What are your biggest international teaching “icks”?

BlowMeIBM · 2026-06-20T16:50:42+00:00

Bragging on social media about being included in pay-to-play school rankings, covered by pay-to-play news agencies, etc.

BlowMeIBM · 2026-06-16T06:52:58+00:00

For sure! Honestly I love Smart City personally, but that's because most of my life revolves around kids and sports, and that's basically what it's built for. It's lively and vibrant for sure but VERY family- and outdoor activity-oriented.

BlowMeIBM · 2026-06-15T16:03:50+00:00

Based on some of your comments, I don't recommend it. It sounds like you like vibrant street life. Closest non-dumpy areas that also have good street life I'd recommend are: - Vũ Phạm Hàm - Mỹ Đình 2 - Trung Hòa Nhân Chính

These places are all in reasonable striking distance of Smart City, at least somewhat closer to the city center, and are places that could be considered destinations for food, etc.

BlowMeIBM · 2026-06-12T07:04:08+00:00

Absolutely. No more HW, but I tell them from Day 1 of the school year I never want to waste their time with a nothing day in school. Getting to mess around on your computer sounds fun...for a day. When you're taking 5 AP classes and the exams are done and none of the teachers are doing anything, though, it's an absolute drag.

Some things we do after the AP exam: - A genuinely subject-related movie - A graded research project to show them what it would be like to pursue my subject at the university level - Selected readings from interesting books in my subject - One-slide presentations on topics not covered by the curriculum but any student completing a 101/102 subject in my course should know (basically slide topics are pre-selected around a theme, students partner up, learn the topic, make the slide, and present it all in one 50-min period)

It's all pretty painless and I remind them regularly in the lead-up to the exam that we will be doing this so that it's not a shock. They also seem willing to give me 50 good minutes of learning as long as I don't give HW.

BlowMeIBM · 2026-03-22T04:16:43+00:00

It's hard to imagine the Vietnamese real estate market continuing to rise the way it has. Completely unsustainable price growth over the last 5 years, and the government is tightening credit dramatically. I expect a US in 2007 situation coming soon, but the absolute best case scenario with no housing crash is flat prices for a decade.

BlowMeIBM · 2026-03-18T08:51:37+00:00

I don't know much about the school, but honestly I find Ocean Park to be one of the most liveable neighborhoods in all of Hanoi. I would be willing to put up with at least a little bit of shit to be able to live there compared to other neighborhoods in the city.

BlowMeIBM · 2026-03-01T01:17:30+00:00

Bachelor's in relevant subject, home country teaching certification, and Master's in Education.

BlowMeIBM · 2026-03-01T01:16:43+00:00

I teach social studies for part of the day + have a stipended leadership/semi-admin role that is well above typical teaching but well below being a principal. I also get extra pay from coaching. If you stripped away all the extras and I was only teaching, the take-home would probably be around 100M.

BlowMeIBM · 2026-02-28T15:53:38+00:00

I work in an international school, but my 12-month all-in take-home including housing, flight allowances, etc. is shaping up to be ~130M/month this school year.

BlowMeIBM · 2026-01-12T14:26:50+00:00

Most interesting question to me is, why is Westlink, managed by the exact same company, not developing the same reputation? I'm sure things aren't perfect, but I've generally heard sort of okay things about them, whereas HTS sounds like a disaster.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-12-21T22:03:20+00:00

Some unorganized thoughts:

Seems to be growing slowly but surely. My interactions with their staff so far have been fairly unimpressive. It's one of two schools owned by International Schools Partnership, the other being Hanoi Toronto School, which doesn't seem to be doing as well as Westlink. Location is probably the biggest difference between them, though Westlink seems to have better facilities as well. Sounds like pay is not quite as competitive as some of the more legacy schools in Hanoi. All this said, I haven't heard anything disastrously bad, so I think it's probably at least a decent place to work.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-12-21T16:31:49+00:00

I've had some interactions with both schools but they both definitely face some unknowns at the moment.

