Experiential Education Field Instructor
We are seeking community & outdoor educators who are able to teach to the lands, cultures, and the themes we engage with on these courses. This includes the current colonial boundaries of Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona and themes of indigeneity, immigration, social and environmental justice, and sustainable food systems and food sovereignty. The courses are the Rio Grande Semester, running February 15 to April 26 and the Colorado River Basin Semester, running March 1 to May 10. Instructors have a high degree of autonomy in terms of course design. Anyone who is interested can apply through our application here. We will review applications on a rolling basis.
ALL MEMBERS OF DRAGONS FIELD STAFF COME WITH DIVERSE EDUCATIONS AND LIFE EXPERIENCE.
But they all possess one similar quality: the desire to provide students with the most complete and exceptional educational experience possible. Instructor jobs with Dragons are unique in that instructors are given great flexibility in designing and running programs that dynamically respond to students’ needs, interests and goals.
Instructors work together in teams of 3, drawing from each other’s individual skills and backgrounds to formulate a strong course vision. Our teams are built with an equal distribution of instructor responsibilities, such that there remains a non-hierarchical structure in which every instructor is able to contribute equally to the success of the course.
And while the essential framework and structure for the course is defined by the Dragons Administration, each team’s vision is largely supported by instructor’s personal local contacts, as well as a personalized experiential curriculum. Over the 23 years that we’ve been working with students, we’ve found that the best courses are consistently the ones where instructors’ actively direct and inform the content, breathing exceptional life into the experience.
In order to encourage our students to challenge their personal limits and to support them throughout their journeys, instructors must play a variety of roles:
- Dragons instructors are responsible for leading safe, conscientious and professional programs which are sensitive to the needs and issues of our students and local communities.
- Dragons instructors are attentive to risk issues and committed to the physical and emotional safety of the student group. They must adhere to and maintain high standards of safety and risk management throughout the course, in many different contexts.
- Dragons instructors work within a team of co-instructors to facilitate successful group dynamics and to nurture growth and learning within each student.
- Dragons instructors offer formal and informal lessons throughout the course on subjects as wide-ranging as history and culture, geology and weather, language, politics, development, and ethical wilderness travel, and they’re sensitive to students’ needs as they process their experiences and observations.
In the end, all Dragons instructors are confident in a single teaching tool: themselves! It is the power of their personalities, enthusiasm, and love of sharing adventure and exploration which has an immeasurable impact on our students. As role models, they cultivate in students the necessary sensitivity to the host country, and respect for oneself and others which results in a successful course.
Leading a Dragons program demands great flexibility, dedication and commitment, but the rewards are numerous. Many instructors consider their international jobs with Dragons to be the most fulfilling career possible.
Dragons is an Equal Opportunity Employer (EOE). Qualified applicants are considered for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, marital status, age, veterans’ status, disability, pregnancy or union activity.