ITP - 001: What Is International Teaching

Greg: Welcome to the International Teacher Podcast with your host Greg, the single guy, and Matt, the family guy. We're recording episodes from around the globe to tell you about the best-kept secret in education. That's right, it's teaching overseas. We're glad to have you.

Greg: This is our first episode here, Matt, where we're the hosts on the International Teacher Podcast, and I think it's fantastic to be here with you. We're in different cities right now, but we're working together on this podcast. I love it.

Matt: You're lucky to be in search humor anytime you want, man. We might be far away, but we are united in cause. I think, or something like that.

Greg: Yeah, it is exciting. It's exciting also to think millions of people are going to listen to this and we're going to have worldwide reach. It's a short track to start for us, but we have to start somewhere.

Greg: It's also a niche, isn't it? I don't know about you, but I've been looking online for international teacher podcasts and I can't find more than like four.

Matt: Honestly, I don't spend much time outside sports podcasts or Oprah podcasts, so I haven't really checked, but I'm going to take your word for it. I hope it's really awesome.

Greg: Glad you're listening to her podcast.

Matt: It nourishes the soul.

Greg: Okay, don't judge me. It nourishes the soul, man.

Matt: Sometimes a guy just needs to lock his office door and listen to Oprah’s voice.

Greg: People are going to go check it out now. If you haven't listened to Oprah’s Soul, search or something like that. I don't know if we can plug other podcasts, but I think we can.

Greg: This is going to be all over. I think people are listening in their cars on the way to school, on the way to work.

Matt: We have to agree we're not going to mention the company though. Remember, that's our one caveat. We're not allowed to mention it.

Greg: So we're working on an island here. I think we can mention the country, right?

Matt: I don't think we can either.

Greg: We can say the geographical area. Okay, so we're in the Middle East. We can say that.

Greg: Listeners need to understand it's a company thing. We just can't do it. We're not shy about where we teach. We're going to talk about other schools though, right? We're going to talk about where we've taught around the world in other schools because we're not there right now.

Matt: Yeah, I think we need to talk about where we've been. You obviously way more than me. Talk about the other schools, maybe different types of schools, what quality.

Greg: That's true. We definitely need to talk about what the journey is like as you transition from teaching in the United States to moving overseas.

Matt: I thought you were going to say something like you're transgender.

Greg: No, no. Whether you're in the UK teaching or South Korea or North America, there's always a transition that goes into this that I think we'll definitely talk about. That I was not prepared for. I don't know about you, but that's definitely fodder for another episode.

Greg: We should probably talk about who our listeners are, who we think should be listening to this episode and further episodes.

Greg: First of all, it's pure entertainment. We are entertaining people. Secondly, if they want to log in and listen, each one is going to be different. They might be from different parts of the world. We are already international, but other friends of ours are teaching overseas and we're going to include them in our episodes.

Greg: My buddy Joe back home just wants to hear stories. I love listening to your stories, Matt. When your family goes one direction, I go the other. It's just about stories.

Matt: It sure is. Also, we may want to use aliases for the names of co-workers that we tell stories about too because we don't want to dish dirt on anybody, but there are some great co-worker stories.

Greg: Right, we can use nicknames.

Greg: Who would possibly listen to us? Teachers that want to go overseas. Teachers in the United States now or Canada or other places that might want to know what it's like to live overseas and teach and do what they're doing now but in a different country.

Matt: I would also throw out another demographic of people who maybe never even considered going overseas. For example, like me. I never imagined I would go live in a different country or even a different state.

Greg: You’d probably still be in the same county if you hadn't found out about this.

Matt: Those county lines shrunk, so it was time to go.

Greg: I think family members who have somebody going overseas should listen too. If they're interested in what their loved one is getting into, this might be something to listen to. There are different levels of safety. The more you know about this kind of a career and the more stories you hear from different countries, the more you understand. Every country is different, every school is different, and every family or individual has a different experience.

Greg: Families listening in would understand that we still do normal things. We go bowling on the weekend or go to the ice hockey rink. We're in the middle of a desert, but you still go play hockey with your kids.

Matt: That's reassuring to parents and family members. It's a normal life in some respects.

