Job Discussion Forums

[Ben Round de Bloc]

After the long threads about dating students, I'm curious about your opinions regarding spouses working at the same school as well as teachers dating their co-workers.

When I taught in public schools in the U.S., some school districts had policies against spouses working in the same building, while other districts didn't. Where I currently teach, the university has no policies against employing spouses or against teachers dating teachers.

Do any of you work for language schools or institutions where such policies exist? Do you have any thoughts or opinions to share on the topic?

[veiledsentiments]

Hi Ben,

While teaching in the Middle East, I encountered many teaching couples. It seems economically sensible when there are foreign hire contracts providing benefits. Thus the institution only has to provide one house and such. I have never run into any real problems with it, but I suspect that couples who had taught in the situation may be more able to discuss any personal problems. One thing was that many of them seemed to think this was a great (cheap) time to have another baby - which dumped the extra teaching on the rest of us while the new Mommy got to take a couple of months off with full pay.

I often heard that they had policies against it, but there were always couples there teaching. But then, that is the Middle East...

[Roger]

The downside might be that both could lose their jobs simultaneously if one of them fell foul of the system!

Some administrations here are quite abrasive!

[arioch36]

Of course, the school does save on housing. At a local college a couple was fight so much that the college had to find another room for the husband. How complicated is it to become separated while in China?

[Celeste]

My husband and I taught at the same place for many years. My first EFL position was on the EPIK programme (Korea) and the superintendant was unaware that we were a married couple until we were going to be taken to our new apartments. (My husband mentioned, that we were married and would only be needing one apartment). They had to scramble. They were going to place my husband with a roommate and me in a homestay. When we told them that we were married, they had us spend the first 3 weeks in a hotel, and then we moved into our apartment. I taught at a girls' high school, and my husband taught at the middle school on the same campus. All of our Korean co-workers always told us that no Korean couple would be allowed to work for the same school, and that we were very lucky. We stayed there for 2 years. In that time we knew 2 other married couples from Canada and the US who split up. They hadn't been teaching at the same schools, but living abroad put too much strain on their relationships.

When we returned to Canada, my husband took a teaching job at an ESL school right away, and I dabbled in theatre and film and office work for a bit. Then one day, my husband's school needed a substitute teacher right away, and he told them that I was not busy and might consider it. We ended up teaching together at that school for over 3 years.

Now we are in Japan, working on the JET programme. JET cleverly arranged it so that I am working for the F u k u o k a Education Centre, and my husband is working for the Junior high school section of the school board. We are in different offices with different bosses.

Now, a comment to veiledsentiments: I can't believe you would actually begrudge someone their maternity leave!!!!!
What if it were your wife/mother/sister having a baby? Wouldn't you expect their employer to provide this kind of support? In many countries, there are laws regarding this. In Canada, either parent (or a combination of both) can take 12 months and collect Employment insurance for that time. Being out of your home country, away from your extended family is not a cheap time to have a baby. Your employer should probably have hired a substitute instructor for the time that the new mothers were on maternity leave, but it sounds like you are pinning the blame for this on the new family.

(Perhaps I am feeling rather sensitive about these things right now because I am starting to get to an age where I have to make a decision about having kids. Also, many of my friends and one of my siblings have had kids recently, and I am rather protective of their rights these days.)

[richard ame]

H i All
My wife and I started our teaching career together at a private school in Turkey the lady who gave us the job at the time refered to us as a gift from god,perhaps she didn't know us very well anyway we stayed there on and off (me more off than on ) for eight years and now we are still together at a university,it seems that we are the only native couple in the city of Izmir and to be honest I haven't met many others elsewhere either . The thinking as has already being said is that you only need one apartment for two teachers and yes when one of them falls foul of the system there can be problems but we seemed to have avoided that one .
The only real down side can be when some people in certain areas start making comparasions about our teaching styles which differ greatly apart from that there has being no problems .