A mixture of fiction, based closely on actual happenings in several International and American Schools in nine countries on five continents. The more unusual sections are the ones directly or closely related to reality. The book includes contractual warnings and psychological issues affecting people transitioning into other cultures. Romantic relationships serve to soften the seriousness of actual happenings.

Overview

By Dr. Lance Starr

This novel, though a work of fiction, includes many reality based anecdotes about what happens behind the scenes in an overseas administrators office. Many actual interactions are included with the people, the city, the school and even the country name changed. The various travel vacation sections are accurate to the time the trips happened. The in-school anecdotes that at first might seem most far- fetched, are based on or closely related to actual happenings in these schools. Tips or advice about choosing contracts in certain countries are accurate, as of the beginning of the 21st Century. Take “the pressure cooker” to your office with you, you’ll be glad you did. In cross cultural positions, this could provide support. To help you judge the real from fantasy, don’t forget the high standards of behavior that are expected of school Directors stateside and around the world.

Author: Dr. Lance Starr

Doctor Starr earned an M.S. in Educational Administration which qualified him for a teaching job in Spain. He then returned to the U.S. where he worked as an assistant principal and then a principal qualifying him as a competitor for one of those administrative positions internationally. He started as an assistant principal in South America for three years and then jumped the principal-ship to a Directorship in Central America. From there he served two years as a principal in the mid-east and in the remaining 35 years served as Director in nine countries on five continents. Now retired, Doreen wakes him two or three days a week to send him off to sub-teach in schools around the large cosmopolitan Beer City. They don’t make Pisner Urquell, but they serve it from the Tap.