Teaching Abroad Speaker 2/3/09

Teaching abroad is something I am a little interested in so I went to the speaker on 2/3/09.
Something he said caught my attention right away: "Overseas education is one of the best kept secrets in the world".

We watched a video on the Singapore American School. Since I am interested in teaching middle school I thought it was pretty crazy that just their middle school has over 900 students. The video approached the transition from America to teaching abroad at the Singapore American school by saying that you would be treated like royalty your first month. Meaning, people will help you set up your bank account, show you around, discuss the benefits, basicly help you out in the new setting away from home. The housing in Singapore is very modern and is equally as nice as living in the United States.

I was surprised at the perks of teaching abroad:
-it is easy to travel
-competative salaries
-at some schools there is an allowance for housing as well as an anual amount of home leave!
-things are different in other countries: the kids go to school because they actually want to learn!

The things that are not so great about teaching abroad:
-no job security (no union)

Something that I thought was very interesting was that our speaker told us that of his time spent abroad and in the United States, one person was expelled in 15 years while he was abroad but he could see 19 students expelled in one year here in the US.