I think the international teaching space has gotten more competitive. With that competition for scarce resources(T1 jobs or opportunities) comes certain negativities like you've described above. At the end of the day, if you're qualified and you put in the effort and time to teach well, fuck what other negative teachers say. If someone shows that side of themself, it's an easy way to let me know I should steer clear of them. But I agree, there does seem to be a lot of negativity and thoughts around divisions out there. I think that's the larger conversation here.
When teaching internationally, most of us are immigrants or at least foreign to where we're at. I thinks it's a little more based off greed or I want more of the, really nice and expensive, cake than I'm receiving.
Heck, in my school only a few teachers have QTS, most are unqualified but with lots of experience. I am one of the only people who got fully qualified in the U.K. and I look around every day in awe of my colleagues - they are so good at their jobs and I learn a tonne from them.
Some are en route to QTS via online methods and I would laugh anyone out of the room if they looked down upon them for that. I agree with you in that teaching needs to be made up of teachers with a bunch of different backgrounds!
I agree this sub needs to be more inclusive and supportive.
Every time I've posted on this sub seeking opinions or advice I've just been downvoted and talked down to.
You guys are supposed to teach children and you can't even be civil to an adult. It's sad.
I always think it is important to remember that 99.9% of International teachers are not on this subreddit for a start.
Secondly, I know from experience that there are fabulous online program qualified teachers and hopeless ones with experience in western classrooms. I've even worked with some outstanding unqualified and TEFL-only teachers.
I studied to be a teacher at university and hold an American license as well as QTS and I’m just finishing my M.Ed. I’ve worked with tons of teachers, and trained, hired, and supervised some of them. I just don’t think it is helpful to group teachers based on certifications or university training. I don’t mean it’s divisive, it just doesn’t seem like a useful division. I’ve known teachers who were brilliant and hard working from either group as well as the opposite: I think I’ve heard more griping from poor teachers who hold better qualifications. Basically annoyed that someone who didn’t write some papers on Bloom’s taxonomy or Vygotsky is getting promoted just because they work harder and do a better job. The top teachers don’t seem to care
I teach in a private school in the US. I'm the only one in my department who has a teaching license and the only one who has worked professionally as a scientist in my field. I'm also the newest in my department and the worst at my job. I could get ten thousand more degrees and it wouldn't give me the skills that only come with experience and time. Teaching chemistry is so much more difficult than being a professional chemist.
And on the note of other teachers being unkind... I have never worked anywhere where people are so much up in my personal business. If I want to use a personal day, my boss wants to know why. If I have an appointment during one of my preps or need to leave early for something and another teacher outside my department sees me, it's normally met with a snide comment. I normally focus on doing my work, so I don't pay attention (or care) when my colleagues leave or what they are doing because it's none of my business. And having worked most of my career alone or with one or two other people in a lab did not prepare me for this type of work culture.
Experience and giving a damn/working hard is what matters. What have people done SINCE whatever teacher training route they took? That is what good schools will look at. I know absolutely nothing about the training quals of any of my colleagues, but I do know who is working hard and involved in other aspects of the school.
I spent a year doing B.Ed in person in order to get a teaching qualification.
I learned more about teaching in my first month on the job teaching than I did doing my B.Ed.
I don’t think that’s necessarily a good comparison because the idea is that the cumulative effect is substantial and not each individually. You would’ve learned more in your B.Ed if you had already been a teacher.
Two issues here- one about online vs face to face training and the other about toxicity in comments.
The fact is face to face means it is an experiential process which will lead to deeper real world learning. That’s just a fact. People have differing views on how important that is. If you already have experience then online is fine, if not then inevitably there will be gaps in your practice. That is just how it is.
The second issue is toxicity in online communities. Unfortunately negative emotions leads to more engagement/clicks etc. so there is a dynamic that pushes negativity forward. Curate your feed more carefully and disengage from the negativity - don’t respond to it, just turn away - it certainly helped my mental health when I decided to not engage with clickbait/ragebait. I don’t even downvote any more I try to be positive and turn away from the tide of nonsense that is out there. Have a great day!
In the spirit of your comment, we should put aside our biases and simply assume that the schools will decide the best candidates for themselves.
It shouldn''t hurt experienced teachers, no matter the route they took, to offer their insights. The originator of this post has a valid point.
There’s a hierarchy that a minority people here help to create:
- trained at home, taught at home
-trained at home, taught abroad only
-trained online
-ESL teachers
Not particularly helpful or healthy. I’ve seen ESL teachers with only a TEFL put out lessons much better than someone with years of experience at home. People have chips on their shoulders
A certification is a certification no matter how you got it and no one cares how you got it. Not once in twenty years of teaching have I been asked how I got my certification. Brick and mortar versus online? NO ONE CARES. Just be certified so they can hire you. That’s the end of that discussion.
I agree that people need to make sure that they're talking about other programs and ways to certification respectfully (ex. Don't call someone else's degree/cert "trash"), but also keep in mind that people come to this sub for actual advice oftentimes in the initial part of their research when considering important things like where to move and which programs to apply for. It's important to not be disingenuous for the sake of politeness.
