You walk into class at East High School. Your teacher mentions they have taught in a different country. You start to wonder what it was like to educate there. Here are a few East High School teachers who have taught internationally.
“I am from the Philippines where I taught mathematics for 14 years and I had the opportunity to teach Algebra one and geometry for high school and senior high school students before coming to the United States. Teaching is not just my profession; it is my purpose; I’ve always believed that mathematics is more than numbers; it is a way of thinking, solving problems and building confidence. I’ve worked with many students from different backgrounds and that experiences shaped me into the teacher I am today,” Algebra teacher Tony Dagansina said.
For Dagansina, when it came to him for wanting to teach at East, it was not just to for him it was to benefit both sides and tutor kids. He wanted to teach for a reason. He wanted to tell kids about how math was not just a bunch of numbers, but a way to learn so much more and to help solve problems and even build confidence with students to help them learn and to grow as a person. Arriving to the United States was a good opportunity for him, and he used it as a progression of passion and a way to help more kids, not just from his home country but also for bigger states as well.
“I came to the United States because I wanted to challenge myself to grow professional and personally and it was an opportunity for a new educational system to connect with diverse students to share my passion for mathematics for bigger states. I believe great teachers never stop learning and this journey is my commitment to becoming the best educator I can be,” Dagansina said.
It is not just Dagansina who taught in a different place, or even teaching kids how to even be their best. Megan Biondi is another one of the teachers that taught here at East. She wanted to teach in the US when she was teaching Costa Rica for about a year, she always wanted to teach abroad and to try and grow as a teacher and use that opportunity.
“Teaching in Costa Rica was fun and a little challenging at first because of the language differences. The students were really engaged and excited to learn, especially because a lot of the activities were more firsthand and interactive. Compared to the US, it felt a little more relaxed and community-based, but students still cared a lot about learning. In the US, things are a bit more structured and focused on standards and testing,” English teacher Biondi said.
Learning in one country to make your experience more of a visionary was done by Biondi and Dagansina, but Jude Magbanua has taught in multiple countries from the Philippines to the United Arab Emirates and eventually landed in the United States.
“I was from the Philippines, I have finished my bachelor’s degree there, and I have taught there for more than five years. I started working after I graduated, and then I taught in the Philippines for more than five years, then moved to Dubai and taught for two years and then finally moved here into the U.S.,” Geometry teacher Magbanua said.

A trio of environments creates more than an open book of opportunities. It may seem a lot to continue in one person’s hands but its reality it benefits teaching style and help the students can get in their class. Learning with different programs and styles, a variety of different students, Magbanua is an amazing example of the sky is the limit of being a teacher.
“The Philippines have a different curricular, Dubai also has a different curricular, it really depends on most schools since most of them are national schools. So, some of them they have, English schools and some of them have British school. So here is a different curriculum where we are also using IM. The second ones are students then in the Philippines. There are multiple majorities are Filipinos, they are few who are foreigners coming from different countries, but it is just one or two per school. It is not diverse, it is mostly Filipinos, so sometimes we are using our own land,” Magbanua said.
Students who have also come across the world to the United States feel as if it’s a comforting place with similar experience these teachers share with them. It’s not so different when you have someone within the same light whose just as scared as you teaching or learning in a place.
“It was comforting considering you don’t see it that much. Knowing someone else from a different country it gives you comfort knowing I’m not the only one who’s different in the classroom,” sophomore Salma Aden said.