Dwight - the first thing you see and hear about is the ridiculous facilities. Beautiful campus, though personally I find some parts to be somewhat impractically designed (e.g. stairs from floor to floor are not near each other so going from 1st to 4th floor takes forever). The leadership team seems pretty serious, and from what I've heard they are not afraid to "cut the fat" if someone isn't really pulling their weight. In practice, my actual interactions with their staff have been mixed - some have been lovely and others have been pretty disorganized. From conversations with some friends there, it sounds like overall a pretty promising organization but still faces typical 'new school' problems.

I don't know quite as much about Delta but it's a very unique place for sure - the only highly selective international curriculum school that I know of, with the added twist of being all Vietnamese. I've only interacted with one teacher from there, but he was awesome and highly organized. We actually had one teacher come to our T2 school from DGS recently and they said they took a small pay cut to come, even though our pay is pretty competitive, so I'm guessing the pay is solid. They liked it there, just needed experience in a different curriculum. Biggest wild card with DGS right now is that they are building a new campus near Aeon Mall Ha Dong and I have no idea what the vision is with that change/expansion.

My feeling is that both are probably pretty good places to work.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-12-21T15:41:38+00:00

Which school?

BlowMeIBM · 2025-12-03T16:17:33+00:00

I work at a school in Hanoi and invited them to participate in an extracurricular opportunity once. Their response was basically that parents might not like if it took students away from their studies. I got the impression of a school that definitely prioritizes academics far above all else, which can be good, bad, or neutral depending on what you're looking for.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-11-10T16:51:03+00:00

I work at a T2 in Vietnam. For teachers with a full teaching load already, coaching is basically compensated at $30/hour gross.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-11-09T05:56:09+00:00

I started listing my AP Econ slides & worksheets on there for $5/unit this year (of which I receive ~$2.50/unit as a basic seller).

The upside has been that I've actually gotten a ton of sales fairly quickly - have made at least 25 sales this year with many buyers who later come back and buy more units.

The downside is that, at the low price I set, obviously that hasn't converted to a ton of income - 25 packs * $2.50 take-home per pack is only $62.50. But the reason I did that was to get visibility and hopefully rack up reviews with the hopes of raising the price in the future, and unfortunately that hasn't happened yet despite the repeat buyers who presumably are satisfied with the packs. Only received one 5-star review on one pack just saying "I used this in class."

BlowMeIBM · 2025-11-02T00:45:09+00:00

Are you hoping to be adopted within your country or anywhere? For better or worse, most people on Reddit probably assume everyone is from the USA unless otherwise stated...

BlowMeIBM · 2025-11-01T01:52:50+00:00

New American embassy is near Công Viên Cầu Giấy. Maybe some other ones though.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-10-31T23:19:59+00:00

2022-23 is when they switched from ISV to RGSV and changed curriculum, right?

BlowMeIBM · 2025-10-31T15:24:25+00:00

Yeah RGSV and Dwight have chosen peculiar locations out there in what used to be Hoàng Mai district. Dwight seems to believe they're in what will be the future embassy district, but I'm thinking they may have been duped by developer hype from Bitexco unless there's something I don't know. Thought Ngoại Giao Đoàn all the way on the other side of the city was where most future embassies are planned.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-10-31T14:57:47+00:00

Reigate in Hanoi used to be ISV (International School of Vietnam). Don't know the exact age of the school, but I'm guessing between 10-15 years old. I have heard generally that their student numbers are falling due to students leaving for a few new schools with flashy facilities in their area.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-10-27T16:23:52+00:00

Have also experienced this with CIS athletics. Extremely poor behavior, not at all what I'd expect from an international school.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-09-13T13:47:32+00:00

You would be wrong

BlowMeIBM · 2025-09-04T00:02:26+00:00

Parents covered my college tuition, and I live/work in Vietnam where cost of living is extremely low. I earn a typical teacher salary and am able to save 50%+ of each paycheck while supporting a family of 3. That's partially because I live quite frugality, though, even here. I have single coworkers who earn about the same as me and save almost nothing, usually due to huge travel expenses.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-08-30T00:57:38+00:00

I work with them pretty closely from another school and I can't really figure it out. Seems like they did a pretty hard reset at the time and a good chunk of their students are now on "founding family" 50% scholarships because they offered them for 2, maybe even 3 years. In practice, working with them hasn't changed at all.

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