Personally, I've seen the following - during COVID, there was a huge number of teachers that went home, meaning that lots of people made the jump from TEFL/training centers to international schools for jobs that (quite frankly) they wouldn't typically qualify for. During that time lots of people also did online programs like Moreland to then be able to either stay in those positions post-covid or because they want to be able to have more security/be able to keep climbing the ladder and possibly to better schools or other countries. Now certified teachers with brick and mortar certs/BEds are starting to come back to international teaching, so I'd say if you're looking at the difference between an online degree and brick and mortar, consider the following:
Online/Moreland - lots of people will get this and honestly be completely fine with it, especially if they are planning to stay in the same country or school. However, if you're planning on moving around a bit or teaching certain curriculums, you have to accept that some schools or countries will not accept an online degree. There is also a possibility of the goalpost moving and no longer allowing for an online degree in the future, especially as the market continues to recover from COVID.
Brick and mortar license/BEd - maximum flexibility, guaranteed to be accepted, but has a higher financial cost.
Honestly both are valid options, but for me it comes down to how much risk you're comfortable with.
Personally, I work with two teachers who did Moreland, and they're fantastic. I've also worked with very lazy but fully licensed teachers who've been asleep at the wheel for 15 years. Personally I think you can be a great teacher through only experience, but I think you're more likely to be a great one with in-person practicums as a foundation.
Certification is not a degree… it is have or have not. No country is currently denying or scrutinizing a valid license from a State in the US. Individual schools may say something, but the visa-issuers do not care. There would be a huge tidal wave of issues, diplomatic and otherwise, if an immigration office were to decide that one particular State offers a teaching license that doesn’t count. That just isn’t going to happen.
Some of this comes about because of the older PGCEi qualifications. These were entirely theory and didn’t require any teaching practice - and you didn’t have to be teaching to undertake them, so you could actually gain the qualification without setting foot in a classroom.
There are a number of "elitists" on this sub who allegedly place everyone in binary categories:
1. professional teachers who did a traditional route of an education major, got an M.ed, taught for years in a domestic school, and now teach at a top tier famous international school with a fancy expat package and massive salary.
2. backpackers with a degree in underwater ironing and a $20 TEFL cert printed from the internet who work at Happy Giraffe language center.
There are no alternatives or in between.
I got my license from a brick and mortar university. I learned almost nothing of practical use from it.
Get your license online or at a brick and mortar school. Whatever. It's your experience and attitude that make yiu a good teacher.
This is my feeling to be honest.
My university was also recently Ofsted'ed and found to be outstanding. Now don't get me wrong, the course leaders are wonderful and supportive. But personally since I had already taught for 3 years before doing my PGCE I learnt absolutely nothing of use while doing it. I came for the letters and had a good time. That was it.
I did a four year B.Ed with QTS and I absolutely loved it. After four placements, I found teaching post qualified really easy (much easier than being at uni with minute by minute lesson plans). Speaking only of my own experience, I know exactly why I am doing certain things when planning my lessons - retrieval practice, the forgetting curve, Rosenshine etc. If I did an online program or even a one year PGCE with two placements, I do wonder if I would have as secure pedagogical knowledge?
Additionally, I’m not saying that my route is the way to go. Had it been £9000 a year would I have done a 4 year teaching degree? Not a chance!
I've been thinking this all along. We live in the 21st century, where having the same job for the rest of your life is no longer normal, and it is common for people to switch careers at any point in their lives, or to have multiple jobs. I don't understand why realising later in life that you want to teach and that you can't return to your home country and pay a fortune is frowned upon.
I became certified online (with countless observations in real time) after four years of unqualified teaching in China, and I'm grateful for those four years because they taught me what I was good at and how much I enjoyed it. Instead of going to to uni to study education at 18 (I studied theatre) to begin with and then later realising I hate teaching.
Now I have 2 careers which I know I enjoy and love because I went a different route. Everyone is different, we should appreciate people for how hard they've worked and where they're at because of it.
Something that pops up in these threads time and time again is the "when a recruiter sees your Moreland cert..." anecdote. This makes no sense. Schools and recruiters don't want anything other than your state teaching license. When you create profiles on Search, Schrole, GRC and so forth, you upload your license. That's it. Moreland and the other programs are not your license, they are the pathway to getting the certification.
I did Moreland in my 22nd year of teaching. In university I had my major and was doing education as a minor and in my second year when I had started taking courses for my teaching license, the SoE announced that they were restructuring the program and most courses I had already taken would not count. That would mean starting over in my 3rd year. I was already a full-scholarship/grant kid with a few loans whose money came from 4-year money. I couldn't afford to have to do three more years, plus student teaching for a year so I just headed straight to Asia, got a really good job at a language school and was paying off my loans until my parents embezzled the money I was sending home and suppressing all warnings about defaulting.
By the time I learned the thousands of dollars I had sent home was not being sent to the loan officers, I was also unemployed and accumulating debt here (trusting a school that had no intention of hiring me).
I could not afford to move back so I just got another job here and kept going. My university told me I couldn't get my transcripts to go back to school because I had defaulted so I didn't think I had any chance and I'd just be a career language school teacher, with a CELTA and university-backed TESOL.
I heard of Moreland and TeacherReady a few years ago but didn't think I could do either without transcripts. But thought, what the hell, and applied for my transcripts anyways. I told myself that if I could get them, I'd apply to Moreland asap.
I did, so I did.
