As the community of BAME international teachers grows, we need to form a community and I hope to support this progression; read on to learn how.
Thanks to Diverse Educators for sharing an abridged version of this article on their website.
Navigating entry into international teaching is a challenging step to take. Combine that with the specific challenges faced both professionally and socially by the BAME community and you have something truly daunting.
A Wobbly First Step
I searched for a support network from the beginning of my international teaching journey.
Simple, generic advice was always easy to attain, but I needed answers specific to me. I needed a conversation with someone familiar with the challenges of navigating the space as a man racialised as black.
What I needed was a community that I could easily access which was populated by people who had seen international teaching through a BAME lens. At the very least, people who could speak with sensitivity and awareness to the questions I ask.
Unfortunately, I could not find it, but as many people do every year, I dove head first into an experience that I knew I wanted. This ‘into the deep end’ approach definitely led to additional challenges. Challenges I hope to help others avoid.
Identifying the Problem
Even when researching to ensure accuracy while writing this article, the results when trying to find a supportive community were not encouraging:
- Promising forums lacking focus on international teaching, such as r/teachersofcolor and dead links — http://forum.expatteachernetwork.com/#home
- ‘Secret Groups’ and invite-only FB groups which are more trouble than they are worth to find and join.
- Communities which are ‘universal’ but heavily dominated by the experiences and expectations of US-based white teachers — r/internationalteachers
- Companies or organisations which prioritise training courses and paid services or membership fees
The formation of a community of BAME teachers is being prevented by low engagement triggered by various barriers to entry and minimisation in more general forums.
Solutions to the Problems
We must ensure that there is visible and community-driven (constructivist) support available for BAME teachers, which people can easily dip in and out of as necessary.
This means:
- No financial barriers to entry
- Publically visible and easy to find with simple searches online
- The group must be open to all with minor gatekeeping against spam, exploitation, and any suppression of the BAME voice
- If some ‘premium’ services are available, they should be secondary
- Resources, responses, stories, and guidance are generated by community interactions to ensure they directly represent their voice and knowledge base
A widely visible community with no barriers to entry is needed. Simple actions such as following accounts on Twitter, subscribing to people, and popping into forums and groups to occasionally share a response can make a world of difference.
The Dream
- A broadly visible community where you can easily connect with real people on various platforms and engage.
- A community which supports each other with relevant experience and sensitivity to the personal needs of the person asking.
- A community approach that protects from single stories and excessive generalisations.
- A community that organically increases BAME international teachers’ online visibility and makes it easier for others to connect.
We all have a story, and many of us are willing to share it. But we may not want that to become a full-time job or for our story to be a central one. If we follow the concept of Each One Teach One, we can become a community which supports the activity and success of BAME teachers.
The Market Importance of Forming a Community
The value of BAME teachers is becoming clearer and is expressed in changes to recruitment at major international recruiters. DEI initiatives are becoming common and more actively invoked rather than the simple lip service they often represent even today. This has provided potential financial benefits to engaging with the BAME international teaching community for both recruiters and schools.
By forming a more visible community, BAME international teachers can protect themselves from being a resource exploited or excluded by the international teaching job market. Instead, they become a market which can safely and profitably engage with the resource of international teaching opportunities.
A community populated by people who recognise their value, help each other prepare for the reality of employment and life internationally, and support mentalities of ‘I am not alone, I am seen, I understand, and I do not simply have to accept’, is the most powerful market there can be.
Become part of this movement and support the change by joining and contributing to groups, resources, and forums that you come across such as:
- Diverse Educators International Teachers Forum
- BAMEed Network
- Should You Teach Internationally? Black Edition — A Series DSinclairWriting
- International Teachers Community FaceBook
- r/Internationalteachers Reddit— In sore need of a louder BAME voice or a breakout group to stop the minimising of BAME-related queries
Let us create and contribute to the community that will support so many and destabilise the current systemic issues BAME international teachers face.
You can connect with Daryl via dsinclairwriting@gmail.com, https://www.linkedin.com/in/darylsinclairgeography/ and dsinclairwriting.com
*Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic. For the purposes of these articles, I have opted to use the term BAME in order to encompass the people who are most greatly affected by the challenges addressed. I also use terms such as ‘global majority’ and ‘people of colour’ but for the sake of familiarity in a British context and the focus on the experiences of people whose teaching careers have been situated in Europe and the West where White Caucasian is the majority, I felt that BAME was most applicable. Not all people identify with this label and I do not see it as the definitive or only option but it is my chosen term for this context.
About Daryl Sinclair
Daryl Sinclair is an educator, geographer, and DEIJ specialist who believes in a systems approach to educational success. He champions Systemic Equity™, taking a non-ideological approach to DEIJ (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice) that focuses on practical actions and indicators of impact that create learning environments that realise the learning community’s mission. Through his writing and consultancy work with exam boards, schools, and publishers, he champions the idea that the success of leadership and DEIJ initiatives is in what we DO, not simply what we believe. Daryl’s work focuses on your journey towards consistently equitable outcomes for all members of your learning community.
Take your next step with DEIJ at www.Dsinclairwriting.com/consultancy
Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darylsinclairgeography/
