ITP - 68: What No One Tells You About Teaching Abroad

Greg: This is Greg, the single guy coming at you from the ITP, the International Teacher Podcast.

So I would like to introduce a wonderful guest that's going to give us a little bit different point of view.

Anna is coming to us from Sri Lanka. She is a psychologist, and she's going to offer a few things that we've never really gone down before.

I can't wait to delve into this topic—support for international teachers. So if you're listening to this and you've never even thought about support as an international teacher, let's get into the meat of the action.

Greg: Welcome to the show, Anna from Sri Lanka.

Anna: Thank you so much for having me, Greg.

Greg: I'm so excited because Anna just told me she's also done live radio, so I'm going to sound really bad compared to her live.

Anna: I'm retired now. I hung up my headphones a long time ago.

Greg: I hear you. Hey, you know what? Let's start the show. Give us some background—how you relate to international teaching and what your journey was getting up to what you're doing now. Can you start off from Ireland, I believe?

Anna: Yeah, absolutely.

So I became a primary school teacher, and I worked in the UK for about four years. I love the way that you guys say this—that international teaching is the best-kept secret in education.

So about 10 years ago, my now-husband, but then boyfriend, and I were on that same train of thought of, “Hey, international teaching—we've heard amazing things about this. We have to do it. Let's go.”

And of course, I think like so many international teachers, you plan to go for two years, and then it's six years later.

So off we went to China. We started working in International Baccalaureate schools, and then I made the brave move to leave teaching and go back to psychology because I had worked and was educated in psychology before teaching.

And yeah, I went back, did my master's, set up my business, and then we moved to Sri Lanka.

Greg: You've been in international schools and you have actual experience with IB also. Can you give us a little rundown of what you taught and what your husband taught?

Anna: Yeah, absolutely.

So I worked in primary school, and I worked across several different grade levels. I never went down as young as early years—I don't think I could do that—but I taught from grade one up to grade five.

I was also a PYP coordinator for a few years during that time as well.

And then my husband, David, is a design teacher. He teaches MYP and DP design.

Greg: Just so our listeners know, the PYP you mentioned is the elementary version of the International Baccalaureate program, the MYP is the middle years program, and the DP is the diploma program for the last two years of high school.

We haven't talked a lot about the IB program on here. You were a coordinator for PYP before, right?

Anna: Yeah, I did that for a few years while we were still in China. We were in a few different schools there, mainly in Suzhou in Jiangsu, near Shanghai.

And yeah, that's where I was coordinator for the PYP program.

Greg: So being a teacher and being overseas—is your husband still teaching?

Anna: Yes, he teaches here in Sri Lanka. So that's what brought us specifically to Sri Lanka.

And we're actually in the process of preparing for our next international move. We're off to Vietnam next.

Greg: Are you really? What school—can you tell us, or is that secret?

Anna: Definitely not a secret. So we're going to UNIS.

Greg: You're going to UNIS up in Hanoi? Oh, what a great established school that is.

And your husband's got a job lined up, and you on the other hand—you've designed something else and you're tackling a whole different picture based on your experience.

So tell us about what you do now and what we're going to get into for the show.

Anna: I feel like I could take up hours of your time just telling you the whole process.

So I left teaching and decided to go back to psychology because psychology was my first love.

I originally got into teaching because I wanted to pursue educational psychology. That was my plan—teach for two years, go back, do a doctorate. But then you start traveling and going international, and all of that goes out the window.

So I went back to psychology and really focused on well-being—positive psychology and coaching psychology.

At the end of my master's, because so much of my life and the people around me are international teachers, I focused my research on teacher well-being and international teacher well-being.

And you can see there are huge gaps when it comes to international teacher well-being. In my opinion, and what the research shows, it gets kind of overshadowed.

Greg: Let me put it to you like this. As international teachers, we are working in the best-kept secret in education, right?

Anna: Correct.

Greg: You get caught in the golden handcuffs. You're on a great salary, probably better resourced than back home. You're financially better off in most cases.

You get your rent paid, your health insurance paid, sometimes flights, better holidays. It's a really good package.

And you get amazing opportunities to meet new people and like-minded people. There are so many positive things to it.

But in that process, there are also negative aspects or things that can damage your well-being.

Anna: Exactly.

Greg: Every time you move internationally, you're taking a leap of faith. You're changing and potentially losing support systems.

Sometimes you make a leap and it’s the wrong one. Or you're not fulfilled, but you stay because of the golden handcuffs.

Anna: Yes.

Greg: I feel like I'm checking every box.

Anna: And the thing with so much of this is that they're not clinical issues. They don't fall under clinical psychology. You don't diagnose them. It's not an illness.

What I work on is building strengths, optimizing, and improving your position. You don't have to wait until something becomes an illness to build mental health.

Greg: So it's not like sitting on a couch saying something is wrong—it's more proactive.