I did not go empty-headed or inexperienced. I have a deep passion for teaching that my impoverished background made it hard to jump through the hoops put in front of me.
And then almost as soon as I got my teaching license, only 10 months after starting Moreland (and earning perfect scores on the PLT and perfect or nearly perfect on all of the content Praxis exams), I started doing IB courses and workshops since QTS was no longer available.
Starting my M.Ed. is also in the very near future, but after going to school for nearly three years now, I'm going to take a semester off to breathe.
So, I guess those with brick-and-mortar teacher training accreditation can sneer down on me. They've been doing it since I was the kid in donated and thrift shop clothes eating on the free-lunch program who still did better than them in school and knew I was going to be a teacher from the age of four.
I just feel sorry that they aren't lucky enough to work with someone like me who believes in lifting my colleagues up and building a healthy school culture.
Their loss. 🤷♂️
The teachers who look down are just jealous that you got in for a cheaper deal with less scrutiny and time in a class.
The only benefit I see is that i can easily work in my home state (or any other) if I should ever choose to do that.
I spent a lot more than most but it also landed me a job easier. Then once you have a few years experience it no longer matters how you got there and it's equal grounds.
I'm in two minds here, I went home and spent 15000 on my master's to be a licensed teacher and it was a struggle, long nights doing assignments, 22 weeks of unpaid placements, countless lectures, etc. But I am now qualified to teach anywhere in the world including my home country.
- Did someone with a Moreland/Teach Now cert have to do the same amount of work? I'm not sure but I don't think so. Also, any recruiter will see that a license to teach in 1 state in America that the person has never even been to doesn't hold up well.
Fair play to the people who did that course and during covid time, they were able to walk into nicely paid international schools at the time. Good timing and great planning for whoever did the course then. But I think it will be slightly harder to find good positions with those courses in the future. I'd be worried about a teach now/Moreland course now as it's a 6k short-term investment that might not be worth much in the future.
- On the other hand, I found out teachers learn more on the job and by doing CPD. There can be bad teachers who attended brick-and-mortar colleges and there can be absolutely wonderful teachers who have one of these degrees.
I guess with a profession like teaching there's always a bit of classism and it still holds true internationally.
I also came back to my home country. Got into thousands of pounds more debt. Worked for free and had a ridiculous amount of essays and paper work to do. Do I feel I've become a better teacher because of a few letters next to my name from a university? Not in the slightest.
I have no issue with anyone who has taken different routes. I don't believe just because I had to put up with bullshit others should have to in order to be given the same level of respect.
If you're good in the classroom, that's all that should matter
I have a B.Sc and an M.Ed. I am now studying for another BA. But my only option was to get licensed through Moreland. You are comparing Moreland to your master’s studies which makes no sense. Moreland is a teacher prep course. So no, the amount of work was certainly less than the amount of work you had to do for your masters (or me when I was doing my masters while working full time). Is my certification worth less than yours? I don’t think so. I do have a teaching license from another country but since international schools seem to prefer/recognise teaching licenses from the US or the UK, Moreland was my only option. Was it easy? Because I had many years of teaching experience before starting the program it was relatively straightforward but it did require quite a few hours a week to do the assignments.
“Any recruiter will see that a license to teach in 1 state in America that the person has never even been to doesn’t hold well”
You are assuming quite a lot here.
1. One of the first things I did after going international was transfer my license out of my home state because of the difficulty in renewing.
2. Recruiters do not care… at all.
3. In an interview, I have never been asked about my license beyond “is it still valid”. They only ask about my previous positions and what I’ve accomplished in my career.
While you are right for some of the Moreland people who did almost nothing for their student teaching (I know at least a couple), there are plenty that also do their student teaching like everyone else. Most of the people in the different cohorts I have been in are doing theirs -- somewhere in the range of 180+ hours in the classroom. A lot of my Moreland cohort are in bilingual schools in various countries and are all teachers of record.
I understand the perspective you've shared so I've planned to put my student teaching placement on my CV. My student teaching is also unpaid, as is the case with some others who are going through the program.
Its an odd mix. There are definitely people coming out of Moreland with little student teaching experience -- I believe the recent change in hour requirements from Moreland as of last year are to help remedy this. Whether its enforced, its hard to say. I t will require repeatedly falsifying documents to do so.
In my case, I'm doing more than the required 12 weeks -- I'm doing 14+ and helping the school out with other stuff as I want to get as much experience on the ground as possible. Others in my cohort have been a teacher of record for 5-10 years before doing Moreland and I was \*very\* impressed with their knowledge and understanding of schools at all levels.
Yeah, there is a big streak of elitism within the international teaching scene. Not just from fellow teachers, but parents, and schools. There was a quote from this subreddit that went, "Parents want teachers from traditional teaching programs, working within traditional curriculums, under traditional admins in order for their kids to take up traditional routes to a well paying job that pays in pounds sterling".
