ITP - 109: From Iowa to Tokyo (A Music Teacher’s Global Journey)

Greg:
Hello, welcome to the International Teacher Podcast. I'm Jacqueline from JP Mint Consulting and I'm here with Kent the Cat Guy. Hi Kent.

Matt:
Hi JP, thanks for having me.

Greg:
And all the way on to the other side of the world, I have a brother from another mother, Jason Drahos. Hey Jason!

Jason:
Hello, hello.

Greg:
All the way from Japan. So we've got Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Japan. We've got the three kind of big portions of the globe represented. I can see that it's dark where you are, but Kent and I finally have the sun in both of our spaces.

Okay, so that was our geography lesson. Jason and I know each other from TASM, the American International School of Muscat. Jason was my choir director because at a point in our, I think it was six or seven years together, Jason took over the Muscat Singers, which was a community choir for the Muscat expats and locals.

And I've got to say, can I say you were my favorite? But I had so many, there were like five or six in there in seven years. But I just learned so much about singing, about my voice, following along with Jason. He was there for a couple of years.

Jason, tell us a little bit about how you got into international teaching. And then we'll get into the Muscat years.

Jason:
Yes. So I should say I've already paid Jacqueline a lot of money to say that I was your favorite. So that check is in the mail.

So my transition overseas was a weird one. I hadn't known anybody who worked overseas. I hadn't really thought about it. I had taught for one year, not even a full year, a partial year in the States. At the time I was getting paid less money per year than I paid per year to go to school.

So it's not a great situation, right? And in October, November I went through kind of a tough breakup. I've always been really big on New Year's resolutions. I make a lot of them and I try to stick with them. And so that year I was writing them and I wrote, apply for two jobs out of the Midwest. I just needed a change and just kind of kept writing and thought back to university years when we traveled overseas for the choir tours. And I wrote, and one overseas.

I didn't think much of it, put those resolutions away. And then in February I subscribed to basically a blog for choir directors, things happening around the world and opportunities. Every day you got this digest of emails. I was going through it and I accidentally clicked on a link. That link led me to the homepage of TASIM and the application.

They wanted two years of teaching experience. I'm in February of my first year teaching. They wanted previous international experience. I had left the country once on a choir tour. So I thought there's no way I get this.

But if I do this now, my CV, all my references and everything are all in line for hiring season in the States in a couple of months. So I just did it to check it off the resolutions list. I couldn't sleep one night, did all the paperwork and submitted it. It was about midnight, which of course we know is 8 a.m. Oman time.

I went to bed and I woke up the next morning before school to an email saying, you might be a good fit. We'd like to do an interview. So I sent the reply back and then went to school. I got done with that school day and it said, great, we'd like to interview you tomorrow.

It was just under seven days, six and a half days, with late evening interviews and three interviews. I got an email from Kevin Schaefer who said you have 24 hours to say yes or no.

It wasn't until the third interview that I even knew where Oman was. I was an Iowa boy, I had no idea about the world and there was no way I was getting this job. I figured I can do anything for two years and I said yes, let's go do it.

It was the best decision. That was spring of 2010, because 2010–11 was my first year in Oman.

Greg:
Yeah, we were the same cohort. We came in and our cohort was so special and so tight knit because we spent something like seven hours on a bus waiting for our blood results in an air-conditioned bus in the middle of August. It was so hot outside and none of us could leave the bus because it was too hot.

We got to know each other so well on that bus. I think there was about 14 of us in that cohort. It was a nice mix of singles, singles without kids, married with kids, and married without kids. So it was that really nice mix.

Matt:
That's a pretty big school, 14 new teachers just there at that one campus or are there multiple campuses for TAISM?

Jason:
Just that one. So it was a really big cohort for that one year and it was great.

Greg:
It was a big cohort, it was a small school. At the time I think it was probably 600, it grew to 800. It was a lovely mix of everybody from K to 12 teachers as well. So we all got to know each other really well on that bus.

Matt:
How long did you stay in Oman, Jason?

Jason:
Four years. Yeah, four years.

Matt:
Four years. Okay, so you thought two years and then you extended for a couple extra years.

Jason:
Yeah, so I really loved it. Looking back now, I think I probably would have stayed longer. In general, the trend in my career has been to find the next best job for me at that time in my life and my career.

