The Carrot of Inclusion in the Education Job Market
How excluding non-U.S. citizens from impact-driven job opportunities contributes to a loss of identity and a sense of alienation
When I see an educational company promising to "educate the world," I mentally swap "world" for "our world." "The world" often means the U.S. or maybe Western Europe.
Students outside this world are often deemed unprofitable. Potential employees from the (often Global South) communities these companies claim to serve face legal, organizational, and cultural barriers to support their mission. They have to wait on the sidelines as the grown-ups talk about how to fix their homes.
I didn't feel excluded from the world until I started caring about it. In January 2024, I decided to leave tech. I was fed up with five years of MAXIMIZING SHAREHOLDER VALUE.
I started scheduling weekly calls with leaders in education and non-profits, thinking these spaces would be better. An AI ethics consultant told me non-profits offered more meaning. A school administrator said summers in Cyprus are also a thing. And then there was Augustus, a K-12 humanities tutor, who pointed out that these classical schools I once saw as divine often rely on political or religious funding, masking anti-woke, evangelical, and right-wing ideologies with Socratic imagery and words like 'Aporia.'"
But I never got to live any of these stories. Instead, I faced job postings headlined "FULL-TIME REMOTE POSITIONS AVAILABLE TO ANYONE WORLDWIDE!" that asked for my U.S. zip code. I triple-checked with a recruiter before completing a test for a communications role at a Socratic school—fifteen open-ended questions with a suggested twenty-minute cap. Any more time would be immoral to ask for an unpaid test. Two weeks later, I was emailed "Received" and "Could you attach your visa? Thanks!"
Contractors from the Global South? We aren't alone in facing extra hurdles in this world. American women, people of color, elders—they've been dealing with this longer. The difference is that international contractors can be all those underrepresented groups rolled into one and additionally be unpronounceable names on a screen. For many in the Global South, the workaround is joining the company's Discord server, where you virtually sit alongside twenty-seven volunteers. With enough time, sacrifice, and closed deals, you remain a volunteer but get to work with those on the payroll.
Identity is that elusive thing we never quite figure out but must pretend we have a handle on just to navigate life. It's exhausting to watch people from the Global South ready to throw everything—financial stability, social connections, even their love lives—into the fire, believing they can build a future that seems just within reach, with people who seem eager to welcome them, only to be denied of the opportunity to make those sacrifice. There's a difference between being aspirational and being misleading. You can be honest about your limitations and timeline without dangling the carrot of inclusion in front of people who cannot grab it.
So, if you're going to hire us, do it. If you're not, don't pretend you will. No mission statement is worth shredding someone else's sense of purpose.