Doctor Paul Brackmann, the English II, AP World History and Tenderfoot Times teacher at Salida High School, often tells his students about his time spent teaching internationally.
Brackmann became interested in international education in the mid-nineties, during his second or third year teaching when the principal of a small charter school in Summit County that he was working at brought up international education.
“He told me all about it and so, the next year I applied, and that’s when I left the country for Kuwait,” Brackmann said.
Brackmann left the states to teach internationally for about fifteen years, and, as can be expected, he lived and visited many places during that time. He lived and worked in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Mongolia and China. While teaching internationally, he met his wife. During his time in Saudi Arabia, his family would travel out of the country during their breaks.
“Anytime that we had a chance, that there was no school and we had time off, we would just get out of the country and go, it was like a four hour flight to Europe, about four five hours to Nepal or to Sri Lanka or to India,” Brackmann said.
Some of the places they visited a lot are the Philippines, Hong Kong and Beijing. However, with all of the traveling he did, Brackmann’s favorite place to visit was Istanbul, Turkey. In the high school he taught at in Saudi Arabia, student trips were very common, and Istanbul was a popular destination.
“Istanbul was always my favorite just cause there’s just so much history there, you’ve got Greeks, with Romans piled on top of that, with Byzantines piled on top of that, with the Ottomans on top of that, and the modern era,” he said.
One of Brackmann’s favorite experiences overseas was a celebration that his high school in Saudi Arabia had every year called Internationals Day. The school would have a half day of classes, and at lunch students would be released out into the courtyard to experience different cultures. Parents of different cultures and nationalities would put together tables with food from all over the world and students would dawn their culture-group’s celebrational attire and dance.
Brackmann said that the overall biggest difference between teaching in the states and teaching overseas was the students’ attitude towards learning and being in an educationally focused environment.
“People don’t value education in the states. Where over there, it’s the answer to everything,” Brackmann said.
The goal of the schools he taught at was always for students to get into the top universities in the United States, so all of the programs were in English. Tuition for the top tier schools that Brackmann was teaching at overseas was about 40,000 dollars a year, so students could not take their education lightly.
Brackmann and his wife came back to live in the United States a couple years ago when their kids graduated from high school. It’s clear Brackmann experienced countless amazing things in his time overseas.
