Text us with topic or guest suggestions!

What are international schools like? One way to find out is to compare them with schools in your home country.

Since David and I both hail from North America, we thought it would be interesting to ask someone who has been a head of school in multiple oversea countries and in the U.S. to help us draw some of these comparisons. So we turned to Lee Fertig, who was a director in Brazil, Spain, and Belgium and is now the head of an independent school in California.Veteran International Educators, it will be fun for you to consider how closely Lee’s observations match yours; aspiring International Educators, I’m sure this look at the insider view will be enlightening for you.

Lee talked about some of the similarities and differences he has observed among overseas and U.S. schools. While avoiding sweeping generalisations, he was able to give us a taste of some of the characteristics that can be found in either type of school, while also giving us a sense of what his current school, the Nueva School in San Franciso, is like. Lee is someone I would love to work with again – and after this conversation, I’m betting you will want to work with him, too!

Lee is currently the Head of the Nueva School in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has 40 years of leadership and teaching experience in a wide variety of educational settings including five international schools (in Ethiopia, Brazil, Spain, and Belgium), a leading independent school in New York City, and a voluntary integration public magnet school in Minneapolis. Lee has been training for the Principals’ Training Center (PTC) for many years, has taught in the College of Education at the University of Minnesota, and is a guest speaker on contemporary educational issues at a wide variety of community events. He provides consulting services for schools and educational organizations around the world in the areas of governance, development and fundraising, learning innovation, student support systems, and school-based continuous improvement.

Our guiding question was: “What was your experience going from being a head of various schools overseas to becoming a head of an independent school in the United States with international aspects?”

Here are the topics covered in this episode:

• Moving from leading international schools to leading an independent school in the U.S.
• Comparing the mission and identity of international schools with those in the U.S.
• Similarities and differences in school culture or community life between international schools and Lee’s current U.S. school
• Balancing local and global culture in international schools
• Parent expectations
• Governance and leadership expectations
• Teacher recruitment
• What the best international schools have in common

Resources shared in this episode:

Connect with Lee on LinkedIn

Nueva School

Show recorded on June 12, 2026.

Categories: School Life | Recruitment | Transitions

Support the show

Remember to access our Educators Going Global website for more information and consider joining our Patreon community at patreon/educatorsgoingglobal!

Email us with comments or suggestions at educatorsgoingglobal@gmail.com

Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube.

Listen on your favorite podcast app: connect from our share page.

Music: YouTube. (2022). Acoustic Guitar | Folk | No copyright | 2022❤️. YouTube. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOEmg_6i7jA.

Text us with topic or guest suggestions!

How would you respond to this statement: “Everyone can benefit from having a life coach”? It’s hard to argue with the idea that having a supportive, non-judgemental listener to share our journey with can be super helpful.

This episode continues our series that centers on Transitions Coaching for International Educators. We have selected some realistic transition difficulties that could be – and have been – experienced by educators in the international school space. We want to emphasize that these are unscripted sessions where David is doing his best to represent real educators experiencing realistic situations related to transitions and Audrey is delivering the in-the-moment life coaching that could help to address the issues involved. Please be gentle with us as we seek to demonstrate the power of life coaching for those faced with a transition from a comfortable, known school-city-country-culture to a new and unfamiliar one. Whether you are currently experiencing your first transition or your umpteenth, we hope these episodes will be helpful – and that they may even prompt you to seek transitions coaching for yourself!

Scenario 2: The “Why isn't this move easier after so many moves?” Moment.

Support the show

Remember to access our Educators Going Global website for more information and consider joining our Patreon community at patreon/educatorsgoingglobal!

Email us with comments or suggestions at educatorsgoingglobal@gmail.com

Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube.

Listen on your favorite podcast app: connect from our share page.

Music: YouTube. (2022). Acoustic Guitar | Folk | No copyright | 2022❤️. YouTube. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOEmg_6i7jA.

Text us with topic or guest suggestions!

What would it be like for American educators to relocate to China for a few years? And in what ways would doing so in the early 2000s have increased the level of challenge?

With 1.5 billion citizens at the turn of the millennium, China represented a fifth of the globe’s population. It also brought with it suspicion as a human-rights depriving, communist country, and curiosity, with its rich cultural history that dated back thousands of years. There are historic landmarks such as The Great Wall, Peking Man, and the Forbidden City.

Janet Flaugher and her husband accepted the opportunity to live in Beijing for three years when she accepted a position in 2002 as the superintendent of a prestigious international school.

What resulted from her experience two decades later is a multi-award-winning book, Two Bottles of Water. It is an engaging and zany exposé about what life in China is really like for a couple of immigrant newbies. It’s always something, from kitchens that smell of sewer gas, to surviving mystery meat stew, to underappreciated efforts at communication in Chinese. The book follows the misadventures of a pair of Americans plunked down in an alien environment they struggle to comprehend. Her stand-alone essays collectively tell the story of an impactful adventure.

“It was a difficult, confusing, sometimes unfriendly, place for any westerner, and especially for one plunked down in a totally unfamiliar setting, unable to communicate, with a minimal support system,” writes Flaugher in her book. “In spite of all the difficulties we encountered in our stay, I'm glad we did it. It was the experience of a lifetime to be an immigrant and learn firsthand what it was like to be a stranger in a strange land. It also provided great insight into culture shock, unconscious bias (mine), and racism (theirs).”

Our guiding question for this show was, “What lessons did you learn during your 1 ½ year relocation to a school/city/country that was completely unfamiliar to you?”

Some of the topics covered include:

• Acknowledging unconscious bias
• Navigating culture shock
• Coping with isolation and the daily challenges of living as immigrants in a country where nothing was familiar
• The realities of learning a difficult language in real time
• How the Chinese view outsiders – and what Americans can learn from them.
• Lessons learned from leading a school in another country
• Lessons learned from taking all over the world
• Broadened perspectives on immigration, identity, and belonging.

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

Janet's website: www.jtalespinner.com

Two Bottles of Water on Bookshop.org

This episode was recorded on May 19, 2026.

Categories: Transitions | Culture Shock | Travel | Language Learning

Support the show

Remember to access our Educators Going Global website for more information and consider joining our Patreon community at patreon/educatorsgoingglobal!

Email us with comments or suggestions at educatorsgoingglobal@gmail.com

Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube.

Listen on your favorite podcast app: connect from our share page.

Music: YouTube. (2022). Acoustic Guitar | Folk | No copyright | 2022❤️. YouTube. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOEmg_6i7jA.