Next fall Scarborough High School history teacher Andrew Patrick will continue his teaching career, although it will be some 4,600 miles away.

Patrick has signed a two-year contract with the Istanbul International Community School. For Patrick, this will be the second stage of his teaching career, which began at Scarborough High School two years ago after he left the National Forest Service.

This will not be his first experience living abroad: Patrick has lived in both England and Ireland. But this will be his first trip to Turkey and he is looking forward to the opportunity to visit one of the world’s oldest countries and see its ancient ruins. Also, because of Turkey’s location, he will be able to travel to other parts of the world that he has wanted to visit, such as Beirut and Jerusalem.

Patrick said he grew up traveling the world with his parents, who were both teachers. This rubbed off on him and he has extensively traveled himself. He enjoys getting to better understand the people and culture of the places he visits. And while he has visited many different countries, he said living in them provides him with the best insight into its people.

“Traveling is great, but you get to know a place by living there,” he said.

After a few years settled in Maine, he felt the need to travel again and learned that there were agencies specializing in finding American teachers jobs in foreign schools. He was accepted by a placement agency, visited a job fair about foreign placements and interviewed with a number of different schools seeking history teachers.

He had offers from schools in Germany and another in Alexandria, Egypt, but settled on Istanbul. The country is more westernized than most believe, he said. Overall, Turkey is not quite as exotic as Alexandria, but less familiar than some European countries like England.

“I’m not expecting it to be too exotic because I know there are TGI Friday’s,” Patrick said.

The school setting will be somewhat familiar and Patrick will be teaching history, though it will be to a much more diverse student body. His school is international, with students from 40 countries. He does not expect to be teaching many Turkish students, although some do attend the school and there are some Turkish teachers.

Patrick and his wife Jami will be living in an apartment provided by the school. It is located in a planned neighborhood like a subdivision and he will commute to school every day. Jami expects to be able to find work there.

One of the more difficult aspects of the move is deciding what to bring. Since the apartment is fully furnished, there is little need to being household items, but said he plans on bringing clothes since the weather in Turkey is variable.

The couple will rent their Portland condo while they are gone, and will put most of their belongings in storage.

Patrick said he is not sure what he will do when his contract in Turkey expires, but said there are a group of American teachers who travel the world and teach at various schools. He said he is open to the idea of moving to another country, but has not made any concrete decisions at this point and is thinking he will return to the U.S. in four years.

Andrew Patrick.

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