New Teacher Orientation Must-Haves at International Schools #2: A Pick-up from the Airport from Administration

In this blog series we talk about the ins and outs of an excellent new teacher orientation programme at an international school.  A new teacher orientation programme can really play a very important part of your start at your new school, in your new host country.

Must-have #2: A pick-up from the airport from administration

airport

New international school teachers to a school probably have experienced one of these three different ways of being picked up (or not be picked up):

• The administrator’s driver comes to pick you up, and the driver doesn’t speak English very well. There are moments in the long car ride to your apartment when you start to feel insecure.  You also start to second-guess everything that was discussed with you during the interview and during your email communication with the administration.  You arrive at your apartment complex (or what you hope is your apartment complex) and the driver doesn’t know where to bring you as they weren’t told which apartment you were staying in and don’t have the keys.  Luckily, two other staff members just so happen to be in the lobby when you arrive and were able to help you sort everything out and get you into your apartment.  You could’ve been more stressed-out with this situation, but you were so jet-lagged that it fortunately didn’t phase you too much.

• No administrator, no staff member, not even a driver comes to pick you up.  Even after discussing your arrival flight details via email, nobody shows up at the airport.  You are carting your 3+ bags around the arrivals-lounge looking for somebody with your name on a sign or something.  After looking around for 30 minutes or so (trying to keep your eyes open based on the fact that you just got off of a long, red-eye flight), you decide to use your credit card (you don’t have local currency yet or a mobile with a local sim card in it) to make a few calls.  Nobody answers their phone and you decide to go to the airport information desk.  They suggest a hotel to stay at and you take a taxi to get to the hotel (which cost you a lot of money!).  Finally, you get in contact with the school via email once you get the wifi working in your hotel room.  Luckily, the school ends up paying for the phone calls, the taxis and the three nights you stayed in the hotel, but it would have been less stressful for sure if somebody would’ve been there to pick you up and bring you to your apartment in the first place.

• The director himself comes to pick you up and is waiting clearly in the arrivals lounge as you walk out from baggage claim. You know who to look for because he is the one who has interviewed you and hired you in person.  He even brings along another one of the new teachers so that you can already have a person to contact.  Using his own car, he drives you to your apartment (that the school has helped you organize through another teacher at the school).  The director has the keys to let you in.  In the apartment he gives you a free mobile to use with a SIM card (a phone from a teacher that just left the previous school year) so that you can immediately start to be in contact with everyone just in case any emergencies arise.  After making sure that you are comfortable and ok in your new apartment, he drops off a bag of “starter” groceries for you which includes some basic necessities.  A nice touch to a wonderful, less stressful way to be picked-up from the airport when you first arrive.

airport

To start things off right, it might be the most ideal if the person who hired you picks you up from the airport when you first arrive. Starting off on the right note is very important for an international school teacher, especially when you are bound to experience a bit of culture shock.  One way to start off in the right way is how you get picked-up/arrive at the airport.  Not having to worry about lugging your 3+ bags around trying to find a taxi can really lessen the stress and nervousness you might already be feeling, being that you have just relocated yourself to a potentially very different part of the world.  Not having to worry about where you are going to stay your first night and how you are going to get there can also have a calming effect to your already tense feeling about this big move your have decided to make for yourself.

So, how were you picked-up at the airport when you first arrived?  Please share your experiences!

Comments and information about salaries on ISCommunity #4: Yongsan Int’l School of Seoul, Frankfurt Int’l School & The English Int’l School of Padua

Comments and information about salaries at international schools on International School Community

Every week members are leaving information and comments on the salaries that teachers are making at international schools around the world.  Which ones pay more?  Which ones do you have to pay very high taxes?  Which ones offer tax-free salaries?  All important questions to think about when job searching, but where to find the answers to those questions?

Why do some international schools keep their specific salary information so secret?  Even at international school job fairs, you don’t really get to see the exact amount of your yearly and monthly salary until you see the contract paperwork.  Even then sometimes you don’t know what will be your exact take-home pay each month.  At International School Community, we want to make the search for salaries easier for international school teachers. In the benefits section of the school profile page, there is a section specifically for salaries.  The topic is: “Average monthly salary after taxes and in what currency (explain taxation situation). How often do you get paid throughout the year?”

Here are 3 out of the many comments and information related to salaries that have been posted on our website:


The English International School of Padua (12 total comments)
“Salary is paid on the last working day of each month. Salary is paid in Euro, whilst wage slips are in Sterling. Italian bank accounts are opened for the transfer of salaries. The school assists in this process at the start of the academic year.”


Yongsan International School of Seoul (10 total comments)
“No taxes are paid. You are paid in local currency. Teachers can expect to make around $2900 in USD each month.”


Frankfurt International School & Wiesbaden (8 total comments)
“Reduced tax contributions for your first two years working in Germany. It is a monthly salary paid x 13 months after 2 years. Deductions to your salary are income tax/health insurance/Unemployment which is approx. 43% of your monthly salary.”

Check out the other comments and information about these schools on our website: www.internationalschoolcommunity.com

Blogs of international school teachers: “Cindy Vine”

Are you inspired to start up a blog about your adventures living abroad?

Our 19th blog that we would like to highlight is called “Cindy Vine”  Check out the blog entries of this international school teacher who have lived and worked in nine different countries in her life so far.  She currently is working at International School Moshi (Moshi).