At the time I was doing elementary and middle school, and I really wanted to work with middle school and high school students. The teacher who was there had a whole life set up there and they weren't going to move on. So if I wanted to find that next job for myself, I needed to do so. And so I moved away to Singapore.

Matt:
Okay, so from Oman to Singapore. What job did you take in Singapore?

Jason:
I worked at the Australian International School in Singapore. I was middle school and high school choral music and classroom music. IB, IGCSE music, that kind of stuff.

Matt:
When you're a choral teacher and a music teacher at a school, I'm guessing you are running several classes. You're maybe in charge of a school-wide singing group as well that does special concerts, maybe even travels. What's that job look like?

Jason:
Yeah, typically in the international school, because we're typically smaller, it's usually split across divisions. So middle school, high school, or high school and some other things.

It's the kind of traditional choral program we think of. For me in North America, classroom music classes are geared toward final performance. So we're working toward a choral performance, but also general music. I've taught IB music, which is much more composition, music history. Now the new curriculum is digital music. I've done the whole gamut of music related education.

Greg:
Because correct me if I'm wrong, the music teachers tend to have an instrument, a specialty. In your case it's voice, whereas with other music teachers they might have clarinet or trumpet. So your specialty is voice, but that still doesn't mean you can't teach all the instruments or general music.

Jason:
Yeah, I think most programs, particularly North American programs, you go through university with a major instrument or two. For me, voice was my major. I was classically trained as a baritone and then knew a little bit of piano, enough to teach, and then all the music theory stuff.

General music tends to be the Orff music and movement to music. You think of xylophones and those types of instruments. I can do that. I probably could, if I was pressed, teach an instrumental class, but I'd be very bad at it. I don't want to.

Matt:
So Jason, we've brought a xylophone on the air with us. We'd like you to bang out a few songs.

So Jason, you studied music education with an emphasis on voice?

Jason:
Music education was my degree. It was basically a dual major. A BA in education and also a BA in music. Voice was my primary instrument.

Greg:
And that was Iowa?

Jason:
Yep, Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. A lot of us overseas.

Greg:
I was wondering, to get the job in Singapore, did you go to the University of Northern Iowa job fair or did you ever get there?

Jason:
I've never done a job fair. That's a lie. I did go to the job fair in Bangkok when I was transitioning out of Oman, but I didn't find a job there that I really enjoyed. So I actually moved to Singapore without a job and then found one through some connections.

A friend I worked with in Oman, her sister worked in Singapore. So we met up for dinner and drinks and she said, I think we're going to have a music opening in January because they do January to December.

I moved there in the fall.

Matt:
So you left a job in Oman without really having a job to go to. At that point did you know that the Australian school might have an opening?

Jason:
No, not at all. My partner at the time was a high school PE teacher and wanted to teach IB kinesiology. Those combinations are tough to recruit for.

We had said if one person got the job that fit them best, the other would follow. She found a fantastic job and I went. So no, I didn't have a job when I went. It was a little bit scary.

Greg:
I remember asking you about that at the time. So you started in January. They must have thought they won the lottery.

Were you hired locally or was it an expat package?

Jason:
They offered me a local contract. However, Simon Hughes, an amazing head of department, interviewed me. Fifteen minutes before they sent the offer, I got a text saying they're going to offer you a local contract, say no. You deserve the international contract.

So I responded that I appreciated the offer, but I was currently on a tourist visa, not a resident, and I would need an international contract. And I got it.

Greg:
You'll check with him.

Jason:
I'll check with him and let you know if I shouldn't have shared that.

Greg:
Otherwise we owe a letter of apology.

Matt:
And now we're bringing Simon Hughes with us. I'd like to join the program with Simon Hughes.

Jason:
That would be amazing. What an awesome guy.

Greg:
People think it's not negotiable, that you can't advocate for yourself. But absolutely, that's the lesson. You can advocate and say you're worth the whole package.

Jason:
I understand both sides. They're a business looking to save money, but if they don't hire me as an international hire, they'll bring someone else in and pay flights and other costs. So it was a win-win.

Greg:
And how long did you stay there?

Jason:
Two years. It was a valuable experience. I had only been in programs where the goal was performance. At the Australian school, curricular classes were IB or IGCSE, and ensembles were outside the school day. It was a great learning experience.

I had never done IGCSE. I got to do IB music. I was there for two years and then got an opportunity to do just IB music and choir in Moscow.

