The aim of Teacher Horizons is to make it much easier for teachers to explore ALL teaching opportunities and schools all over the world, be it in a glamorous International School in mountainous Switzerland or a charity run school for street children in Mumbai, India.
We want truly ‘internationalise’ teaching by helping teachers to be much more internationally mobile. Why shouldn’t a brilliant physicist from Estonia be able to teach physics in France or a talented Brazilian gymnast teach PE in Hong Kong? A true globalisation of teaching would undoubtedly benefit teachers and students everywhere.
Teachers should be able to access free detailed information about schools to help us make the right decisions and be an asset to the schools we move to work in. Unfortunately, the lack of transparency and vagueness surrounding the term ‘international school’ has meant that some teachers have made some poor judgements and ended up in some pretty ropey institutions. This only serves to give the entire international sector a bad name when really FAR more teachers should be benefitting from the experience of teaching abroad.
As teachers ourselves, we’ve had a fantastic time teaching in Portugal, Japan, Egypt and Nepal and want to help more teachers to benefit from the experience. Professionally it’s fantastic working with teachers and students of different nationalities, learning new techniques, teaching an international curriculum like the IB and getting some exceptional professional development opportunities.
But equally exciting is having change of scene – getting to know a new country, making new friends, discovering new lifestyles, cultures, languages, cuisines… Weekends spent discovering new local markets, beaches or nearby villages whilst you can explore a new continent on your doorstep over the holidays. This personal experience is equally as important as the professional development – something we believe will make you a more inspiring (and fresh!) teacher when you return to your homeland (or move on somewhere else).
But, until now, it’s been hard to find out details about schools which is pretty absurd when we are hoping to embrace a new life as well as a new job. Surely we have a right to know key things like salaries, benefits, training budgets, pension schemes (to name just a few) before we fly across the world to start a new life.
This is why we created Teacher Horizons and why we believe that (with your help!) we can inspire teachers around the world to join our international community and together, in time, we can truly internationalise the teaching profession.