Why do Teachers want to Teach Abroad?

Notes from the General Manager, by Diane Jacoutot

The bus crash in Switzerland has affected us all this week with 22 children dead.  It’s so heart wrenching, and something that probably hits teachers and parents particularly hard. Why? Because we deal with children every day and so get to see what makes a child special – their optimism, their imagination, their infuriating stubbornness, their rebellion and their unique combination of predictability and unpredictability which can result in something  more awesome than a monkey in a bacon suit  (to make you smile).

Joseph and Green’s 1986 study of teachers explored the 8 basic reasons people get into teaching. A love of working with children was of course up at the top. But also high was a need for stimulation – for creativity and for an absorbing career.

Unfortunately, I have never been able to find any literature about why teachers are motivated to go abroad (Hmmm. I smell a dissertation here somewhere) and the literature about why people in general work abroad doesn’t seem to fit what I’m seeing, because it focuses on money and material benefit. And let’s face it – if you were motivated solely by money you would not have become a teacher. 

My unscientific belief is that teachers go abroad for the same reasons they go into teaching in the first place – a desire to help others, a desire to stretch themselves professionally and personally, a love of children of any nationality combined with a need for some stability (they call this “ the mattress factor “ – teachers also go into teaching because it’s viewed as a safe and comfortable career though I realise now with widespread public sector cuts across the world this may have been an belief that was unfounded).  But how better to test yourself and your pedagogical prowess than to transport yourself over to China or Kuwait to an established and credible school, and give it a go? 

This is why I love what I do at Teachanywhere and am so passionate about it. 

Sadly, I cannot do anything for the Belgian and Dutch children, their teachers and their families, but I can do something for children worldwide and teachers everywhere.  When you teach abroad you not only change yourself but the world around you in subtle but distinct ways.   In Kazakhstan, for instance, western teachers this year produced the school’s very first school play (A Christmas Carol delivered in two languages – English and Russian) and whilst it was incredibly difficult to pull off because those who had never seen or heard of a school play, i.e. everyone who was not a western teacher including parents, children, administrators and others, found the concept incomprehensible. But they went along with it, and it was so successful that the next play will be Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, now delivered in THREE languages - English, Russian and Kazakh and will be performed in the state theatre for all to enjoy.  It’s the talk of the town.

Every time you go abroad, by the very act of surmounting the challenges you face, you change something – yourself, your colleagues and your students- usually for the better.  There are dangers around every bend in the road, whether you stay home or go abroad. But letting that stop you from opening the windows whilst you are driving to feel the wind on your face would be a tragedy indeed.