It’s not tough to see that teaching overseas can be a really rewarding experience. But beyond the usual things you’ll learn while living abroad (maybe a new language, for one), there are 5 other great lessons we wanted to share, as told to us by some of our teachers.
Many of these lessons can only fully be realized when you step outside of your comfort zone and make some new experiences in foreign places. Read below!
Many of us will cherish a change of routine
If you live your life like a routine, the moments and memories begin to blend together and become indistinguishable. In fact, if you look at the whole of last month, you might only be able to identify one or two stand-out moments in your routine.
Traveling and teaching overseas will break you from your everyday routine and force you to experience many more memorable moments. Maybe instead of walking to work in a daze, you’ll now look at your walk through a new set of eyes. And this is a real treat – being able to separate days from other days, months from other months. Otherwise, you’ll look back and everything will be a blur.
The world really is your oyster
We hear it all the time when we ask teachers why they decided to head overseas to teach: often, the answer is ‘to try something new’. And is there ever a better reason? There’s really no excuse to be bored when the world is ripe with opportunity for adventure. If you’re an educated, certified, experienced teacher, and you’re bored, it’s because you’re not exploring your full potential. So get out there!
In the process of trying something new, you might have to jump through a few hoops. You may even have to do something scary like quit your teaching job that you’ve been at for years. But if you’re thinking you’d love a change, there’s no better way than diving in, headfirst.
Trying something entirely new will make you a more confident person
There’s no doubt about it: picking up and moving to a new country can be challenging at times. But challenging ourselves builds character, and indeed, when we’ve faced our biggest challenges is likely when we’ve grown the most.
While teaching overseas, you’ll be faced with many daunting challenges. Things that wouldn’t have seemed like a big deal in your home country can feel as tough as climbing a mountain. Buying a ticket and getting on the right transit line could take you hours the first time you attempt it! Though it’s likely to test your patience once or twice (or more!), it’s a great character-building experience. Succeeding at even the most mundane things might make you want to pat yourself on the back, and it might also give you some perspective on how you handle tough situations.
You might see that we’re not all so different after all
We’re all guilty of living in our little bubbles. But one of the best things you’ll learn while living and teaching abroad is that there is more than one way of doing things. It seems so simple, but it’s also so easy to forget.
And in a time where we see all sorts of discriminatory things happening the world over, it’s always priceless to open your mind a little broader and gain more perspective. We live in such a diverse world, and that’s what makes life interesting. But whatever way we choose to show the world who we are, we can often boil down our hopes and dreams to pretty similar pursuits: we all want to be happy, healthy, and safe. So realizing that at the heart of it, we’re all searching for the same thing, even in completely different corners of the Earth, can really move you to connect with people in a whole new way.
You can learn a lot too – especially about yourself
Meeting a whole slew of new friends and colleagues can be fun, refreshing, and even humbling. How’s that, you may ask? Making new friends can be challenging at times, and sometimes in our hometown, we tend to stick to who we know instead of venturing out and meeting new people.
But when traveling and working abroad, sometimes you find yourself with a whole bunch of new friends that you may not necessarily have sought to connect with back home. This means you might have a whole new opportunity to open your mind to whole new aspects about yourself that you’ve taken for granted or never fully realized.
So what are you waiting for? Get out there and see for yourself how living and teaching abroad can change your life! Explore our job board and see what positions we’re currently promoting that might interest you.
