Expat Heather is Moving to…

South Korea!

After two years in Mumbai, we will be moving to Korea in summer 2019! I’ve accepted an exciting position as Applied Learning Coordinator at Korea International School.

While we have loved our time in India, the location of the school has made it challenging to access all that Mumbai has to offer. With my contract ending and feeling ready for a new professional challenge, I decided to attend the Global Recruitment Collaborative Fair in Dubai, and see what came up.

How was the job search?

I have to say I was happy that this time around, I decided a bit later to jump into the fray. That meant an extremely focused three weeks prior to GRC Fair in Dubai November 10 & 11, rather than months and months of applications. I had this massive spreadsheet to research schools and positions, and to keep track of my applications. 55 schools were on the target list, and often these schools required time-consuming applications via custom platforms. Because I was interested in administrative roles as well as secondary English roles, I had a lot of applications out. I basically stopped doing anything in my free time, other than job applications, for two weeks! Just before the fair, I took a one-week vacation with my kids to Northeast India during Diwali, and each afternoon, I took a few hours to prepare for the fair while the kids played games or watched movies. Honestly, they enjoyed having the downtime in between exploring caves, seeing waterfalls, and looking for wild rhinos.

Five schools pre-booked interviews with me for the fair after I put in my application on the GRC database or through email. This meant my Saturday at GRC was pretty booked up before I arrived. During the interview sign up, I just went around to tables in the ballroom to talk to some of the other schools I was interested in. I was able to book three additional interviews, and I found out that several of my interest positions had strong internal applicants or had recently been filled.

Interview sign up at GRC Fair in Dubai

It’s much more relaxing to pre-book if you can, so definitely start early and reach out to your target schools ahead of the fair. Some schools were even scheduling interviews on Friday before the fair started or doing pre-fair Skype interviews.

What Will I be Doing in Korea?

Korea had not been on my radar until November 1st, when I saw a job posted on GRC database for Applied Learning Coordinator, which would include outdoor/experiential education was well as service learning. My interest was piqued! I reached out to a friend at KIS to learn more about the position, and she put me in touch with the recruitment team. We met during GRC, and after a follow-up Skype to Korea, a brief follow-up in Dubai, and reference checks, I was offered the position!

My new role will focus on outdoor education, service learning, and applied learning. Part of this job will be to continue to integrate concepts such as design-thinking and agile-learning into the program, as well as character development. KIS is already doing some amazing things in experiential education, and I am so excited to get involved and continue the work. I did have other offers for teaching and administration that were quite enticing, but those who know me know how passionate I am about using non-traditional parts of the curriculum to deepen the learning experience, build 21st century skills, and strengthen community.

Check out the current KIS Grade 5 Experiential Education trip

Tell Us About the School!

Korea International School is located about 30 km south of Seoul in a Suji-gu, one of three districts of Yongshin City. It offers an American-style curriculum with lots of options for choice and AP courses in the higher grades. My kids will be in the primary program, where they’ll have access to maker spaces and there is a big focus on project-based learning. I showed my kids some pictures and videos of the school. Gabriel’s response, “Look at those labs! Look at those inventions!” Arianne’s response, “I want to be on that stage!” Considering their Halloween costumes this year were mad scientist and rock star, Joan Jett, that seemed about right!

See photos of KIS

What are we excited for?

To tell the kids about the move, I created a scavenger hunt around the house where they collected clues. The clue they were MOST excited about was, “You’ll need your winter jackets!” They have never lived in a place with seasons, and although Gabriel had some snow in Massachusetts as a baby, they really haven’t experienced snow.

Here were the clues. I had also told them in the morning that it was a country with fast trains, so Gabriel was thinking Japan coming in to the hunt.

When we lived in Vietnam, their favorite restaurant was the Korean BBQ at Lexington apartments. It might be a bit of shock to go from fairly “veg” Maharashtra to piles of meat on the table, but we do love the communal style of cooking and eating together. They ultimately figured out it was Korea by looking at the country flags, and then double checking if the country was a peninsula.

They are happy that we’ll have a car and be able to go to parks for hiking and bicyling. They already asked for snow boots, snowboarding lessons, and ice skates for next winter so I’ll need to look into those activities! I am slightly terrified of the babysitting costs and the thought of not having a full-time nanny, but when we leave India they will be 5 and 8, and they are becoming more independent. That said, today was the nanny’s off day, and there is green paint and glue all over the floor from an “invention” we worked on this morning, so I may just spend the next years living among the aftermath of craft projects. Their dad (my ex), who is currently in India on a business visa, is also looking for an opportunity to come to Seoul. We both think the country and the school will be great for them as they go through their primary years.

What are we doing now?

For the next seven months, we will be continuing to explore India. In December, I’ll go to Rajasthan for two weeks with the kids, where we’ll look for tigers and stay in some lovely restored family mansions. In January, I’ll meet a friend in Goa to learn how to sail. The spring brings a CIS accreditation visit to Shanghai, and another chill long weekend in Goa. I hope to have time to blog about all of it before the big move!

Ready for our next expat adventure!