Anticipate a challenging adjustment period of at least SIX months. Do not decide if you like it until these six months have passed.
How important is this time frame when you first move to a new country, from the first month to the sixth? It is VERY important. Some international school teachers tend to experience different levels of culture shock and can pass through the stages quite quickly, but I still think for those people that you need to give yourself six full months to decide whether you like your new country or not. Also, it is important to give your new school six months as well before you decide whether or not you think you are a good fit for the position and school.
I have international school teacher friends that seem to be able to just move anywhere and be in any culture and be just fine. They don’t get stressed out too much about how things are different from their previous placement. According to LaRay Barna – “There are no fixed symptoms ascribed to culture shock as each person is affected differently.” And I would have to agree to that. Unfortunately, there are other international school teachers that are very sensitive to basically all the stages of culture shock. Let’s go through some of the stages of culture shock that are on Wikipedia.
1. Honeymoon phase:
Everyone’s favorite stage. It is definitely the most fun one. I love just getting to a new country. Your new apartment, your new school, your new friends, the new culture, the new stores, your new favorite restaurants, etc… You post on Facebook how cool things are going so far to all of your friends and family. It is truly a great time to really enjoy why you got into the field of international school teaching in the first place; exploring the world and experiencing different cultures firsthand.
2. Negotiation phase:
The anxiety sets in about your new school and host country and how it is different from the one in which you were previously. “How could they do things this way?” I hear some international school teachers say many times. You must be careful during this phase to not offend your coworkers, bosses, and the people of the host country either directly or inadvertently. The anxiety you are feeling can become stronger too if you don’t know the host country’s language (e.g. the language barriers start to become very apparent). It is important to note that some schools employ many people from the host country to work in the administration offices, the cleaning staff, and even in teaching and teaching assistant positions. Their level of English is most likely not 100% native-like, so there are bound to be times when they are just not getting what you are trying to communicate to them; and sometimes you might be trying to communicate some really important matters (e.g. getting your work visa all situated, etc.)
3. Adjustment phase:
Wikipedia says that this stage starts around after six months. So, it is in agreement with Nexus’s 10 commandments of relocating overseas. Finally, things start getting back to “normal”. You have now found how you fit in at your current school (hopefully). By this time you will have made the necessary changes and adjustments so that now it does seem like you are indeed a better fit for your position at your new school. Also, the host country most likely feels more like “home” and when you arrive back at the host country/city airport, you indeed feel like you are back home. Sometimes that might surprise you, having these new positive feelings after having gone through the anxiety phase!
4. Mastery phase:
Well, I’m not for sure I have gotten to this phase ever. I would guess that most teachers never fully master being considered an equal member to the locals of a community in another culture/country. I have worked at schools where there have been expat teachers working at the school for over 25 years, and I got the impression that they still experience a sense of not fully belonging, even if they are fluent in the host country’s language and have a spouse who is a local. I would love to hear what other international school teachers think about this mastery phase. It is probably an achievable one, but many factors would come into play and the stars would have to be aligned for it to happen I would imagine.
Go ahead and check out our current members and send them a private message. According to some member profiles, we have some very experienced international school educators on International School Community. Also, check out the stages of culture shock here on wikipedia.
This article was submitted by a guest author and ISC member.
Back to School Initiatives and New Demands: Welcoming or Stressful?
Every school year, a school always goes through some new changes or simply experiences new things that the staff is now required to do or complete. The changes could be related to the school’s curriculum, some new professional development based on new initiatives, new building procedures (like fire drills), new mandatory training (like child protection), etc.
For many things (like ones actually dictated by the host country), they are mandatory and the admin simply just needs to fit those required things into their yearly meeting schedule. Combine those required things with the other things and initiatives that a school wants to do, it can make for a sometimes stressful school year for the staff (and admin!). Furthermore, balancing these new things with your normal planning work and actually teaching students can prove to be very challenging.
So what are some of these new initiatives that international schools are focusing on in recent years?
A number of international schools are having their staff work with the Managebac program. There are 97+ comments related to Managebac on our website.
It’s also fairly certain that your school is now or will very soon be going through an accreditation. ISC has 525+ total comments related to school accreditation on 351 international schools at the moment.
With regards to curriculum, it appears that a number of schools are doing training with the Common Core curriculum. There are 45 comments that are about the different schools taking on this in recent years.
There are also 49 comments on IB training. 200 comments on different workshops going on in 149+ international schools.
And the list goes on…
What is a possible plan then for balancing all of these newly added things so that staff and admin don’t get too overwhelmed? As one ISC member wrote about working at United Nations International School (Vietnam), “the [needs to be a] conscious adoption of a “less is more” ethos.”
Luckily, International School Community has a comment topic on our school profile pages related to this topic of new things added at a school. Our members can share what current international schools are doing in this topic. There are a total of 1007 comments (Sept. 2022) that have been submitted by our veteran international school teachers in one of the 68 comment topics called – “Recent things that the school has taken on (i.e. new curriculum, specific professional development, etc.).”
Here are a few of those submitted comments:
“The use of Kagan cooperative structures is the focus for this year. The entire faculty had 2 days of training before the commencement of the school year with another session upcoming later in the year. The goal being student engagement. Most of the faculty have been receptive and are already using the structures in their classrooms…” – Seoul Foreign School (Seoul, South Korea) – 231 Total Comments
“The school just finished a multi-year curriculum initiative designed to put the entire Pre-K through 12th-grade curriculum documents onto Rubicon Atlas. The school seems to focus most on literacy in the Lower School, innovation and design in the Middle School, and IB/AP in the Upper School. School-wide, there is a focus on Differentiated Instruction, but this takes different forms in different divisions. There is a new Head of School coming in for the 2018-2019 school year…” – American School of Paris (Paris, France) – 68 Comments
“The administration said they care more about kids learning English and Maths rather than any other subjects. What makes the school unique, seems independent of what they are pursuing; bring more local students no matter what their academic level is…” – Changchun American International School (Changchun, China) – 168 Total Comments
“Professional development this year has included IBDP two-day Category 3 in-school workshops on the Extended Essay and Theory of Knowledge. All staff also completed a Stewards of Children online course and a one-day first aid and CPR course…” – Tsukuba International School (Tsukuba, Japan) – 58 Comments
“The school has offered, over the past two years, very little in terms of professional development. There has been talk of a curriculum change to the Cambridge Primary Curriculum for September 2018…” – Cambridge School Doha (Doha, Qatar) – 85 Comments
“The school is just setting up a Professional Learning Centre to improve instruction and practice at the school first. The school has designated professional learning time on Friday afternoons and encourages professional development…” – YK Pao School (Shanghai, China) – 61 Comments