Pros
- These are some of the best kids I've had the joy of teaching. Most of them work incredibly hard and are very intelligent. Not as many problem parents as you'd expect. - A lot of the curriculum absolutely works. I love that we teach things like Logic and composition even at an elementary level. These students are very advanced in comparison to public school students here. - A lot of things are laid out for you and pre-prepared. Not a lot of guesswork required to do your job. - They really emphasize independence, self-reliance, and respect. It's amazing the things some of these kids are capable of and do by themselves.
Cons
Oh boy. - Management is a complete and utter nightmare. Headmasters never last more than 2 years so consistency is gone. Micromanaging tends to be common. - Communication is INSANELY broken down and at times nonexistent. When I interned, there were times they genuinely "forgot" to tell me I was subbing that day and they just had no one picking up the kids from specials. None of the admins collaborate with each other and it creates disasters. - Benefits, pay, and work-life balance are garbage. Your salary will be less than 4 (if not 3) of your students' tuitions. You accrue 2 PTO hours per pay period, you are forced to use them if you ever call out sick, and god forbid you actually try to request off a single day to use your PTO. Breaks are unpaid. - For a school that puts so much emphasis on self-reliance and independence, they give their employees absolutely none of that. We get zero say in anything that happens and how we run our classroom. - As a teacher it's not as bad, but as an intern, you will be required to switch what you are doing at a moment's notice almost every single day, regardless of what you have to do or are currently doing. Expect to spend half your time decorating and reorganizing storage and staring blankly at a 200 page binder of grammar worksheets to fill out but not actually getting any lessons on how to do it. You could be an intern for 2 weeks or two years. Nothing is guaranteed. - On that note, training was non-existent. They have you teach lessons and tell you what you did wrong, but they never actually taught you what to do or how to do it and just expect you to know all the pacers and drills and curriculum out of the blue. - Politics are king. You will feel alienated if your political views vary. I have heard teachers and admins alike say straight slurs and denounce some of the kids and families at the school due to political values, and corporate does not care in the slightest. - Change is your enemy. Many of the methods used here I believe are very helpful for the students and encourage problem solving, but absolutely nothing has changed in decades, both in curriculum and technology, and it makes it hard to actually function in the twenty-first century.