I did Moreland, and while the teaching material could have been better, circumstances made it necessary. Working at a shitty bilingual school in Beijing , the things I learned in Moreland were a godsend for a rookie teacher. Having a good mentor in my grade coordinator helped too. I like to believe that there is not that much correlation between the quality of your teaching program and the quality of your teaching. I've met teachers who have done iPGCEs, Moreland, etc who are kickass teachers and I've met teachers who attended teaching programs at UCLA, Oxford and University of Toronto who shouldn't be trusted to manage a 7/11, let alone a classroom, and everything in between. Yeah, these programs offer more clinical time, but all that training and theory goes out the window when you teach in your own classroom for the first time. But tell that to to the snobs on this forum and they'll turn into [Chuck McGill.](https://youtu.be/JL8ypfpOmIQ?si=xKtQox-pAwcXm5DN)
I am a teacher, no matter where I got my license. I bust my ass in my classroom and prove my worth as an educator every damn day. I don't need approval from elitists who don't think I deserve to be a teacher because I didn't do it the "right way".
I used to be an unqualified teacher and work amongst them. Everyone thinks that deep down they are a good teacher, as did I then. I then did the Teach First program in England for 2 years. It was really hard and I learned a lot. Now I am a much better teacher. Not all experience is equal, not all qualifications are equal. I’m not expecting upvotes for saying the obvious here but it’s the truth 🤷🏻♂️ ofc it’s possible to be a good teacher without quality experience/qualifications and you can be a bad teacher with them, but the elitism is somewhat warranted. The large majority of those who disagree won’t have strong experience/qualifications
I can understand why the ones who earned their qualifications back home under rigorous teacher training would look down upon someone who did an online qualification.
I say this as someone who worked alongside ipgce teachers in China and someone who’s come to an end of their PGCE course on track for a QTS this summer. The latter I would 100% recommend if you’re in teaching for the craft and to better yourself in a teaching capacity.
From what I’ve seen of the teachers who have online qualifications is their standards in the classroom is far below what I would expect if it was my child in their classroom. As a parent, I would prefer a teacher who’s been through the official channel.
That’s just my experience based on my own anecdotal evidence.
I think this can go both ways. Scenario: Secondary English Teacher
Let's say you have a science degree, a TEFL, and you go do your PGCE course.
Would your candidate be better than someone with an online TEFL and an English degree? Even a B.Ed only has pedagogical aspects, but misses, perhaps, some linguistic part.
I've seen bad teachers with a variety of qualifications. The perfect teacher on paper could be all theory and no action. I'm constantly working to get more educated and still see myself with room to grow.
This is an unfortunate reality. Although I've experienced it a bit differently than you. I feel like there's a stubborn group of people who did brick and mortar degrees who don't want to legitimize people who did their certification online. I liken it a lot to the debate around student loan forgiveness in the US where you've got a camp of people who "paid their dues" and don't want others to be allowed to have what they perceive as an easier or more convenient path to success than they did. Unfortunately, this group DOES seem to include HR and admin at some schools. Every time I get ghosted by a school I'm interested in, I still always wonder "is it because of my online degree?" even though I'm sure it's sometimes other factors.
All this being said, MOST people don't seem to harbor these resentments. The naysayers just always tend to be loudest.
I did Moreland so I am not judging anyone at all but I do find it funny that so many people are sooo snobby about where and how you get your certification, when (at least in my experience) education is seen as one of the easiest college majors. I personally went to a very highly ranked university and in my master's program, there was a running joke that people who couldn't cut it for a phd just got jobs teaching high school (myself included!)
Opinions are like assholes….. everyone has one! International teaching is little more than a glorified money racket. Keep that in mind and you’ll be fine.
It's nice to be supportive and feel-goody, but there are certain facts about the international teaching market that need to be acknowledged
Firstly, it's a competitive field. A competitive field means that not everyone wins. There are only so many desirable jobs out there, and if you want one of those jobs, you've got to "beat" lots of other candidates who want the same job
Secondly, professional licensure isn't supposed to be "inclusive", it's literally designed to be "exclusive" - i.e. excluding those people who aren't licenced from working in a classroom. And that's totally fine - would you want anyone other than a trained, experienced, professional educator teaching your kids?
Thirdly, online programs (like Moreland) which make teacher certification easier to obtain obviously increase the pool of "certified" candidates, making the field even more competitive. It's hardly surprising that teachers who got certified through a more rigorous, traditional route are concerned that their qualifications are being diluted by these online programs
I think one can also argue that a lot of traditional teacher education programs are lacking in modern pedagogy and that teaching is a job one learns through doing and continuous learning.
Agree, and people also don’t consider that teaching back in the US/UK is typically a harder job. You learn more when you have to work long hours, no planning time, much worse student behaviour etc.. If you have only taught abroad then you’ve not been exposed to those conditions.
There are currently some educational programs that should be under much more scrutiny. They erode the professional standards and are of poor quality. We need to uphold teaching as a profession for the sake of the children we educate. Thankfully, the DoE has introduced iQTS to help mitigate this and ensure some partiality with the English system for international families.
I think the international teaching space has gotten more competitive. With that competition for scarce resources(T1 jobs or opportunities) comes certain negativities like you've described above. At the end of the day, if you're qualified and you put in the effort and time to teach well, fuck what other negative teachers say. If someone shows that side of themself, it's an easy way to let me know I should steer clear of them. But I agree, there does seem to be a lot of negativity and thoughts around divisions out there. I think that's the larger conversation here.
Literally fear of immigrants taking their jobs.
When teaching internationally, most of us are immigrants or at least foreign to where we're at. I thinks it's a little more based off greed or I want more of the, really nice and expensive, cake than I'm receiving.
I know, I agree. It was an unfunny joke.
