Chicago Public Schools are going to great lengths to hire teachers—now the school district recruits ...

Chicago Public Schools are going to great lengths to hire teachers—now the school district
recruits teachers from other countries to help solve a shortage of teachers.It all started in 1999,
when Youses Hannon, a math and physics teacher from Palestine（巴勒斯坦）, visited Chicago.
He read about the teacher shortage at Chicago Public Schools and asked the school board if they’d
hire him.
The board was interested and decided to create a special program for foreign-born teachers
like Hannon, and he was the first teacher hired.
The program is called the Global Educator Outreach or GEO, and it’s a partnership between
Chicago Public Schools and the U.S.Government.Because the teacher shortage in Chicago is so
extreme, the Government allows the school district to temporarily hire foreign teaching
candidates using H1-B visas.The Government grants these visas only to skilled foreign-born
citizens so they can work in highly specialized jobs that can’t be filled with available U.S.
workforce.
Through the GEO, the school district has hired dozens of teachers from 22 different countries.
Applicants must pass an English language test and specialize in math, science, world language or
bilingual（双语的）education.Hannon and the first GEO teachers started in the classroom at
the beginning of the 2000-2001 school year.
What do the GEO teachers think of the American classroom? Hannon, who was hired to teach
math at Gage Park High School, says classrooms in Chicago are very different from those in
Palestine.For one thing, he says, the fixed schedule that forces students to attend the same
classes at the same time each day becomes too dull.In Palestine, the class schedule changes each
week.He says in Palestine, the culture forces students to work hard because if they don’t they’ll
be kicked out and put in vocational schools, which limits their career options.There is not nearly
as much pressure for American students to do well.He says he has to do double the amount of
work just to get his students interested.
Hannon, as a GEO teacher, has found that