Finding a teaching job overseas (science, not ESL)

In My Humble Opinion
1

I am a certified science teacher for 4th-8th grade and this is my 7th year teaching. I love teaching and consider myself a successful teacher (I was the district teacher of the year for my district last year), and see myself doing this for the rest of my life. I have a masters and lots of additional experience (writing curriculum/assessments, mentoring new teachers, writing/managing grants, lots of success with at-risk kids) that should make me pretty marketable.

For many years now, though, I’ve had the desire to live internationally. I have lived my entire life in Texas but have traveled a fair bit, mostly through work in my life before teaching. I’m a really, really bad fit for Texas (i.e. bleeding heart liberal), I’m single, no significant other, no kids, and getting up on 40 years old.

So I want to teach science somewhere else, preferably starting in the 2013-2014 school year. So far my top choices are:
[ul]
[li]Australia (my cousin lives in Sydney)[/li][li]The Dept. of Defense has an overseas education program with placements in many countries[/li][li]Somewhere in South America (Costa Rica, Brazil)[/li][li]Honestly, just about anywhere with a decent climate (I don’t deal with cold well, I love warm climates close to water if possible, extra points if there are rainforests or amazing animals around to awaken the science geek in me!).[/li][/ul]

How do I even go about finding teaching jobs? The DOD one is easy, but how do I locate and contact schools and get the ball rolling? I’m hesitant to spend money on recruiters because I have the sinking suspicion they’ll try to sell me on any old school and not be concerned with a good fit.

I’d like to do a little research first, but I don’t really know where to start. I’m open to just about anywhere, really, and my dream school would be one that had an environmental or ecological focus. All of my experience is with disadvantaged youth, so I am also very open working with underprivileged kiddos.

Anyone who has lived overseas or who has experience finding jobs overseas or knows about schools overseas…I welcome any advice you have.

2

Wotcher, Novalyne!

Since you mentioned Brazil: I’ve lived here for two years. I’ve taught here (ESL in language schools), I’m applying to jobs as a history/politics teacher at local universities, and I’ve had a few nudges towards teaching in private secondary schools. My wife is also studying to be a schoolteacher.

So: to live in Brazil, you have to speak Portuguese - no way around it - but I consider it a fairly easy language to learn. To work at a school - well, your best bet is finding work at private schools, of which a small number teach all classes in English. I only know a few of them, but I could send you the details if you PM me. In general there’s a dearth of teachers, as it’s a low-status job here and the pay sucks (though sucks much less at the good private schools, and is pretty good at universities).

The real hassle is getting a visa to live and work here. You could get a sponsored visa through your employer if you apply for and get a job with a school here, but as it’s a hassle and expensive for the employer, it might be tricky; still, I’ve known it to work. My wife is Brazilian, so that was my way in. Otherwise, the only easy way in that I know of for someone at your age and situation is to invest $250,000 in Brazil, IIRC.

If you want more specifics about any of this, feel free to ask!

3

The first thing you need to do is contact the embassies for those countries you’re interested in. They can both tell you whether you’re considered qualified there or not, and if not what do you need to do to get qualified, and put you in contact with possible employers.

And for the DoD jobs… have you tried asking DoD?

4

There are job fairs. A lot of international schools use a few recruiters. Internet is your friend.

5

You’re not really gonna have a chance in any, “Western” nation. Outside of the USA no nation has lotteries, so you have to be on their skilled list. Which is generally a list of jobs they can’t fill within their own university ranks.

Australia and New Zealand are extremely hard to get into, unless you have a skill they need badly. Even then it’s unlikely.

But most Westernized nations will let just about anyone in if they can post a bond. If you are an entrepreneur and have a lot of money, you will get in fairly easy, even to Australia and New Zealand.

The other way is to find an American company with offices in the country you want to go to. This makes it a lot easier to go. But even then it doesn’t work. I work for a multinational and while we’ve transferred a few to Australia, we have never successfully been able to transfer anyone to Canada or the UK.

They always reject our candidates based on the job can be done by locals.

6

Thanks everybody! It sounds like the DOD will be the easiest way to go international, but I’ll keep researching my options. I’m a little apprehensive of recruiters - a friend used a couple last year and it was obvious to her that they were just looking for warm bodies to fill anything. But it’s worth a shot, especially since I am having trouble finding schools online to contact directly.

7

OK, send me an e-mail and I will give you a phone number.

8

Two points:

  • You mentioned the “2013-2014 school year.” In Australia, that’s not a school year, schools follow a calendar year. (Much more sensible, no?)

  • Have you considered a teacher exchange program? I don’t know much about it, in the '90s in Australia, a family friend who was a teacher went to Canada for a year (maybe longer, can’t remember) and we had a Canadian teacher and her family come over. They even exchanged houses for the duration. I don’t know what program they took part in, but a few minutes of Googling turned up the Fullbright and several more. If you’d like more info, I can ask our family friend (we’re facebook friends) for the details.

It was really fun for us, showing the Canadians around. We took some great trips, including houseboating on the Mary River, chasing crocs at 2 knots… :slight_smile:

9

You’re right, and I think that might be one of the biggest issues with Australia or South America. We usually have until mid-July or so to cancel teaching contracts, and that seems a little early in the hiring season for a Jan-Dec school year, at least judging by the typical hiring periods in my area. Usually we don’t start with job fairs and interviewing until late April at the very earliest for August start dates.

Or I may be overthinking it! It’s certainly not worth freaking out about yet.

The Fullbright is also a great idea that I had not considered. Thanks for that, I will look into it.

10

It’s certainly not for everyone, but the Peace Corps would love you. It’s two years without really making money, but if you want an adventure and a shot at doing some good (imagine teaching environmental education deep in the Cameroonian rainforest, where you can have a major role in, say, setting up sustainable sources of meat so that people do not hunt endangered species- that’s what some of my friends did) it can be a very rewarding challenge. Done right, it can also help you build contacts to continue working overseas.

Besides DOD, science teaching is going to be hard to sell. Any country that has the money to pay a foreign teacher is probably going to have plenty of its own science teachers to choose from. If you’d consider, say, teaching ESL and starting a really cool science club, you’ll open up a lot of opportunities.