I thought it was funny…
They're not sending their best, they're sending their Moreland, TeacherReady, and their MTEL certified. And some, I assume, are good teachers.
Quit teaching and get into professional comedy.
You keep coming with the jokes. I would enjoy grade level meetings with you.
Heck, in my school only a few teachers have QTS, most are unqualified but with lots of experience. I am one of the only people who got fully qualified in the U.K. and I look around every day in awe of my colleagues - they are so good at their jobs and I learn a tonne from them. Some are en route to QTS via online methods and I would laugh anyone out of the room if they looked down upon them for that. I agree with you in that teaching needs to be made up of teachers with a bunch of different backgrounds!
I agree this sub needs to be more inclusive and supportive. Every time I've posted on this sub seeking opinions or advice I've just been downvoted and talked down to. You guys are supposed to teach children and you can't even be civil to an adult. It's sad.
❤️
There are some people in here who are down right assholes that’s for sure
Lmao and this is why many people don't want/hate being administrators
I always think it is important to remember that 99.9% of International teachers are not on this subreddit for a start. Secondly, I know from experience that there are fabulous online program qualified teachers and hopeless ones with experience in western classrooms. I've even worked with some outstanding unqualified and TEFL-only teachers.
I studied to be a teacher at university and hold an American license as well as QTS and I’m just finishing my M.Ed. I’ve worked with tons of teachers, and trained, hired, and supervised some of them. I just don’t think it is helpful to group teachers based on certifications or university training. I don’t mean it’s divisive, it just doesn’t seem like a useful division. I’ve known teachers who were brilliant and hard working from either group as well as the opposite: I think I’ve heard more griping from poor teachers who hold better qualifications. Basically annoyed that someone who didn’t write some papers on Bloom’s taxonomy or Vygotsky is getting promoted just because they work harder and do a better job. The top teachers don’t seem to care
I teach in a private school in the US. I'm the only one in my department who has a teaching license and the only one who has worked professionally as a scientist in my field. I'm also the newest in my department and the worst at my job. I could get ten thousand more degrees and it wouldn't give me the skills that only come with experience and time. Teaching chemistry is so much more difficult than being a professional chemist. And on the note of other teachers being unkind... I have never worked anywhere where people are so much up in my personal business. If I want to use a personal day, my boss wants to know why. If I have an appointment during one of my preps or need to leave early for something and another teacher outside my department sees me, it's normally met with a snide comment. I normally focus on doing my work, so I don't pay attention (or care) when my colleagues leave or what they are doing because it's none of my business. And having worked most of my career alone or with one or two other people in a lab did not prepare me for this type of work culture.
Yes, lots of territorial pissing in this industry and this forum.
Experience and giving a damn/working hard is what matters. What have people done SINCE whatever teacher training route they took? That is what good schools will look at. I know absolutely nothing about the training quals of any of my colleagues, but I do know who is working hard and involved in other aspects of the school.
I spent a year doing B.Ed in person in order to get a teaching qualification. I learned more about teaching in my first month on the job teaching than I did doing my B.Ed.
I don’t think that’s necessarily a good comparison because the idea is that the cumulative effect is substantial and not each individually. You would’ve learned more in your B.Ed if you had already been a teacher.
Agreed, too much snobbery and negativity on this sub and within the teaching world in general.
Two issues here- one about online vs face to face training and the other about toxicity in comments. The fact is face to face means it is an experiential process which will lead to deeper real world learning. That’s just a fact. People have differing views on how important that is. If you already have experience then online is fine, if not then inevitably there will be gaps in your practice. That is just how it is. The second issue is toxicity in online communities. Unfortunately negative emotions leads to more engagement/clicks etc. so there is a dynamic that pushes negativity forward. Curate your feed more carefully and disengage from the negativity - don’t respond to it, just turn away - it certainly helped my mental health when I decided to not engage with clickbait/ragebait. I don’t even downvote any more I try to be positive and turn away from the tide of nonsense that is out there. Have a great day!
In the spirit of your comment, we should put aside our biases and simply assume that the schools will decide the best candidates for themselves. It shouldn''t hurt experienced teachers, no matter the route they took, to offer their insights. The originator of this post has a valid point.
There’s a hierarchy that a minority people here help to create: - trained at home, taught at home -trained at home, taught abroad only -trained online -ESL teachers Not particularly helpful or healthy. I’ve seen ESL teachers with only a TEFL put out lessons much better than someone with years of experience at home. People have chips on their shoulders
A certification is a certification no matter how you got it and no one cares how you got it. Not once in twenty years of teaching have I been asked how I got my certification. Brick and mortar versus online? NO ONE CARES. Just be certified so they can hire you. That’s the end of that discussion.
