Moscow or Bust?

Attention all Commerce teachers. Not inspired by NCEA? Think the International Baccalaureate and IGCSE might be better? Tired of your staffroom’s brown glass cups from The Warehouse? Yearning for big fat slice of chocolate change cake?

A friend of mine, Mr Andrew Short, has asked me to ask you all if you’d like to teach Economics, Business & Management, and Sociology (which may or may not involve trust falls and cushions and deep and meaningful discussions about why society should love its criminals more).

He says the job’s in his smallish high school with almost no discipline problems, class sizes of about 10 (good grief!), no Saturday morning coaching, no swimming sports, no marijuana problems, only a few supervision duties per week…

But wait, there’s more. The staff is barbecue-and-beers friendly and gidday-how’s-things welcoming and there’s only a wee bit of whinging. They have comfy armchairs in their messy but homely staffroom and a fridge with full-fat milk and leftover cake and a freezer for pies.
The photocopier doesn’t jam up too often and the internet’s fairly quick. The Playstation Club makes good use of the school’s dandy electronic whiteboards – and sometimes the Club lets the students play.

There’s a volleyball club and a basketball club and a soccer club and the teachers play against the kids and sometimes they win – but usually not. And there’s sweating heaving thrusting grunting gym equipment that’s good for keeping teachers’ hearts beating strongly.
Andrew says you needn’t have taught IB before, but he’d prefer that you’ve taught senior Economics in NZ. He says Kiwi teachers are brilliant because they don’t whinge much and they can talk sensibly about rugby.

Andrew’s Welsh you see, so he says this with a bit of ‘you-know-what-I-mean’ grin. I told him we can also talk sensibly about cricket now too and I reminded him that it’s the England & Wales Cricket Board but he preferred to talk about Economics and Business and a bit of Sociology.

Oh by the way, the job’s in Moscow – you know, Russia, Red Square, Perestroika & Glasnost, “Mr Gorbachov, tear down that wall”, the Bolshoi Theatre – The Nutcracker and Swan Lake, ice-skating in Red Square and Gorky Park, the Kremlin, the Pushkin, weekends in St Petesburg travelling by overnight train, cheap flights to Riga and Paris and Rome and London and… the Wales v. ABs game…

Andrew says the salaries are paid in Euroes, and the school also pays for the flight there and back, and medical insurance and arranges an apartment…

For a good time, send your CV and cheerful letter to andrew.short@bismoscow.com