same time raising many thorny issues as to what exactly is meant by international education and other related terms (Marshall 2007).
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where once the basis for the school curriculum may have been a selection from the culture of the society in which the school was located (Lawton 1989), preparing young people for adult life in a society similar to that of their parents’ own adulthood, more recent developments in technology and communications, and awareness of global interdependence, have led to decreasing certainty about the basis of the curriculum in a nation state. Indeed the only point of certainty is seemingly that what the curriculum is preparing young people for is NOT simply a future constrained by national boundaries and national issues. Even for those school-age students today who will never in adulthood leave their native shores, the future is certain to be so heavily influenced by international developments and their lives within national boundaries so affected by factors emanating from outside those boundaries that they will be hugely disadvantaged by an education that has not raised their awareness of, sensitivity to and facility with issues arising from beyond a national ‘home’ context
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hese schools, emerging around the world in response very often to the aspirations of global knowledge workers for their children, can be viewed as examples of the transnational spaces created by the globalisation process described by Beck, through which ‘sovereign national states are criss-crossed and undermined by transnational actors’ (2000, 11). They can be viewed, too, as examples of the many different transnational organisations, players and groups that make up the global society that Rosenau (1990) describes as competing with the other more familiar form of global society made up of nation states. This article will consider the growing influence of international schools as one aspect of the increasing internationalisation of education.
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hese schools, emerging around the world in response very often to the aspirations of global knowledge workers for their children, can be viewed as examples of the transnational spaces created by the globalisation process described by Beck, through which ‘sovereign national states are criss-crossed and undermined by transnational actors’ (2000, 11). They can be viewed, too, as examples of the many different transnational organisations, players and groups that make up the global society that Rosenau (1990) describes as competing with the other more familiar form of global society made up of nation states. This article will consider the growing influence of international schools as one aspect of the increasing internationalisation of education.Dolby and Rahman 2008.
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Hayden and Thompson to assert that ‘for the most part, the body of international schools is a conglomeration of individual institutions which may or may not share an underlying educational philosophy’ (1995, 332).
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Sylvester meanwhile proposed two main groupings of international schools relating to their underlying missions either ‘encapsulated’ (with little diversity of student cultural background or pedagogy, a narrowly targeted curriculum and a value system arising from an ‘imported school culture’) or ‘inclusive’ (wide diversity of student cultural background, teachers as exemplars of world-minded views, a balanced formal curriculum and encouragement for students to explore diversity) (Sylvester 1998).
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2008, argue Lallo and Resnik, four groups of such schools could be identified. One group serves students from different nationalities, sometimes privately funded and sometimes state-funded (to cater for children of migrant workers, for instance). Another group, they argue, is those including students of a specific national community located in a foreign country, operating separately from the local school system,A third, meanwhile, caters for different nationalities, encouraging the development of the particular language and cultural identity of each child while promoting a ‘transcultural identity’ for all students
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have both positive and negative dimensions. Such students are on the one hand materially Globalisation, Societies and Education 215 relatively privileged and enjoy benefits including ‘adaptability, cross-cultural skills, social skills, observational skills and linguistic skills’ (Rader and Sittig 2003, 3). Having adopted a globally mobile lifestyle voluntarily on the basis of opportunity (economic, educational, social, cultural) they represent a privileged elite (Willis, Enloe, and Minoura 1994, 29)the less positive aspects of their transient lifestyle (which can result in children moving home, country and school at frequent intervals, and never living in a ‘home’ country) can include ‘confused loyalties, a sense of rootlessness and restlessness, a lack of true identity, and unresolved grief’ (Rader and Sittig 2003, 3). For some, too, being part of an expatriate elite located temporarily in a quite different racial context undoubtedly raises issues that would not have been raised in their ‘home’ context (Fechter 2005).
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More recently, groupings of international schools have been established on a more commercial footing
The growth in numbers of English-medium international schools of this type, and the desirability of English-medium education to ‘host national’ families, could be viewed through a colonial lens in some countries, if not all as the post-colonial elite who have access to prestigious schools and international education experiences are ‘keyed into the information revolution [and other aspects of ‘western education’] whilst the majority of learners are not’ (Kenway 1996; Tikly 2001). As such schools grow in number, the impact of the commercialisation and globalisation of education on the national contexts in which they are located seems likely to become increasingly marked.
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Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma in 1970 (Peterson 1987), others have appeared including the IB Diploma’s siblings, the IB Middle Years Programme and IB Primary Years Programme (launched in 1994 and 1997 respectively; Hayden 2006), the International GCSE offered by Cambridge International Examinations (2010) and Edexcel (2010), the Advanced Placement International Diploma (DiYanni 2007) and the International Primary Curriculum (2010). Raising many issues including the extent to which such programmes are essentially promoting educational imperialism (Thompson 1998), and to what extent they are really international as opposed to western liberal in ethos and underpinning values (Drake 2004; Heyward 2002; Van Oord 2007), such programmes are themselves rapidly growing in number and in popularity (Hayden and Thompson 2008).