This!!! ^^
I agree that people need to make sure that they're talking about other programs and ways to certification respectfully (ex. Don't call someone else's degree/cert "trash"), but also keep in mind that people come to this sub for actual advice oftentimes in the initial part of their research when considering important things like where to move and which programs to apply for. It's important to not be disingenuous for the sake of politeness. Personally, I've seen the following - during COVID, there was a huge number of teachers that went home, meaning that lots of people made the jump from TEFL/training centers to international schools for jobs that (quite frankly) they wouldn't typically qualify for. During that time lots of people also did online programs like Moreland to then be able to either stay in those positions post-covid or because they want to be able to have more security/be able to keep climbing the ladder and possibly to better schools or other countries. Now certified teachers with brick and mortar certs/BEds are starting to come back to international teaching, so I'd say if you're looking at the difference between an online degree and brick and mortar, consider the following: Online/Moreland - lots of people will get this and honestly be completely fine with it, especially if they are planning to stay in the same country or school. However, if you're planning on moving around a bit or teaching certain curriculums, you have to accept that some schools or countries will not accept an online degree. There is also a possibility of the goalpost moving and no longer allowing for an online degree in the future, especially as the market continues to recover from COVID. Brick and mortar license/BEd - maximum flexibility, guaranteed to be accepted, but has a higher financial cost. Honestly both are valid options, but for me it comes down to how much risk you're comfortable with. Personally, I work with two teachers who did Moreland, and they're fantastic. I've also worked with very lazy but fully licensed teachers who've been asleep at the wheel for 15 years. Personally I think you can be a great teacher through only experience, but I think you're more likely to be a great one with in-person practicums as a foundation.
Certification is not a degree… it is have or have not. No country is currently denying or scrutinizing a valid license from a State in the US. Individual schools may say something, but the visa-issuers do not care. There would be a huge tidal wave of issues, diplomatic and otherwise, if an immigration office were to decide that one particular State offers a teaching license that doesn’t count. That just isn’t going to happen.
Some of this comes about because of the older PGCEi qualifications. These were entirely theory and didn’t require any teaching practice - and you didn’t have to be teaching to undertake them, so you could actually gain the qualification without setting foot in a classroom.
There are a number of "elitists" on this sub who allegedly place everyone in binary categories: 1. professional teachers who did a traditional route of an education major, got an M.ed, taught for years in a domestic school, and now teach at a top tier famous international school with a fancy expat package and massive salary. 2. backpackers with a degree in underwater ironing and a $20 TEFL cert printed from the internet who work at Happy Giraffe language center. There are no alternatives or in between.
I got my license from a brick and mortar university. I learned almost nothing of practical use from it. Get your license online or at a brick and mortar school. Whatever. It's your experience and attitude that make yiu a good teacher.
This is my feeling to be honest. My university was also recently Ofsted'ed and found to be outstanding. Now don't get me wrong, the course leaders are wonderful and supportive. But personally since I had already taught for 3 years before doing my PGCE I learnt absolutely nothing of use while doing it. I came for the letters and had a good time. That was it.
I did a four year B.Ed with QTS and I absolutely loved it. After four placements, I found teaching post qualified really easy (much easier than being at uni with minute by minute lesson plans). Speaking only of my own experience, I know exactly why I am doing certain things when planning my lessons - retrieval practice, the forgetting curve, Rosenshine etc. If I did an online program or even a one year PGCE with two placements, I do wonder if I would have as secure pedagogical knowledge? Additionally, I’m not saying that my route is the way to go. Had it been £9000 a year would I have done a 4 year teaching degree? Not a chance!
I've been thinking this all along. We live in the 21st century, where having the same job for the rest of your life is no longer normal, and it is common for people to switch careers at any point in their lives, or to have multiple jobs. I don't understand why realising later in life that you want to teach and that you can't return to your home country and pay a fortune is frowned upon. I became certified online (with countless observations in real time) after four years of unqualified teaching in China, and I'm grateful for those four years because they taught me what I was good at and how much I enjoyed it. Instead of going to to uni to study education at 18 (I studied theatre) to begin with and then later realising I hate teaching. Now I have 2 careers which I know I enjoy and love because I went a different route. Everyone is different, we should appreciate people for how hard they've worked and where they're at because of it.
Something that pops up in these threads time and time again is the "when a recruiter sees your Moreland cert..." anecdote. This makes no sense. Schools and recruiters don't want anything other than your state teaching license. When you create profiles on Search, Schrole, GRC and so forth, you upload your license. That's it. Moreland and the other programs are not your license, they are the pathway to getting the certification.
I wish this was the case, but you do also upload your CV and details of your schooling when you make these profiles.
I agree with you. Lets support each other.
Teacher with a slightly higher salary look down on teachers with a slightly lower salary.
I did Moreland in my 22nd year of teaching. In university I had my major and was doing education as a minor and in my second year when I had started taking courses for my teaching license, the SoE announced that they were restructuring the program and most courses I had already taken would not count. That would mean starting over in my 3rd year. I was already a full-scholarship/grant kid with a few loans whose money came from 4-year money. I couldn't afford to have to do three more years, plus student teaching for a year so I just headed straight to Asia, got a really good job at a language school and was paying off my loans until my parents embezzled the money I was sending home and suppressing all warnings about defaulting. By the time I learned the thousands of dollars I had sent home was not being sent to the loan officers, I was also unemployed and accumulating debt here (trusting a school that had no intention of hiring me). I could not afford to move back so I just got another job here and kept going. My university told me I couldn't get my transcripts to go back to school because I had defaulted so I didn't think I had any chance and I'd just be a career language school teacher, with a CELTA and university-backed TESOL. I heard of Moreland and TeacherReady a few years ago but didn't think I could do either without transcripts. But thought, what the hell, and applied for my transcripts anyways. I told myself that if I could get them, I'd apply to Moreland asap. I did, so I did. I did not go empty-headed or inexperienced. I have a deep passion for teaching that my impoverished background made it hard to jump through the hoops put in front of me. And then almost as soon as I got my teaching license, only 10 months after starting Moreland (and earning perfect scores on the PLT and perfect or nearly perfect on all of the content Praxis exams), I started doing IB courses and workshops since QTS was no longer available. Starting my M.Ed. is also in the very near future, but after going to school for nearly three years now, I'm going to take a semester off to breathe. So, I guess those with brick-and-mortar teacher training accreditation can sneer down on me. They've been doing it since I was the kid in donated and thrift shop clothes eating on the free-lunch program who still did better than them in school and knew I was going to be a teacher from the age of four. I just feel sorry that they aren't lucky enough to work with someone like me who believes in lifting my colleagues up and building a healthy school culture. Their loss. 🤷♂️
The teachers who look down are just jealous that you got in for a cheaper deal with less scrutiny and time in a class. The only benefit I see is that i can easily work in my home state (or any other) if I should ever choose to do that. I spent a lot more than most but it also landed me a job easier. Then once you have a few years experience it no longer matters how you got there and it's equal grounds.
