Blogging is hard! I really want to be a blogger- I want to be like Justin Medved, Kim Cofino, Dennis Harter and Jeff Utecht, my colleagues now and an in-coming colleague. I wish I could post daily, weekly, monthly?? Although I have to admit, I do find it hard. Why? Because the above-mentioned people are really smart. Period. They have a network and are tapped into some very cool thinking. I do read lots of blogs through my RSS feed….. and I know I need to take the next step and comment on other people’s blogs more often. I know that- I am having trouble managing that kind of time commitment, but at least I am aware of my weaknesses in the blogosphere. I look at the reader maps of these blogs and go “wow”!
When I was off recruiting talent in North America over the past few weeks, I kept writing blogs in my head from some of my experiences, but somehow those didn’t quite transfer onto the computer as I might have hoped. So…. here I go again, inspired in part, by my administrative colleagues Andy Torris, who is also a blogger and has shared some of his recruiting thoughts on his blog.
Having just returned from a teacher recruiting trip to North America, I find myself with many thoughts going on around my head. First of all, what a great experience it was to go recruiting representing one of the top international schools in the world. Second, understanding more deeply just how highly regarded out school is in the international world. Finally, how I believe we, as international educators sometimes lose touch with how lucky we are to be living and working abroad.
Unlike many of the parent clientele at our school, we rarely have to travel and be away from our families for work. I have many friends in our community who literally do not see their children from Monday-Friday because of their work/travel commitments, especially here in Asia. I am able to have two of my children here at school and can be home in five minutes if necessary. I coach my son’s soccer and T-Ball teams and often can watch my daughter’s swimming lessons. Most importantly, I am home for dinner every night and put my children to bed. How lucky is that??
So- being asked to travel to North America for 2+ weeks to recruit teachers was a great professional opportunity for me. Attending first the Queen’s University Recruiting Fair in Kingston, Canada I got a very clear picture of just how highly regarded the school is worldwide. (I also got to experience again just how cold Canada is in the winter- it had been a while!!!) Case in point- over the weekend, we offered five positions and received five acceptances. We had more than 100 people request interviews with the school and unfortunately, could not accommodate everyone because of time constraints. Contrast that with the experience of a colleague representing an international school in Venezuela. He offered more than five different teachers the position of high school Chemistry teacher and was turned down by all five. Why? Most likely it was the “CNN effect”, people see the news about a country and jump to conclusions about what is would be like to live there.
Bottom line- five offers, five acceptances. Wow!
The other wow was that it cut down my need to go on to the Cambridge recruiting fair and allowed me to return to Bangkok 5 days earlier than expected. What I took home with me from Canada was that I am truly blessed to work at such a challenging and highly regarded school. There were more than 100 teachers at that fair that wanted to come to our school. Wow!
Why do I mention this? Another little anecdote: my wife is taking an on-line course right now through a Canadian university on Special Education. Most of the teachers in her network on this course work in the public school system in Ontario. The subject of budgets came up this week in her course. At our school we have a large budget and are able to provide many many resources to help teachers provide the best possible learning situations. Contrast this with one story from an Ontario teacher taking the Spec Ed. course: “our school principal last year left the school $40,000 in debt, so we have no budget to order materials for next year”. No budget!! Another teacher told my wife that to get a laptop for a spec. ed student, they had to log over 90 hours of one-one time just to apply for a grant! Wow!
My point? I think international educators often (sometimes?) forget just how lucky they are to be living and working in great schools overseas. We have large resource budgets, great facilities, tons of technology, and most important- fantastic students and colleagues. Added to that the opportunities to travel and learn many different cultures….. Wow!
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