Anna: Exactly.

Greg: One of the teachers I worked with said living overseas is like getting pecked to death by ducks. It's the little things that build up.

Anna: That's such a good way to describe it.

Greg: If you don't have someone to talk to, those little things just accumulate.

Anna: Exactly. And when you try to talk to people back home, it's hard for them to relate because from the outside, you're living this amazing life.

Greg: And the answer is always, “Well, you chose it.”

Anna: Exactly.

Greg: And it's not always greener on the other side.

Anna: No, it's not.

Greg: So how do people reach you? How does it work?

Anna: All of my work is online at the moment. I work one-on-one with clients in a coaching model.

It's about facilitating growth through inquiry, not telling people what to do.

Every client is different, but there are trends—burnout, frustration with career progression, or just feeling unhappy without knowing why.

Greg: Crying in your Lamborghini.

Anna: Exactly.

So I'm also building group programs and workshops around these trends.

My background also includes corporate well-being, so I bring that into my work as well.

Greg: So you're a sounding board, a confidant, and a guide.

Anna: Yes, but also action-oriented and evidence-based.

Greg: That’s huge.

Anna: And I understand international teaching firsthand, which makes a big difference.

Greg: That’s huge.

Anna: And I understand international teaching firsthand, which makes a big difference.

Greg: So what does that actually look like when someone reaches out to you?

Anna: So usually the first step is that they contact me by email, and then we arrange what I call a discovery call. That’s just an opportunity for us to meet, to talk about where they are, what they’re struggling with, and for them to ask me questions as well.

It’s really important that there’s a level of trust and that we’re the right fit for each other before we move forward.

Greg: That makes sense.

Anna: From there, if they decide to continue, we start working together in a structured way. It’s very individualized. No two clients are the same.

Some people are dealing with burnout, some are stuck in contracts they’re unhappy in, some are questioning whether they should stay in international teaching at all.

Greg: That’s a big one.

Anna: It really is. And a lot of the time, people can’t even pinpoint what the issue is. They just know something doesn’t feel right.

Greg: That’s the hardest part—when you can’t define it.

Anna: Exactly. And that’s where the process comes in. It’s about asking the right questions, building awareness, and then creating strategies to move forward.

Greg: So you’re not just listening—you’re helping people take action.

Anna: Yes, absolutely. It’s always goal-oriented and action-oriented.

Greg: That’s what people need.

Anna: And because it’s evidence-based, everything we do is grounded in psychological research, not just opinion.

Greg: That’s a big difference.

Anna: It is. And I think especially in the international teaching world, there’s a real gap in this kind of support.

Greg: I agree. I’ve never really heard of something like this before.

Anna: No, and that’s part of why I wanted to create it. Because I’ve been there myself.

Greg: You mentioned earlier that you went through your own experience. Can you talk a bit more about that?

Anna: Yeah, of course.

So I went through what I would describe as a mid-teaching crisis. I was approaching 30, and I just felt really unfulfilled in what I was doing.

And the strange thing was that everything looked good from the outside. I had a great job, we were living abroad, everything was ticking the boxes.

But something just didn’t feel aligned.

Greg: That’s a tough place to be.

Anna: It really is, especially because when you try to talk to other people about it, they don’t always understand.

Greg: Right, because they’re like, “What are you talking about? This is amazing.”

Anna: Exactly. And it makes it even harder to figure out what’s going on because you start questioning yourself.

Greg: So what did you do?

Anna: I ended up taking a sabbatical. I stepped away from teaching for a year to figure things out.

Greg: That’s a big move.

Anna: It was, but I knew I needed to do it. I needed space to reflect and understand what I actually wanted.

Greg: And that led you back to psychology.

Anna: Yes. It brought me back to what I had originally been interested in and helped me understand what was happening at a deeper level.

Greg: That’s powerful.

Anna: One of the concepts that really helped me understand it is something called the hedonic treadmill.

Greg: I’ve never heard of that.

Anna: So the hedonic treadmill is the idea that we chase moments of happiness or pleasure—like holidays, weekends, or achievements—but we always return to a baseline level of happiness.

If we don’t work on that baseline, we just keep chasing the next high without ever really feeling fulfilled.

Greg: That sounds very familiar.

Anna: It is for a lot of international teachers. You get into this cycle of just getting to the next holiday, the next break, the next move.

Greg: That’s exactly what we do.

Anna: And unless you address what’s happening at a deeper level, that cycle continues.

Greg: So it’s about getting to the root of it.

Anna: Exactly. It’s about understanding what you actually need and what’s missing, and then making intentional changes.

Greg: That makes a lot of sense.

Anna: And it’s not about something being “wrong” with you. It’s about optimizing your well-being and helping you thrive.

Greg: That’s a big shift in thinking.

Anna: It is, but it’s a really important one.

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