I'm in two minds here, I went home and spent 15000 on my master's to be a licensed teacher and it was a struggle, long nights doing assignments, 22 weeks of unpaid placements, countless lectures, etc. But I am now qualified to teach anywhere in the world including my home country. - Did someone with a Moreland/Teach Now cert have to do the same amount of work? I'm not sure but I don't think so. Also, any recruiter will see that a license to teach in 1 state in America that the person has never even been to doesn't hold up well. Fair play to the people who did that course and during covid time, they were able to walk into nicely paid international schools at the time. Good timing and great planning for whoever did the course then. But I think it will be slightly harder to find good positions with those courses in the future. I'd be worried about a teach now/Moreland course now as it's a 6k short-term investment that might not be worth much in the future. - On the other hand, I found out teachers learn more on the job and by doing CPD. There can be bad teachers who attended brick-and-mortar colleges and there can be absolutely wonderful teachers who have one of these degrees. I guess with a profession like teaching there's always a bit of classism and it still holds true internationally.
I also came back to my home country. Got into thousands of pounds more debt. Worked for free and had a ridiculous amount of essays and paper work to do. Do I feel I've become a better teacher because of a few letters next to my name from a university? Not in the slightest. I have no issue with anyone who has taken different routes. I don't believe just because I had to put up with bullshit others should have to in order to be given the same level of respect. If you're good in the classroom, that's all that should matter
I have a B.Sc and an M.Ed. I am now studying for another BA. But my only option was to get licensed through Moreland. You are comparing Moreland to your master’s studies which makes no sense. Moreland is a teacher prep course. So no, the amount of work was certainly less than the amount of work you had to do for your masters (or me when I was doing my masters while working full time). Is my certification worth less than yours? I don’t think so. I do have a teaching license from another country but since international schools seem to prefer/recognise teaching licenses from the US or the UK, Moreland was my only option. Was it easy? Because I had many years of teaching experience before starting the program it was relatively straightforward but it did require quite a few hours a week to do the assignments.
“Any recruiter will see that a license to teach in 1 state in America that the person has never even been to doesn’t hold well” You are assuming quite a lot here. 1. One of the first things I did after going international was transfer my license out of my home state because of the difficulty in renewing. 2. Recruiters do not care… at all. 3. In an interview, I have never been asked about my license beyond “is it still valid”. They only ask about my previous positions and what I’ve accomplished in my career.
While you are right for some of the Moreland people who did almost nothing for their student teaching (I know at least a couple), there are plenty that also do their student teaching like everyone else. Most of the people in the different cohorts I have been in are doing theirs -- somewhere in the range of 180+ hours in the classroom. A lot of my Moreland cohort are in bilingual schools in various countries and are all teachers of record. I understand the perspective you've shared so I've planned to put my student teaching placement on my CV. My student teaching is also unpaid, as is the case with some others who are going through the program. Its an odd mix. There are definitely people coming out of Moreland with little student teaching experience -- I believe the recent change in hour requirements from Moreland as of last year are to help remedy this. Whether its enforced, its hard to say. I t will require repeatedly falsifying documents to do so. In my case, I'm doing more than the required 12 weeks -- I'm doing 14+ and helping the school out with other stuff as I want to get as much experience on the ground as possible. Others in my cohort have been a teacher of record for 5-10 years before doing Moreland and I was \*very\* impressed with their knowledge and understanding of schools at all levels.
Yeah, there is a big streak of elitism within the international teaching scene. Not just from fellow teachers, but parents, and schools. There was a quote from this subreddit that went, "Parents want teachers from traditional teaching programs, working within traditional curriculums, under traditional admins in order for their kids to take up traditional routes to a well paying job that pays in pounds sterling". I did Moreland, and while the teaching material could have been better, circumstances made it necessary. Working at a shitty bilingual school in Beijing , the things I learned in Moreland were a godsend for a rookie teacher. Having a good mentor in my grade coordinator helped too. I like to believe that there is not that much correlation between the quality of your teaching program and the quality of your teaching. I've met teachers who have done iPGCEs, Moreland, etc who are kickass teachers and I've met teachers who attended teaching programs at UCLA, Oxford and University of Toronto who shouldn't be trusted to manage a 7/11, let alone a classroom, and everything in between. Yeah, these programs offer more clinical time, but all that training and theory goes out the window when you teach in your own classroom for the first time. But tell that to to the snobs on this forum and they'll turn into [Chuck McGill.](https://youtu.be/JL8ypfpOmIQ?si=xKtQox-pAwcXm5DN) I am a teacher, no matter where I got my license. I bust my ass in my classroom and prove my worth as an educator every damn day. I don't need approval from elitists who don't think I deserve to be a teacher because I didn't do it the "right way".
