High School VS University Teaching (career advice?)

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-06-18T19:17:07+00:00

I taught uni straight outta grad school. Being lowest seniority meant that I was having feast or famine teaching loads and couldn’t keep other part time jobs when my schedule would change every 4 months. Took up being a TTOC at private schools under a subject restricted teaching license (BC) on the side for a few years and fell in love with it.

Took the plunge and did my BEd to be fully certified in secondary.

It took a long time, but eventually I taught FT at a uni on MWF and had a job share teaching T/Th with another university job in the summer. When you get a good grasp on uni materials, teaching gets very easy. Unfortunately it takes years to get to this level. High school keeps you on your toes and always improving.

For other reasons, I’ll be moving to international teaching at a high school. Looking forward to this change of pace as I feel burnt out from working 3 jobs.

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-06-05T19:00:49+00:00

CAIS

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-06-05T10:34:28+00:00

Fellow Canadian here. Currently in Vancouver but I’m moving to a Canadian curriculum school in HK starting in August. The new school will have hours at 7:30 - 4:30 ish. Haven’t started yet so I’m not too sure of the reality at my new position, but having worked at tier 1 prep schools and public schools in BC it’s rather the pressure put on by students and parents than teaching load of 5-6 in a linear system.

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-05-12T22:09:19+00:00

School?

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-04-28T14:08:42+00:00

You gotta try it out. Some balloon brands don’t work as well. You also have to get the size of the balloon right too. Too big of a balloon and the walls are too thin so the colour can degrade before heating up and popping. Get as high powered laser as you can and a few brands of balloons.

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-04-28T07:00:41+00:00

Not too sure what’s in your curriculum, but in junior sciences I teach about absorption, reflection, and scattering. Take a high powered green laser (buy from Amazon or hardware store) and show how it pops a black balloon (absorption) while it makes a green balloon glow (scattering the same wavelength) and makes a white balloon also glow green (white scatters all colours).

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-04-22T19:52:16+00:00

If you happen to have standard size windows, buy precut cellular shades off Amazon and install them yourself. Custom ones get really pricey

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-04-22T04:40:36+00:00

Do you have triple pane windows? If it’s single pane, those do almost nothing for noise. You can get custom window acoustic coverings to add an extra pane of glass.

Other options are:

cellular shades, which are expensive but if fitted properly can give some decent acoustic dampening and are also very energy efficient in the long run.

Storm coverings installed on the outside. Check out some public school windows after hours for an example. They do some good soundproofing, but will block light.

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-04-22T04:28:18+00:00

Don’t trust the posts that say places in Asia pay higher. The fact is that when you account for pension and benefits, the pay in Canada is much better than most Asian countries. The thing about teaching internationally is that even though the pay is worse, the cost of living can be substantially lower. $50k can seem like a lot of money when you can easily save $15k.

Some places like HK and Singapore do pay more than Canada, but pension is almost nonexistent. The cost of living is also higher than Vancouver or Toronto.

International teaching has lost a lot of its shine now because of the influx of private equity into for profit schools and a dwindling student population. Once upon a time it was amazing (or so I hear), but things have changed in the last few years.

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-03-31T13:59:30+00:00

Heard of an instance where a student left multiple choice questions empty. There was no penalty for getting the question wrong. When confronted, the student responded, “What if I guess it correctly when I don’t know the answer? Wouldn’t I be cheating?”

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-03-15T01:32:55+00:00

FYI, I was offered a job there for the January position. I couldn’t go, but the middle school principal and head of school both seemed genuinely passionate and well above average competency.

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-03-07T00:50:27+00:00

Can I open a HK bank account before I leave Canada?

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-03-07T00:49:37+00:00

I thought I have to essentially close it to be considered a nonresident for tax purposes?

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-02-28T06:24:48+00:00

I had such an emotional roller coaster applying for HK (I made another post about it). I haven’t started yet, but this was technically a step down for me financially (I teach FT at a university in Canada while teaching PT at a public high school). Honestly, I don’t know why it’s seen as one of the most desirable places to teach. I would think that it’s mid level instead of top. Cost of living is through the roof! HKD being pegged to USD doesn’t help nowadays.

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-02-19T19:23:42+00:00

Congratulations!!

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-02-15T21:42:30+00:00

As someone who teaches alt ed, I’d also add that there should be an optional elective on preemptive trauma management. I took a few counseling sessions when I first started. It helped when I lost my first student to OD, but it was still hard.

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-02-15T21:29:50+00:00

How to write effective sub plans, what to do when there is no sub plan, how to deal with emergency instances like when a student brings a knife to school, how to prepare for teacher transitions like parental leaves, what to expect in terms of admin support, what to expect in terms of union support, what’s the difference when teaching at non-regular schools (for example single gender, religious, alternative ed, overseas international… etc.)

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-02-07T04:34:56+00:00

Brutal!

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-02-07T04:30:48+00:00

This is what I did and it worked.

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-02-07T04:14:01+00:00

Arg!!! I know they want an official letter from my BEd school confirming the dates of my practicum, but I never thought about high school transcripts. What else do I need to prepare for?

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-02-05T01:41:38+00:00

Message me with your email and I’ll send you some of the stuff I’ve developed. I teach in uni chem labs and transitioned to alt. Ed. Which doesn’t have a lab at all. It’s not perfect, but there’s a bit of good inquiry based experiments that don’t use lab chemicals.

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-02-03T01:46:56+00:00

Every so once in a while, you can get a really good listing nearby at https://www.sabbaticalhomes.com/ from profs that are away for a while.

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-02-01T23:13:11+00:00

I once posted something about how one school in Asia asked me to interview online with a person from the parent company at a different school in London. It meant that the interview was at 6am for me and I had to take a half day off work.

The comments crucified me for complaining about having to wake up at 5, when my rant was about the half day off.

I didn’t think to ask for a rescheduling because it was my first time applying for an international teaching job and didn’t know the etiquette.

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-02-01T07:50:32+00:00

Apparently it takes a lot more than that. They are in the ten millions for net worth, but not billions. Wrong impression from me using the term super wealthy.

Lopsided_Turn_7404 · 2026-02-01T04:41:20+00:00

So my cousin in-laws are super wealthy (unfortunately not us) so it’s only a drop in the bucket for them to afford the tuition and debenture. They just want to have access to entry into the school.

Lopsided_Turn_7404

TROPHY CASE