Volunteer Teaching Overseas

The adult population is made up of two types of people: those who teach and those who wish they were teaching. Yes, inside each of us is a natural-born teacher lacking only a classroom and a room full of eager students.

Okay, that may be a slightly romanticized view of teaching, but if you''re heading overseas on your next vacation, you might consider one of the many volunteer organizations that pair up would-be teachers with just the right audience of learners.

Many countries are in desperate need of teachers because they need help with building a future. They can''t afford to send their kids to overseas schools and universities, so they rely on volunteer organizations to bring teachers to them.

Volunteer Organizations for Teachers

Most teachers choose a career in education because they like kids or they''ve got a passion in a particular subject and want to spend their lives helping children develop their own passions.

But even the most dedicated teacher needs a break, and the thought of spending vacation time locked in a classroom is akin to asking a house painter to spend his two-week vacation helping you paint your house!

Perhaps you need a different scenario. If you''re a teacher, think of what your daily life would be like without an overhead projector, a computerized grade book and a class set of textbooks. Could you spend nine months in a tropical climate, explaining monsoons, the water cycle and the anatomy of a banyan tree to a roomful of street kids with no homes?

Opportunities for Aspiring Teachers

You don''t have to be a professional teacher to help teach overseas. You just need the desire to impart knowledge to others, a decent education and a link to a volunteer organization that will set up the trip, help you learn what you''ll need and let you know what your trip will cost.

Teaching Overseas: The Many Faces of Education

Here are some examples of the programs waiting for volunteers willing to consider teaching overseas:

• Maureen is teaching orphaned children in India. She knows that schooling is their only path out of a lifetime of starvation and begging on the streets.
• Noel spends his days in Sri Lanka teaching teenagers how to play. The kids are from impoverished environments, and they''ve never seen a soccer ball, played rock-paper-scissors or tossed a Frisbee.
• Brianna is an accomplished dancer. She''s helping Croatian children express their fear of guns and bombs and relieve their stress by moving and stretching to calming music.
• Felix doesn''t speak fluent Spanish, but he''s teaching English to kids in El Salvador while they teach him Spanish words he can use when he goes shopping.
• Amanda took a year off from her work as a fashion designer to teach art to adults in Peru. In just a few months, her students have developed a co-op that sells their art, jewelry, candleholders and other crafts to a wholesaler in America.
• Blair grew up on a farm with lots of modern technology. This summer, he''s going back to basics as he helps villagers in Chile to install refrigeration and learn to sanitize milking machines.
• Porter and Deana spent six weeks learning about the politics and sociology of Southeast Asia so they could design a women''s studies program that would help Southeast Asian widows manage their finances, fund the education of their children and lead independent lives.