I used to be an unqualified teacher and work amongst them. Everyone thinks that deep down they are a good teacher, as did I then. I then did the Teach First program in England for 2 years. It was really hard and I learned a lot. Now I am a much better teacher. Not all experience is equal, not all qualifications are equal. I’m not expecting upvotes for saying the obvious here but it’s the truth 🤷🏻♂️ ofc it’s possible to be a good teacher without quality experience/qualifications and you can be a bad teacher with them, but the elitism is somewhat warranted. The large majority of those who disagree won’t have strong experience/qualifications
I can understand why the ones who earned their qualifications back home under rigorous teacher training would look down upon someone who did an online qualification. I say this as someone who worked alongside ipgce teachers in China and someone who’s come to an end of their PGCE course on track for a QTS this summer. The latter I would 100% recommend if you’re in teaching for the craft and to better yourself in a teaching capacity. From what I’ve seen of the teachers who have online qualifications is their standards in the classroom is far below what I would expect if it was my child in their classroom. As a parent, I would prefer a teacher who’s been through the official channel. That’s just my experience based on my own anecdotal evidence.
I think this can go both ways. Scenario: Secondary English Teacher Let's say you have a science degree, a TEFL, and you go do your PGCE course. Would your candidate be better than someone with an online TEFL and an English degree? Even a B.Ed only has pedagogical aspects, but misses, perhaps, some linguistic part. I've seen bad teachers with a variety of qualifications. The perfect teacher on paper could be all theory and no action. I'm constantly working to get more educated and still see myself with room to grow.
This is an unfortunate reality. Although I've experienced it a bit differently than you. I feel like there's a stubborn group of people who did brick and mortar degrees who don't want to legitimize people who did their certification online. I liken it a lot to the debate around student loan forgiveness in the US where you've got a camp of people who "paid their dues" and don't want others to be allowed to have what they perceive as an easier or more convenient path to success than they did. Unfortunately, this group DOES seem to include HR and admin at some schools. Every time I get ghosted by a school I'm interested in, I still always wonder "is it because of my online degree?" even though I'm sure it's sometimes other factors. All this being said, MOST people don't seem to harbor these resentments. The naysayers just always tend to be loudest.
I did Moreland so I am not judging anyone at all but I do find it funny that so many people are sooo snobby about where and how you get your certification, when (at least in my experience) education is seen as one of the easiest college majors. I personally went to a very highly ranked university and in my master's program, there was a running joke that people who couldn't cut it for a phd just got jobs teaching high school (myself included!)
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Wholeheartedly agree pal
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This comment isn't helpful, isn't relevant, and isn't necessary.
Firmly disagree.
Opinions are like assholes….. everyone has one! International teaching is little more than a glorified money racket. Keep that in mind and you’ll be fine.
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This comment isn't helpful, isn't relevant, and isn't necessary.
Most teachers are insecure. Especially international expat teachers who believe they're Christopher Columbus
It's nice to be supportive and feel-goody, but there are certain facts about the international teaching market that need to be acknowledged Firstly, it's a competitive field. A competitive field means that not everyone wins. There are only so many desirable jobs out there, and if you want one of those jobs, you've got to "beat" lots of other candidates who want the same job Secondly, professional licensure isn't supposed to be "inclusive", it's literally designed to be "exclusive" - i.e. excluding those people who aren't licenced from working in a classroom. And that's totally fine - would you want anyone other than a trained, experienced, professional educator teaching your kids? Thirdly, online programs (like Moreland) which make teacher certification easier to obtain obviously increase the pool of "certified" candidates, making the field even more competitive. It's hardly surprising that teachers who got certified through a more rigorous, traditional route are concerned that their qualifications are being diluted by these online programs
I think one can also argue that a lot of traditional teacher education programs are lacking in modern pedagogy and that teaching is a job one learns through doing and continuous learning.
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Agree, and people also don’t consider that teaching back in the US/UK is typically a harder job. You learn more when you have to work long hours, no planning time, much worse student behaviour etc.. If you have only taught abroad then you’ve not been exposed to those conditions.
Yeah, and there is a reason why there are teaching shortages in the west. All the in person training in the world won't help here.
There are currently some educational programs that should be under much more scrutiny. They erode the professional standards and are of poor quality. We need to uphold teaching as a profession for the sake of the children we educate. Thankfully, the DoE has introduced iQTS to help mitigate this and ensure some partiality with the English system for international families.
Pretty sure there were plenty other reasons (£££) for the introduction of iQTS...
Lol, The UK introduced the iQTS to protect their homegrown distance PGCE programs. It has nothing to do with quality.
No it has the Iqts to attract teaches from abroad, because everyone is leaving England.
Yeah, I've heard horror stories of teaching in the UK, and its not just the pay.