Dragons Instructor
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Instructor Job Description & Responsibilities
All members of WTBD 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. International jobs with WTBD 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 three, drawing from each other’s individual skills and backgrounds to formulate a strong course vision. Our teams are built with a distribution of instructor responsibilities, such that there remains a balanced structure in which every instructor is able to contribute 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 contacts, as well as a personalized experiential curriculum. Over the 30+ 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, including:
- Leading safe, conscientious and professional programs which are sensitive to the needs and issues of students and local communities.
- Being attentive to risk and committed to the physical and emotional safety of the student group. Instructors must adhere to and maintain high standards of safety and risk management throughout the course, in many different contexts.
- Working within a team of co-instructors to facilitate successful group dynamics and to nurture growth and learning within each student.
- Offering formal and informal lessons throughout the course on subjects as wide-ranging as history and culture, geology and weather, language and indigeneity, power and politics, development, and ethical wilderness travel. Instructors must remain approachable and 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 inquiry which has an immeasurable impact on our students. As role models, instructors cultivate in students the necessary sensitivity to the host communities, 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 jobs with Dragons to be the most fulfilling career possible.
About Dragons
WTBD is a provider of immersive, educational travel programs. For decades we’ve offered an alternative to mainstream travel and tourism. Our approach is simple: work with the absolute best instructors, return to communities where we have long-lasting relationships, and run a limited number of programs to ensure every trip is thoughtful, responsible, and intentionally-crafted. Dragons is committed to socially responsible travel as a tool for breaking down barriers and enhancing understanding between people and communities around the world. As such, we strive to increase diversity, equity, and inclusivity within our community of administrative staff, field instructors, student body, and in-country partners. We acknowledge that the work of international and experiential education carries inherent imbalances with regard to issues of race, class, gender, privilege and power, and we aim to nurture a community of critical self-reflection and awareness of these themes and the way they impact our work.
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.
