All Levels
Teaching Art
Abroad

Melissa Enderle

Teaching art and living overseas has provided me with new opportunities. As a teacher in international schools, I am able to work with a diverse student and faculty population. I have also experienced foreign countries and their inhabitants in an in-depth and personal manner. What started as a two-year leave from an art position in a public school has evolved into a career path on which I can see myself for years to come.

a Latin-American art theme. Photos and artifacts collected on the trip provided stimulus and inspiration for lesson planning, discussions, and subsequent artwork.

Melissa Enderle. Carrying Saw and Ax. Just one of the many diverse pieces of art produced by the author and artist while traveling overseas.

Art-Related Travel

The first voyage I made came after graduating college. It was to Barcelona, Spain, where I meandered through the narrow alleys and experienced firsthand the local architecture and art I had only seen in textbooks. A trip to France two years later allowed me to continue making personal connections to the things I had learned about in art history.

Living and
Teaching Overseas
The following January,
a colleague told me
about a session she had attended at
the state art education convention.
Presented by a representative from
the University of Northern Iowa
(UNI), the session provided infor-
mation on overseas teaching and
recruiting fairs. The idea piqued my
interest in teaching and living in
countries around the world. These
private international schools were
looking for native English-speakers
in all areas of certification. Travel-
ing (or living) overseas and several
years of teaching experience were
highly valued.

information about the school. Many schools provided housing, shipment of belongings, and travel for its overseas hires.

I arrived at the recruitment fair thinking that this would be good practice for the following year, when I would have had time to prepare, do necessary research, and start contacts with schools earlier. I didn’t quite expect the fast-paced, quick decisions that would need to be made over the next few days.

In 1999, I journeyed to Oaxaca, Mexico on a CRIZMAC Art and Cultural Materials sponsored trip. During this trip, we were given the opportunity to enter the homes of local folk artists and watch them use simple tools and techniques to create highly original art.

Interviewing

Recruitment Fair

After a phone call to the director of the recruiting fair, which would

take place
What started as a two-year leave the follow-
from a public school art position ^ing ^month,I decided to
has now evolved into a career _register. _Pre-path on which I can see myself fair processes
for years to come. ^includedregistration,
submission of an updated CV and
cover letter, obtaining references,
and researching about and contact-
ing specific schools.

The resulting artwork reflected the artists’ pride in their heritage and ancestral history. They used similar techniques as their ancestors, subject matter symbolism, and the warm colors that dominated the region. In the following school year, my lessons and activities followed

Some schools had already expressed their interest by requesting an interview prior to the general sign-up session. Several of these had already contacted my school principal for a verbal reference. Once the doors of the large convention hall opened, I found the schools I was interested in and signed up for interviews. An interview typically lasted about a half an hour, with interested schools requesting a second or third interview, pushing the daily number of interviews to around ten.