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The ‘kudos of private, Englishmedium education’ arises in some countries, according to Gould, when English Globalisation, Societies and Education 217 language proficiency is valued at least in part as being ‘tied to the structure of labour market incentives [as] a prerequisite for career advancement in both private and public sectors’ (1999, 18). As Gould goes on to point out, parental choice of international schools also arises in part from desire for their child, in the context of increasing globalisation, to develop multiple or alternative identities, to have access to global employment structures and job opportunities in a global economy, and to benefit from education as the cultural capital investment of a global elite (1999, 18).
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Indeed MacDonald (2006) argues that the international school sector can now be thought of as a global multi-billion dollar industry, with links between growth in international schools and growth in international trade such that international schools are clearly ‘a natural stepchild of international business and provide a vital piece of international business infrastructure’ (2006, 206).for instance, does not allow Chinese nationals to attend international schools (except for instance where the child has lived outside China previously), while Thailand, having initially implemented a similar policy, then deregulated to allow Thai nationals access (MacDonald 2006). The enormous growth in the number of international schools in Thailand since that point, many of which cater almost exclusively for Thai nationals, pays testament to the demand in that country from the socio-economically advantaged for a form of education that will give their child a ‘competitive edge’ (Lowe 2000) compared with their peers.
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Thoughts: I never thought of intl schools in a ny bad light. I knew they were prestigious and elitist but I never thought of the possible social economic and education consequeses that inevitably arise from stratifying and further dividing the privileged from the have-nots.
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WATCH IT:
International education - looking back, looking forward: Dr. Chris Mueller at TEDxYouth@BIS
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(grandfather's notes)
Constructivist idea of learning through doing
broadbased experiential education
education as a human endeavor in the classroom
learning as a n inspiring and engaging process
get away form concepts based on conformity (every child/student is different)
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Comapres to finland:
learning focused on individual strengths
broad based balanced study of subjects
teachers are highly valued and regarded
no standardized testing
school is responsible for education not government or outside businesses
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International schools
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diversity
learning is individualized and dif backgrounds demands dif education
taps into the diversity of the population
brioad diverse curriculum
equpi students with a global vieew to be equiped for the future
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They can move away from curriculum and ficus on nourishing talents
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We can't predict the future careers so we need o gve students tthe tools to tap into their strengths be innovative thinkiers, guide for discovery and renewal their individual genius think beyond nationality and culture in the context of great er humanity
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He thiks that public school and givt officials should model themselves after these models
not think of school as a monetary expense but the investment that it is in the future
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WATCH IT:Mary Hayden at TEDxBathUniversity http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cbn08FYElU&sns=em
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s
onstructivist idea of learning through doing
broadbased experiential education
education as a human endeavor in the classroom
learning as a n inspiring and engaging process
get away form concepts based on conformity (every child/student is different)
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Comapres to finland:
learning focused on individual strengths
broad based balanced study of subjects
teachers are highly valued and regarded
no standardized testing
school is responsible for education not government or outside businesses
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International schools
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diversity
learning is individualized and dif backgrounds demands dif education
taps into the diversity of the population
brioad diverse curriculum
equpi students with a global vieew to be equiped for the future
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They can move away from curriculum and ficus on nourishing talents
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We can't predict the future careers so we need o gve students tthe tools to tap into their strengths be innovative thinkiers, guide for discovery and renewal their individual genius think beyond nationality and culture in the context of great er humanity
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He thiks that public school and givt officials should model themselves after these models
not think of school as a monetary expense but the investment that it is in the future
"spectatoritice"watching other people rather than doing, decline in physical fitness and apathy and cynicsm. UNITED WORLD COLLEGES
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ahhhaaaa good to know the history of how all this accredidation mace about A level, Intl baccleaureat, learn to see poeple as individuals
Is it a pipe dream that intl colleges and school can't bridge the human divide? She says no but makes no mention of the costs and resources taht go in, the inaccessibility it is to most families and students.
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CONVERSATIONS ABOUT INQUIRY
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In their respective Ted talks, both Dr. Chris Mueller (2013) and Mary Hayden (2013) sing the praises of the international school system. These schools are esteemed for providing students with diversity, broad curriculum, individualised learning and a multicultural world view which will hopefully make them better global citizens and position them for a future in the international market. While Hayden’s (2011) article agrees with the advantages that international schools can offer she is also critical of the broader effects these will have. The downside to this double-edged sword revolves around questions regarding widening socio-economic divides, cultural and linguistic imperialism, and the long-term effects on students’ identities, well-being and future mobility.
I currently teach at an international school so how culture and the human experience relates to curriculum is of great interest to me. Well, I say ‘international’… My school is specifically for Korean students living in Vietnam, and follows the Korean government’s regulations and curriculum. Lallo and Resnik (2008) would describe it within the group of schools that include “students of a specific national community located in a foreign country, operating separately from the local school system”. I plan to continue teaching abroad and am now more conscious of how my behavior, attitude and the way I deliver the curriculum might promote my own cultural values and prejudices. Furthermore, I wonder if there is anything that can be done to balance the educational inequalities that are bound to stem from a multi-tiered system favoring the advantaged and privileged.
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