An SOS appeal for teachers

In 1995, we moved to northwest China and partnered with the provincial government to do a lot of good for a lot of people in need. Not long after, the authorities approached us about starting an international school. It wasn’t on my bucket list, and I resisted the idea for a while. But it came from a shared goal to increase the number of foreign experts in this region long neglected and needing an infusion of outside help.

In deciding to move forward with the school idea, we faced a lot of hurdles. The school could only be run by foreigners and for foreigners, but not by governments – foreign or local – or political entities. It couldn’t be a religious school, though we were allowed to infuse it with our values. There were other restrictions as well. Oh, and there was no money to run the school, either from the host government or from our own NGO (nonprofit).

My sister, Esther, became the first principal and teacher. Government officials and team members alike pitched in to set up the classroom (just one). The school opened in March 1997 with 11 students, including our two sons, incorporating makeshift curricula (note, plural) that students brought from their home countries.

Eventually the school morphed into multiple classrooms. My wife and I continued to move the school forward after Esther left. Together we supported the staff, collected supplies, and developed and ordered the curriculum, with textbooks arriving from afar in all sorts of ways.

Friends pitched in from all over. The school’s library was gathered and hand-carried in by Pat King, an American teacher who lived a thousand miles away and who recruited her friends in Texas to help collect books.

The school seemed forever on shaky ground, meaning that it might not make it from year to year or might have to move at a given notice. When SARS hit, it moved overnight. Even as the government was shutting everything else down due to the pandemic, they asked us not to close, saying it was crucial for us to keep going.

So, we did, shifting a school full of students and teachers into a house we’d rented earlier, not having known why we’d rented it in the first place. But there it was waiting empty for our hour of crisis, ready to shoehorn in students and teachers.

We learned to pivot at every opportunity. A growing enrollment meant forever scrambling for additional space, furniture, and educational resources. And certainly, for teachers.

We recruited teachers and staff every means we could. Sometimes they came as if out of the blue. Once, I went to the airport with officials from a local university to pick up a foreigner coming to serve at their school, and there was this guy thinking I was there to pick him up.

He said he’d come to teach at our international school. Well, I had corresponded with him about coming to teach, but nothing had been finalized, certainly not his visa. Even so, there he was.

“How on earth did you get here,” I asked.

“I flew,” he said.

The officials from the other school were kind, but their vehicle was packed. I don’t remember how we got Michael back to our campus. We must have, because he stayed and became a great teacher for our students.

You can’t get there so haphazardly anymore. Times and laws have changed. The school is still K-12 but has increased two-and-a-half times since we left back in ’07.  Some 160 students now (I still can’t believe it!) – and from numerous countries. Somehow it has survived COVID, just as it had SARS a couple decades before. And it’s weathered a host of other challenges along the way.

While the school has gone through many changes since Kim and I left 17 years ago, its core mission remains intact. And it has great leadership – Paul & Stephanie, friends we recruited way back when. In fact, Stephanie was one of those teachers who’d helped us pivot during SARS as we crammed into that makeshift campus of a house.

Although we are no longer officially connected with the school, we have continued to “lift up” the school and its leadership, a phrase I have used since my earliest days there. To “lift up” means to support, to bring to others’ attention. Particularly to the One most capable of making things move forward.

And so, I am now sending out an SOS on behalf of the school to my network of contacts.

The school faces a critical shortage of teachers for the 2025-26 school year. They have a great team, but after weathering COVID and its aftermath, several teachers are sorely in need of a break. It has been a long season. Paul and Stephanie, who stayed with the school all through COVID are getting their first break in 8 years – but only to secure funds and recruit teachers.

To fill the gap for the coming school year, they need 8-10 new teachers, all who must be in the pipeline by the end of 2024 – none of that just showing-up-at-the-airport stuff! They need to be working-age adults who love students, have solid educational training and degrees, are fluent in English, willing to commit at least a couple of years, share the school’s values, and support its vision and mission.

There are challenges to living and working there, just like there would be anywhere you go. From what I can tell, living conditions have improved from our time. But this ain’t home, Baby! There are other challenges as well, challenges I’ll be glad to clarify with responsible parties who reach out to me.

I can vouch for the school and its leadership. Great people and a great place to serve. All four of my own kids attended the school. Robert, who was in that initial class, graduated from high school there. His brother, Stephen, also there at the beginning, was the first kindergartener, staying until his sophomore year. Hope attended through grade 8.

And Hannah, who made it through grade 6 as a student, is in her 4^th year back at the school teaching pre-K. She teaches down the hall from her former 6^th grade teacher!

Hundreds of students, teachers, and staff have come and gone. I still know local staff who work in the office and on the maintenance team. I’d no longer recognize the campus itself – that part of town didn’t exist back then. But I know the city and its amazing people and history, a crossroads of cultures at the end of the Silk Road.

Regardless of whether you are interested in or even able to go teach, you can help.

1. Lift up this school and its need for teachers. No qualifications needed to take on this lifting-up task except a willingness to believe with me that the need will be met. I’m trusting for 12 qualified applicants that can fit the most needed areas of teaching with the appropriate skills and training.

2. Spread the word through your own networks. Sometimes, when you spread a net, you get mackerel when you wanted halibut. But we’ll sort the catch later. Just help me pass the word.

3. Consider going yourself and teaching. Not sure if you have the appropriate qualifications? Check with me. But, as I said, if you are going to get there by August, you need to enter the pipeline now – I need to hear from you by the end of next month. So you must act fast. Maybe this idea hits you, like seeing Michael at the airport did me. But in my years of recruiting people for places in need, I’ve been amazed at how those ideas that hit me out of nowhere can be the start of wonderful stories!

4. Help me get others there. Maybe you can’t go yourself, but you have the means to help others get there. Let me know and we’ll connect your resources with the school and teachers needing to be there.

At this initial stage, let’s start the conversation through me. All this is a voluntary effort on my part. But I’m glad to serve as a conduit to get things moving. You can reach out to me on my website’s contact page here. And remember, I need to hear from you no later than November 30!