Greg: One of my passions is teaching other people how to become international educators. If somebody's in college right now learning to be a teacher, they might want to start listening to this show to find out what it's like to actually be overseas. When I was learning to be a teacher, I didn't know about any of this.

Matt: There’s no information out there. So this is going to be good for people thinking about it as teachers or future teachers.

Greg: If you think about all the kids struggling to find jobs in the U.S., there's this whole untapped market. You have the opportunity to travel, be around new people and places, and get legitimate job experience.

Matt: A college student who's unattached would surely jump at something like this.

Greg: One thing this show may not be for is someone thinking about going down to Mexico and teaching English for a month. We're both certified teachers in the U.S., and we're talking about accredited schools. We're not just traveling around and scrounging. We're working real jobs overseas.

Matt: They might still benefit from hearing about some of the experiences of being new in a country.

Greg: That's true. When you get there, the welcome committee is not going to be rolled out. Plan on being the only person who speaks your language at school.

Greg: So far, we have a few audiences: people who want entertainment, teachers overseas, teachers thinking about going overseas, and future teachers.

Matt: Also former overseas teachers and just people who enjoy stories. My students love my stories from Venezuela.

Greg: We're going to bring in a cast of characters from around the world, people we've met who have taught in different places.

Matt: I wish we had access to the number of people we've met at dive shops. They would make amazing interviews.

Greg: We might do a separate podcast just for diving stories.

Greg: But you mentioned police stories. Can you give a quick one?

Matt: One of my favorite stories involves you. In Venezuela, you had a little Ford Fiesta. Anyone who knows you knows you're not a fan of shoes. You drove barefoot.

Matt: One morning, you got dressed for work, carried your shoes, got in the car barefoot, and got pulled over by police early in the morning. When you hit the brakes, all the empty bottles in your car rolled forward.

Greg: I went through stoplights because it wasn’t safe to stop that early in the morning.

Matt: The officer asked if you had a gun, then asked why you weren't wearing shoes.

Greg: He asked for paperwork, and I had a huge stack. We had a long conversation in Spanish. He understood why I went through the lights, and he didn’t give me a ticket.

Matt: There are relaxed laws in some places. It’s a different environment.

Greg: You have to be there to understand it.

Matt: Maybe we should do a whole episode on police stories.

Greg: We definitely could. There are plenty of them.

Greg: When you live in a place for years, it becomes a part of you.

Greg: This is just a taste of what's coming up. In the next episode, I’m going to interview you about your journey overseas.

Matt: I can't wait.

Greg: We also have dozens of topics: living overseas with pets, kids, traveling, schedules, cultural differences, and more.

Matt: Once you start listening, you're going to want to travel.

Greg: We’ll open it up for feedback. We want listeners to tell us what they want to hear.

Matt: Maybe around 30-minute episodes, once a week.

Greg: We're in two different cities right now in the Middle East. We're recording remotely, and our workdays are different. We'll talk about that later.

Greg: One reason I wanted to do a podcast is I have so many stories to share.

Matt: I like talking, and if it helps people understand what it's like, then it's worth it.

Greg: It's the best-kept secret in education. Not just education. Many people work overseas in different fields.

Matt: We are expats.

Greg: That might be our name.

Greg: Let’s wrap this up and move to the next episode.

Greg: Next time, I’ll interview Matt about how he got into teaching overseas.

Matt: Looking forward to it.

Greg: We’ll see you next episode.

Greg: We’ll test it out. We’ll have to listen to this and check it out. But to our listeners, we’re going to be coming back at you next episode. I have Matt Judd as my guest instead of my fellow host. You’re going to be my guest, and I’m going to interview you about what got you into the overseas action and why you’re even here doing a podcast with me.

Matt: I can’t wait.

Greg: I can’t wait either. So we’ll see you on that one.

Matt: Absolutely.

Greg: We’ll see if we can make it better than mediocre.

Matt: We already set the bar really high, man.

Greg: I don’t think people can keep up with us. This is going to shoot to 14 people real soon.

Matt: Just remember us when Spotify comes calling.

Greg: Let’s see you next episode. I’m going to interview you, and we’ll call it quits now.

Matt: All right. Should we sign off?

Greg: Sure. Let’s sign off.