Know Before You Go: So You're Going to Be a Foreign Teacher...

Before I left for South Korea (right about this time last year) I had all these ideas of what teaching was going to be like and what kind of teacher I was going to be when I finally arrived at my school. I think I was actually fortunate in the fact that I had no training and no experience teaching aside from private music lessons. I was freaked out. I felt completely unprepared and was afraid I'd be a horrible teacher and have a horrible temper in front of my kids. This was the opposite of many people I met in the first few weeks overseas. Many were studying education back home and were starry-eyed and full of hope whenever they spoke about their future teaching career. Fast forward a six weeks and it was a very different story than each of us imagined back at the beginning of our time overseas. Here are five things I discovered about myself and those around me when it comes to being a teacher in a foreign country:

5) Be Realistic with Expectations for Yourself. Whether you think you're going to be the best teacher or the worst, the reality is always somewhere in between. Don't beat yourself up on a bad day, instead find the little things you know you did right and adjust so the same mistakes are less likely to happen again. On the other hand, don't get overly confident on those days when everything works perfectly... they don't last. 

4) Stop Comparing Everything to Your Home Country. This is the easiest trap to fall into so learn to avoid it from the start. Teaching in a foreign country is hard. You're dealing with different cultures, language barriers, and all on top of the already difficult task of teaching. The worst thing you can do for your attitude towards your school (and your overall happiness) is play the Phoebe game (Magic School Bus reference). No one cares about what schools are like back in your home country, unless they ask, and even if they ask telling them their school sucks in comparison is not going to help your stay at said school. 

3) Be Aware of the Different Political Opinions on Foreign Teachers. Many countries are shelling out millions of dollars a year to bring foreigners to their countries to teach. Many of these teachers are under qualified, especially compared to the local teachers who have gone through years of study to gain qualification to teach the language you happen to be blessed with calling your first language. You might meet people who think you shouldn't be paid X amount of dollars just because you come from an English speaking country regardless of what they think of you as a person/teacher. This is okay as long as they're not verbally abusing you because of it. Try to understand your role in local politics. You might be surprised at how prominent an issue you are.

2) Accept that You are Going to Suck. This is related to #4 in many ways. Every speaker at orientation told us to be ready for disappointment in ourselves during our first official week of teaching.  It's okay not to be perfect at something you've never done before. The idea, however, is that you do everything possible to improve, and the first step to fixing your teaching is admitting you're not great at it. 

1) Be Open, Be Flexible, but Don't Be a Pushover. Being open and flexible is about consciously deciding not to sweat the small stuff. When you're overseas you begin to understand where "the small stuff" stops for you and things become big stuff. Ironically, it's very easy for things that would normally qualify as "the small stuff" to become big stuff in a new culture. Being a foreign teacher is hard and you're constantly having to adjust for a different culture. The most important thing to remember is abuse of any kind is never okay. Always report abuse, but know how the chain of authority works so you don't step on anybody's toes during the process. Aside from abuse, take a look at yourself when you start complaining, the problem might be with you.