The International Experiences Of First-Year Teachers [Paperback]

Every year, a number of preservice teachers graduate from Canadian universities, are hired into international positions, and spend their first year of teaching adapting to a new career and a new country. In addition to adjusting to the expectations of a new culture, they must also deal with the stress and joy of the first year of teaching in their own classrooms. Individually, each of these experiences is life changing; together they represent a unique experience. Many of these students remain in touch with professors and colleagues and tell stories rich with reflection and description of this first year in an unfamiliar country. Correspondence and conversations ring with professional and personal insights and choruses of I wish I had known... . Editors Carole and Warnie Richardson's belief in the importance of hearing first-year teachers tell their stories of international teaching and learning is rooted in their own practice. As preservice professors who taught in the public school system on a small Caribbean island, they have experienced firsthand the challenges and rewards of living in an unfamiliar cultural environment and teaching in an educational system much different from their own. When they moved from Canada to the Cayman Islands to teach in the public system, their world changed as they adapted to a very different way of life, both personally and professionally. As seasoned educators, the editors were able to use their previous teaching experiences and ongoing reflective practice to identify and understand the dissonances, both internal and external, that resulted from working to fit into their new surroundings without losing themselves or compromising their philosophical beliefs about education. They were able to recognize that certain conflicts within their classrooms related as much to their students' and colleagues' anxiety about their expectations as to their own anxiety about what was expected of them. Conversations with each other and with expatrlÓ"