Greg:
I'm having flashbacks of your Facebook. You went from Singapore to Moscow and probably freezing your butt off in the wintertime. So you got the offer, meaning the interview offer and all of that, but you hadn't applied or had you applied?

Jason:
To Moscow? Yeah, so no. I had kept my International School Services account open and got a notification that a job popped up. So I sent in an application.

Matt:
Now Jason, tell us a little bit about Moscow. I visited in 2017 or 2018. One thing that stuck out to me was the amount of art, dance, and music. It seems like there's a real appreciation for the arts. Did that culture pervade the school as well?

Jason:
It did. There's a culture of appreciation for the arts and a drive to be good at them because they're appreciated. I really enjoyed that. I got to work with some really good organizations. I sang with the Moscow Oratorio Society and conducted a children's choir with them, bringing in kids from different international schools.

Moscow was amazing. With as many people as live there, whatever you love to do, you could do seven nights a week. You could go to a new restaurant every night or see a new ballet or musical production every night.

We would go out for a reasonably priced, delicious dinner and then go to the Bolshoi to see the ballet for 15 dollars. It was an amazing experience.

Matt:
Is that school still open?

Jason:
It is not. There were a lot of issues around the government side of it. Political relations tend to infiltrate everything about these positions. We left in 2020 to go back to the States for grad programs. It was perfect timing.

We got away from COVID, and then about a year later there were other political issues. Diplomatic visas went away and local government hires came in to manage curriculum. It was a long process that led to the school closing.

Matt:
So you're back in the States in 2020. Let me clarify, you're not doing all this alone, right?

Jason:
No. It did not work out with my previous partner in Singapore. When I left Singapore, I went to Russia alone. The first two years I was alone.

Then my third year, my current wife came in as a new hire. She had been teaching in New York City, then at the International School of Beijing, and then came to Moscow. We started dating right away. It was a great fit and we've been together since.

So two years in Russia together. Then it was time to move on. With COVID on the horizon, it was a good time to go back to the States. Her name is Allison.

Greg:
I remember Jason wrote me around that time asking for a letter of reference for grad school. Can you tell us about that repatriation? Was it full-time school and no job?

Jason:
Yes. Full-time grad school for two years for an MM. At the same time, I conducted a couple of community choirs and a church choir. So full-time school and very full part-time teaching.

It was in Flagstaff, Arizona, which I'd never been to. It was gorgeous. You get really hot summers and snowy winters.

It was a great experience, but I think a lot of international teachers share this experience. When you go home and share stories, you can see the moment people's eyes glaze over. They don't have a reference for those experiences.

When you're with family, you do family things. But being in the States for two years surrounded by people who maybe had never lived abroad was a strange experience. There wasn't always interest or understanding of what I'd done.

Matt:
We talk about that a lot, that people don't really want to hear our stories back in the States.

Jason:
Yeah, and it's nobody's fault. If you haven't lived elsewhere, you don't have that reference. But it was strange. The pop culture was different, I was back in a university setting, and a lot felt disconnected from my life in Russia and Singapore.

Greg:
And what about your cohort in the master's program? Were they your age?

Jason:
No, I was definitely older. Most were about 10 years younger. I went back to grad school at 35 or 36. Working with undergraduates who were 18 or 19 was wild.

Matt:
What is the emphasis of an MM degree?

Jason:
It's a balance between music history, theory, and conducting practice. For me, it was choral conducting. It's about using your body and gesture to bring out the best sound in a choir, along with understanding the historical and theoretical context of the music.

Matt:
Sounds like a nice way to spend a couple of years.

Jason:
It was great. I'm really glad I did it.

Matt:
What made you transition out of Flagstaff?

Jason:
Flagstaff is quite small. There are phenomenal musicians there with deep roots. It was never going to be a place we'd settle long-term. We always knew it would be two years for the master's and then move on.

We went there for the mentors I had, then decided to move on. My wife wanted to go back overseas, so we left for Abu Dhabi.

Greg:
So the intention was always to go home, get your master's, and go back overseas?

Jason:
Yes, especially for my wife. She was very supportive and we always planned to go back overseas afterward.

Greg:
What was she doing at the time?

Jason:
She taught math at a private school in Flagstaff, even though she's a biology major. She also did an online master's degree. She can never be bored.

Greg:
And how did you get the Abu Dhabi job?

Jason:
Through International School Services. We reopened our accounts, found some good fits, and applied. By Thanksgiving of that second year, we knew we were heading out.

