New countries, new roles, bigger responsibilities and better lessons. Every teacher story, in one place.
Angela Dorothy, California, USA
One message. A classroom in California.
Angela had been a special education teacher in India for three years, and a consultancy had been shopping her profile abroad for a year with nothing to show.
She came to the UAE as a nursery teacher and was moved into inclusion without any teaching qualification, suddenly facing lesson plans, assessments and parent meetings.
Boniswa had lectured part-time before her first real classroom in Saudi Arabia, where explaining a simple concept could turn into a nightmare and she felt like an imposter.
Sivasundari trained as an engineer in a remote village, turned to teaching after her younger son was born, and nearly took the first low-paying school job she could find.
Deepti had two decades and a B.Ed behind her, teaching primary grades in Bangalore after a postgraduate degree she felt was going to waste, and lecturing rather than facilitating.
Meenu taught grade 10 physics in Tamil Nadu, where schools treated her simulations and smart boards as a waste of time and no clear route abroad existed.
Noura taught secondary maths and found that her students followed a lesson perfectly, then could not recall it, join in, or connect one concept to the next.
Moving from coaching centres into a school classroom
Ritu had taught English for two decades, but only in coaching centres, academies and institutions, never once inside a school and never with a method she could name.
Nishigandha had taught biology across Indian boards for twelve years and felt her career had stalled, with her family never quite convinced teaching was the right choice.
Clinical psychologist. Now reaching the strugglers.
Ritansha had taught psychology to grades 11 and 12 for years and had settled into techniques she no longer questioned, while the students who struggled most stayed out of reach.
Sharjil taught business and accounts and wanted to be the kind of teacher he still remembered from school, without knowing what was missing in his own practice.
Recording her own chemistry lessons to improve them
Saima was already a confident chemistry teacher, and started the course while pregnant, unsure it would give her anything beyond the certificate she needed.
Artheeta was teaching in a school where the theory she had studied sat apart from the lessons she actually delivered, and terms like strategy and method blurred together.
Monika could pull sample papers for summative assessment, but had no reliable way to read learning as a lesson happened, and the books she bought did not help.
Reaching four-year-olds when the classroom moved online
Suzanne teaches foundation stage two, where learning had always meant play, mess and movement around the room, until the pandemic put her class in front of a screen.
