You believe life is supposed to be used for something good—that we have a responsibility to impact others for the better. You know it takes time—sometimes a long time—to help in ways that stick, and you know that there are people far away from our North American home with much greater needs than most of us have here. Maybe you're even talking with your family about moving overseas to help, but balancing your community here with living semi-permanently in another country is an intimidating thought. Maybe you've seen others in cross-cultural or service-oriented work burn out and want to avoid that scenario.
These are good motivations and also valid concerns. The lives impacted through English education in our host countries are well worth the challenge of overcoming these obstacles, and one significant way we approach this is by encouraging regular home assignments.
Approximately every four years, teachers are encouraged to take a six-month or year-long home assignment back in their passport country to rest, reconnect, and prepare for another season overseas. This time away is essential to helping teachers stay in their host countries sustainably in the long run.
Let's look at what makes home assignments so important:
Natural Rhythms of Rest
Recommending a regular home assignment is rooted in an honest look at the world around us and our experience in it. The natural world runs in cycles of work and rest. Plants rest in the winter, and—without human engineering—farmland needs to rest every few years to replenish the nutrients in the soil. In the end, the harvest is better because of the break. Our bodies are designed to rest daily, and we struggle to keep up without at least one day off in seven. Our teachers serve their students and communities with everything they've got, and the long-term impact of their effort is greater when they learn from the reality of how the world is built rather than trying to produce, produce, produce beyond what we are intended for.
Risk of Burnout
Any job can be exhausting, but cross-cultural teachers can carry a lot of extra weight from day-to-day life. Teachers often need to function in a second language, which takes a huge amount of brain power. This is one reason why ELIC teachers dedicate much of their first few years overseas to language study. Being able to communicate in the heart language of friends and the local community is a rewarding and powerful skill!
As Teachers navigate their local culture, they often find that it runs on different principles from what they are used to. Many of our host cultures use less predictable schedules and have very different social expectations than Western cultures. Pre-field training and ongoing study with teammates give teachers a solid framework to understand the culture, easing the toll of daily tasks and interactions.
Living far from the community in a teacher's passport country can feel isolating, which is why teams are such an important part of how ELIC sends people out. Living with others who speak their native language and naturally default to some similar cultural norms can help combat feelings of isolation. Teachers are also equipped with communication tools to help them stay connected with friends and family far away.
With this constant effort underlying everyday life overseas, periodically returning to their passport country equips teachers to tackle the next four years with energy, enjoying the beauty of their host culture and the diverse community they are building there.
Family Matters
As teachers live far from their families, they remain invested in the lives of their loved ones! On home assignments, they meet new nieces and nephews, celebrate birthdays and holidays, and catch up on all the moments from when they were overseas. Home assignments are also sometimes used as an opportunity to help with transitions like supporting aging parents or establishing a new marriage, with a required home assignment so that newlywed teachers can get their start without the added stressors of overseas life. Whatever the specific reason, time with family allows them to refuel with the love and support of their sending community.
When teachers return to their host countries after a home assignment, they rejoin their teams with new energy on top of all the language and culture skills they already gained before they left. They can pick up where they left off with local friends and colleagues, continuing to build cross-cultural communities that can span decades. If they spend some of their home assignment on professional development courses, those new skills improve their teaching and benefit their students.
The fruit that comes from a healthy rhythm of rest is better, more abundant, and longer-lasting than anything that can come from sprinting straight to burnout.
Find out more about the services ELIC provides for teachers and how you can join us overseas!