A few entries that we would like to highlight:

Teachers who get hit by the travel bug

“There is a category of teacher called Tourist Teachers.  These are teachers who only take up a job in an international school because they want to travel that country and have a base to come back to.  They tend to only stay a year or two, and then they move on to their next adventure.  Then you get another group of international teachers who enjoy soaking up the culture of different peoples and even though they travel and explore, they enjoy being immersed in the culture so they stay longer.”

Sometimes I feel like traveling is the number one goal of international school teachers, well at least for the teachers just starting out in the International School Community. Some of the more veteran teachers at an international school tend to not travel as much as the newbies.  The longer you stay at an international school, the less likely you will be traveling during your many holidays.  That is not true for everyone, but that is the trend that I have seen at the current and past international schools that I’ve worked at.  Sometimes it is all about the location and the experience living in that location.  I have noticed that the vast majority of people that move to a city in this world, move there because they intended to move there at some point in their life.  People like us tend to dedicate our lives to a language for example (let’s say Spanish).  A typical place for that type of a person to end up living (even if it is just for a short time) is a country that speaks that language that they have been studying for many years (Spanish).  Many international school teachers do take risks though and accept positions in countries that they know nothing about; they definitely didn’t study about the language there and know very little about the culture there either.  That doesn’t stop the travel bug in them though, exploring a land you know nothing about can be quite exciting for an international school teacher.  We like to travel to the unusual places in the world.  International school teachers are risk-takers and like the exploring of places a typical tourist wouldn’t normally travel to.  Sometimes the travel bug is so intense that staying at home during one, even just one, of their holidays is just not an option.

A visit to a Tanzanian Hospital

“All I can say is that I am pleased I wasn’t seriously ill or dying.  If I was I would have died trying to open a file.

My appointment with the visiting dermatologist from the UK was at 10am.  I was told to open a file first.  Nobody actually explained the process of opening a file to me, and believe you me, there is a process!  At 8.30am I stood in a queue that moved forward painfully slowly as there are always people who join the queue from the side, and always join it in front of you.  After fifteen minutes the queue dissolved and expanded sideways into a mass of people all pushing and shoving to get to the front.  After elbowing my way to the front after what seemed to be an unusually long time of jostling, I was told to go to the next window.  Another queue just as wide as it was deep.  Have I ever mentioned how I hate waiting?  And I couldn’t even read my Kindle because I had to stand the whole time and try and keep my place by using my elbows to keep out those trying to push in.  Luckily, I perfected the skill of elbowing during numerous train trips to Shanghai when I lived in China.

When I finally got to the front of the second queue, I was told to go back to the first queue.  I nearly burst into tears.  My chest started closing and I could feel a panic attack developing.  By this time it was 10.15.  I had been queueing for an hour and forty-five minutes and had achieved nothing.  Like a sheep I joined the next queue, in my heart knowing it was a waste of time.  If I didn’t have this strange growth jutting out of me I would have left.  A kind nurse in another queue asked me if I had a piece of pink paper.  Of course I didn’t!  Why would I have a piece of pink paper?  Apparently, they only help people with a pink paper.  You have to first get a piece of pink paper from the department you are visiting, in my case, the dermatology department.  Nobody had thought to tell me this.  Two hours of my life wasted.  I hate that.

The nurse called someone to take me to dermatology, two car parks and three buildings away.

Now clutching the piece of pink paper, I once again joined the queue.  Some people who had been queueing almost as long as me took pity and let me go to the front and push my piece of pink paper through the little window.  I saw why the whole process took so long.  No computers in sight, everything written by hand.  Painstakingly.  Cindy was written down as Cinci.  At that stage I was beyond caring.  It was already 11am.  I had been there since 8.30am.  After handing in my paper I was told to sit down and wait.  At last I could read my Kindle.  After fifteen minutes I decided it might be a good idea to try and find out what happens next.  I once again rejoined the queue at the second window where it appeared you had to pay.  Of course, being a foreigner I knew I would get charged a lot more than the locals.  Another nurse who had been in the queue at 8.30am came into the waiting area.  “Oh Mama you are still here!  I have been and gone, been and gone and am already bringing in a new patient!”  My smile was a little sickly.  It was 11.20am.”

Going to hospitals in other countries (even if they are “expat” hospitals with mostly English-speaking doctors) can be quite the experience.  I for one have had relatively very good experiences going to hospitals in the countries that I have lived in.  We have to remember too that many hospitals in the USA also have their problems; they are definitely not perfect places to visit either.  I have said many times that it is very important that there is at least an option to be able to speak in English to your physician.  I have had though one doctor say to me that I should speak in the XXXX language to him instead of English. Even though the doctor could speak English he preferred to continue our appointment in his language. Luckily I knew the language, but it is quite difficult to talk about your personal health in a second language, that for sure. Because of all this (including the language and cultural barrier) going to the hospital in a foreign country can be very stressful at times.

Check out the international schools that are listed in Tanzania on International School Community.

Currently, there are 9 international schools listed on our website, with 5 of them being schools that have had information and comments submitted on them.  Check out the submitted comments about these schools here.

If you are an international school teacher and would like your blog highlighted on International School Community contact us here.

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