How It All Begins
Part 1: Getting started
I began my blog in early 2023.
It’s still 2023 when writing this post and I’ve already written around 30 Footloose Teacher blog posts and started a completely new second blog about personal finance.
That’s quite a thing for a guy who’s never written anything before. I still struggle to know what to write on birthday cards. I would never call myself a writer. But maybe I’ve become a person who writes stuff occasionally. Having gotten this far and not quit this blogging thing yet, I’ve decided to go back to the start. Just in case anyone is interested.
This part of my life story began when I first became a teacher. Even that was unthinkable just a few years prior.
The thought of teaching overseas was an even more distant one. I hadn’t even travelled overseas until I was 27.
Anyway, I’m still teaching in an international school and I’m often reflecting on where life has taken me since the world clicked over into the 21st Century.
2000
Jan 1 2000 seems a pretty good time to start my story. Although quite a bit of pretty cool stuff happened before then, there was also some less-than-cool stuff that’s not relevant to this blog or that I would prefer not to write about.
I became a teacher in 1995. It took me a while to get there in a kind of roundabout way. But getting there, to that point of actually becoming a teacher was the life-changing event that got me to to where I am today: writing a blog about my international teaching journey of over 21 years.
I recall January 1, 2000. In fact, it was December 31, 1999. It was New Year’s Eve and I was heading out to celebrate with Al, who is one of my very best mates. I recall asking him what he thought of us being in our 30s. He seemed to see it as the best time of his life. I wasn’t quite so sure about that. I hadn’t had a great last few months, and I needed something. Something was missing.
But a new millennium was about to arrive. And things were about to change. 2000 was the year of the Sydney Olympics. Because everyone was flying to Australia, I got a really cheap flight to Japan to visit Al, who had been living there for a few years at that stage and was doing pretty well. I had a great week of exploring Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. I also became intrigued with the idea of living overseas.
In the same year, I would take a trip to Vietnam with my housemate, Sarah. This is the trip where I met a group of international teachers who were at the time, based in Beijing. It was a chance encounter on a bus somewhere between Hoi An and Nha Trang that changed my life forever and sent me on my own footloose teaching journey that I’m still on. I picked their brains …. and sought to copy their lifestyles.
The Job Hunt Begins
By late 2001 I had worked out how this international teaching thing went. Or at least I thought I did. I found a website called ‘Joy Jobs’ which was a guide to how to get a job overseas, especially in international schools, and began researching. Basically, I was collecting email addresses and sending off introduction letters with my resume to dozens of schools all around the world.
I found out about a few schools specifically and a couple that stood out that looked really great were in Singapore. I visited the small island country that I later heard referred to as ‘The Red Dot’ a couple of years earlier and loved it. Getting a job there would be a dream, I thought.
Coincidently, the head of my department at my school at that time had similar plans. He applied for a job at United World College, Singapore but didn’t make it to an interview. He then suggested to me in passing that if he couldn’t get a job at an international school then I probably couldn’t either. Challenge accepted.
By early 2002, I was receiving some interest in the form of replies from school principals in a range of countries. But I was quickly realising that the top schools in the most desired cities were tough to crack without international school experience. I had a few years of teaching experience under my belt by then but I felt that I was really up against it as I was competing with teachers from all around the world.
There were a few replies from schools in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia. But that region was still a little bit of a mystery to me. I was quite keen on SE Asia as I had by now been to Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. I was making up for some lost time on the travel front and was keen to add to my travel dossier.
Sometime in February, I was offered a job in Qatar and I was considered with some trepidation. But just before I emailed my acceptance, I received another that would turn out to be my first international teaching job. I accepted a job at Brent School, Baguio City, Philippines. I would start in July.
My New Life
Life is all about taking opportunities and I felt that this could be a great one. It turned out to be the first step in my overseas adventure that continues still. It was this very bold move, considered a bit crazy by some of my friends that gave me the slightly nomadic and interesting life that would follow.
When I think back now, it isn’t such a big deal. To move from one country to the next, whenever I need a change is quite normal to me now. It’s quite normal for most of my friends. I’m in this bubble of the international teaching world. But for those who haven’t contemplated such a thing, I understand that it is a little unusual. I feel this whenever I return to Australia and meet up with friends who live a different, more stable and predictable life. This blog is perhaps more for people outside of my bubble. For those of you within it, there may not be anything interesting here. My stories are similar to yours. But for those who may be contemplating a change to this kind of life. I hope you get something from reading my blog.
I could have written a book already, describing my experiences over the past 20 years. If I did, then the following sub-headings would probably have represented a whole chapter each. The book would have gone something like this.
- Chapter 1: What is this international teaching thing all about then? (You’re here now)
- Chapter 2: Foot in the Door (Baguio was my stepping stone)
- Chapter 3: Singapore was the real goal
- Chapter 4: Contacts bring more opportunities
- Chapter 5: China? Really?
- Chapter 6: Family changes everything
- Chapter 7: The speed dating world of recruitment fairs
- Chapter 8: Hong Kong Part 1
- Chapter 9: Homeward bound, but would it stick?
- Chapter 10: I’m Back (Hong Kong Part 2)
- Chapter 11: Covid changes everything
- Chapter 12: Thailand it is then
Instead of a book, I will use these headings to catch you up on the journey so far. This introduction will begin with a basic overview of the interesting world of international teaching.
What Is This International Teaching Thing All About Then?
Yes, people do live outside of their place of birth. Many of these people also have kids. Kids that need a good school in a suitable language that will allow them access to further education. For decades foreign children whose parents prefer that they do not attend a local school have been attending international schools. These schools offer either an international curriculum or the curriculum of the countries where many of the children originate.
Every international school that I have worked at has offered the International Baccalaureate curriculum, at least for the senior Diploma years. The IB also offers an international curriculum for the primary years as well as a middle years program alongside the prestigious Diploma program. They have also in recent years introduced the Career-Related Program. This is one that I’m interested in geting more involved in myself.
Obviously, I’d never taught this curriculum before accepting my first job. Aussies seem to have a reputation for being flexible and taking on new challenges without much fuss. At least that’s how I sold myself. But this was going to be a little outside of my comfort zone. I had never taught in a private school and I was more familiar with teaching that involved a certain amount of behaviour management. I was a little apprehensive about teaching ‘rich kids’ with rich parents and I was also uncertain of the academic standards that I needed to teach to.
I had read about a higher level of respect given to teachers in Asian culture. I was also curious about the transient nature of students who moved around the world as their parents changed jobs. It had a real feeling of stepping into a new world. I had grown up in a very different place. I was from humble beginnings, to say the least. Just being in another country was a huge deal for me. To live and work in another country was definitely exciting.
The International Baccalaureate Diploma program was promoted as being academically rigorous as well as being quite holistic. I was intrigued by all that I was faced with in terms of working in schools that were very different to my Australian public school experience. I was quietly confident that I could do this. But more than just a job, I was excited to immerse myself in different cultures and to teach kids from all around the world.
So I set off, on my own, to start a new chapter in my life. I had no idea what to expect, or how long it would last. I’ll give you a clue though. It almost didn’t last. Check out my next post (when I get around to it) for the first two years of this story – The Philippines.
Related articles:
The Philippines: Live, love and travel