Greg:
You're telling people you're moving to Abu Dhabi and they're like, what?

Jason:
Yes, the number of times I heard the "Abba Dabba Doo" joke was insane.

Matt:
Tell us about Abu Dhabi.

Jason:
It was interesting. In Oman, you interact with locals daily. In the UAE, about 80 percent of the population is expats, so it feels different.

Abu Dhabi sits between Oman and Dubai in terms of development. It wasn't exactly what we were looking for, but it's great for families with young kids.

Matt:
How long did you stay?

Jason:
Two years. We signed a two-year contract and decided fairly quickly to move on.

Greg:
Jason and I actually ran into each other in Abu Dhabi.

Jason:
Yes, I had flown in from Russia to conduct a choral festival. It was right at the beginning of COVID.

Greg:
Worlds colliding. He came from Russia, I came from China, and we met in Abu Dhabi. Also, Jason used to be my upstairs neighbor, so I woke up to his singing all the time.

Jason:
I'm glad it wasn't awful.

Matt:
Usually the walls are thick in the Middle East. You must have been singing loud.

Jason:
Probably. Windows open, doors open, just singing.

Greg:
So from Abu Dhabi, what did you do next?

Jason:
We knew early on it wasn't a great fit, so we started looking about a year out. The job I'm at now had a strong choral program and had been open before but postponed.

When it came up again, I talked with my wife about moving to Japan. It was a bit of a risk since there wasn't a clear job for her at the time. But I was offered the position and we decided it was too good to pass up.

Matt:
Is this your first year there?

Jason:
Yes. I'm about seven weeks in Japan and about three or four weeks in our apartment.

Matt:
Did Allison get a job?

Jason:
She's subbing right now. She also stayed back over the summer for a wedding and traveled to Europe. Subbing gives flexibility while she looks for something more permanent.

Matt:
What city are you in?

Jason:
Tokyo, just southwest of downtown.

Matt:
Tell us about Japan.

Jason:
It's been a wild experience. The subway is amazing. The food is incredible. We tried a chicken flight recently with 11 types of chicken, including things like chicken heart and liver. I'm glad I tried it, but it was intense.

The people are amazing and there's a strong drive to do everything to the best of your ability. That aligns well with how I approach my work.

It's still early, so we're figuring out basics like groceries. But it's been a great transition.

Matt:
Are you going to take Japanese lessons?

Jason:
Yes. I'm on day 317 of Duolingo. There are also free local classes we plan to take.

Greg:
I study multiple languages on Duolingo to keep them fresh.

Jason:
Japanese has three writing systems, which makes it challenging. Some days it clicks, some days it doesn't.

There are local places where we can practice speaking with people, which helps a lot.

Matt:
Is the job demanding?

Jason:
The school promotes work-life balance. Teachers leave around contract hours, which is great. I'm working longer hours now just because it's a new role and there's a lot to catch up on.

Matt:
Are you into anime?

Jason:
Not really, mostly due to lack of exposure.

Matt:
Let me recommend a couple of music-related anime.

Greg:
What is anime?

Matt:
It's animated shows, similar to cartoons, but often for adults as well.

Jason:
I'll have to check those out.

Greg:
In all your travels, do you have three things that make a place feel like home?

Jason:
I've collected musical instruments from different places. Those are meaningful to me. But honestly, I've learned to create home wherever I go rather than relying on things.

Matt:
Do you have a story about a run-in with authorities?

Jason:
Yes. In Moscow, we tried to take a shortcut home, jumped a fence, and ended up face-to-face with security guards at what was essentially an embassy compound.

I knew one of the guards and asked him not to report us. Thankfully, he let us go. It could have gone very differently.

Greg:
That's how you end up in a Siberian prison.

Jason:
Exactly.

Greg:
If people want to reach out to you, how can they do that?

Jason:
Through the International Teacher Podcast would be best.

Greg:
You can reach us at [internationalteacherpodcast@gmail.com](mailto:internationalteacherpodcast@gmail.com).

Matt:
Let's do final thoughts.

Greg:
I'm glad Jason finally came on the show. It was great to reconnect.

Matt:
Jason, final thoughts?

Jason:
It's been great to connect. If this inspires someone to take the leap into international teaching, that's fantastic.

Matt:
Thank you to JP Mint and our guest Jason. I'm Kent the Cat Guy. We'll see you next time.

[End of transcript]