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For many of you, you'll remember the ordeal Jill and I went through in making our decision to go to Honduras. For those of you who don't know, let me fill you in...
We were offered a position at a school in Monterrey, Mexico on a Thursday night. They were offering us $1400 USD/month to teach there. It's a private, catholic school where we'd be required to wear uniforms and I'd be teaching strictly English to MANY classes from preschool to grade 3. Something didn't feel right about this school and I prayed that if I was meant to be somewhere else, something else would come up.
Friday morning Jill called me and told me to check my e-mail. 10 minutes later I was unsure of whether to laugh or cry. We had been offered a job in Honduras. The teaching position was better but the money was almost 1/3 of what Mexico had offered.
It was a tough couple of days but in the end, we chose Honduras. We thought it would be more of a cultural experience for us. I also just felt in my heart that that's where I should be.
NOW HERE'S THE BEST PART! Today I got an e-mail forwarded to me by Jill. It was a late response to an e-mail Jill had sent to a staff member from the Monterrey school in Mexico when we were trying to figure out which school to chose. It's made me SOOOOOO happy about the decision that Jill and I made to go to Honduras. God has wonderful ways of working in our lives. Read the following e-mail to find out why I feel so great about NOT choosing the school in Mexico.
__________________________________________________________________
Hey Jillian,
Sorry for taking so long to reply to your email. I hope this info will
still be of use to you.
I've been at Kilimanjaro for two years, teaching gr.6.
I've only stayed here for two years because my boyfriend is here. If it
wasn't for him, I would've left a long time ago.
If you want to come down here to make money and to just teach, then it's a
good job. The school is very strict and very catholic. In gr.6 there is a
simple program to follow that is programmed by weeks. However the school
does not offer any academic materials aside from the teacher's editions of
the students materials. So games, decorations, worksheets...etc is all up
to you. They do have a supply room for colored paper, glitter, poster board
and a photo copy, but aside from that it's all up to you.
Boys and girls are taught separately. In the morning you would teach the
boys, and then after recess you would go teach the girls.
The children are VERY badly disciplined. These kids are nothing like
American or Canadian kids. The kids are very spoiled, aren't disciplined by
their parents, don't study for their exams and quizzes and are huge brats.
Nobody told me this before I came, so I'm trying to make myself very clear
to you. And I didn't find this out until I walked into the classroom.
You didn't say whether you've gone to teacher's college, but if you did then
there is still hope that you'll know how to manage the classroom and manage
everything. But all the teachers that have worked there in the past 2 years
have been young people without any clue as how to teach, and the principles
and the coordinators don't really help you out. You're all on your own.
The parents complain alot and have meeting with you. The kids complain
about you.
It's just not a nice situation.
If you're planning on coming to Monterrey looking for a cultural experience
- then this is not the place.
Monterrey is very American, there's no culture here at all. Also, Monterrey
is so removed from any cool place to visit, that it makes weekends an
impossible time to get away. If you have a car then you could go to Texas
(it's 3 hours away) for shopping or going further into Texas for cultural
stuff.
But Mexico City is 10 hours away by car/bus, flights are cheap, but by the
time you get there the weekend is already over because the traffic is so bad
there.
There are lots of great places in Mexico, Monterrey isn't one of them. I
know there are lots of Legionary schools in Mexico City - which would be a
great place to go and the schools are more established (Kilimanjaro is only
10 years old and missing alot to establish it self as a good place to work
and learn) and as a place to live Mexico City has alot to offer.
Monterrey offers the biggest pay check out of all of Mexico for working at
these schools.
Spanish was my university major, and I've lived in Spain - so language was
never a problem for me. All the other teachers have come with beginners
spanish and have had a hard time with everything - dealing with their
regular life here and stuff administration.
The school doesn't really do much to accomodate us. They pick you up at the
airport put you up in a place to live for the first month and thats it.
They don't set up car pooling for you. All the teachers at the school are
married and with children, so there are no possible friendships to be found
there.
At Kilimanjaro this year there were 3 foreign teachers, last year there were
only two of us. I think they are starting to implement the one foreign
teacher per area idea (preschool, elementary, secondary). You pretty much
become best friends with the other foreign teacher.
There are no after school activities except for sports which is run by the
phys-ed guys. Once a month there are staff meetings on saturday mornings.
Once a year there is a weekend long retreat taken by bus to a place 8 hours
away. There is a school mass once a month during school hours. There are
no school trips.
Monterrey is VERY hot. November, December, January, February, March are
VERY cold. The houses here aren't insulated like Canadian and American
houses, so escaping the cold is very hard, unless you buy a heavy duty
heater for your house.
Renting a decent place to live is also difficult. Rent starts at 3000 pesos
a month. And they'll be absolutely empty.
So, all in all, life is tough here. If you come with a friend then it's
managable. You'll have eachother, you can rent an apartment together, get
together some furniture. You can save some money.
School starts at 7:45 and we have to be there until 3pm. After school my
afternoons are filled with lesson planning, making materials, making
quizzes/exams, marking. In preschool the working day is shorter and not at
all stressful as it is in primary and secondary. You need to have alot of
patience and an open mind to work here.
The school does not give you any spanish lessons, and there are language
schools except they are only for English, one of the foreign teachers looked
into and there were two places but they were really expensive.
If you have any other questions please let me know, I promise I'll write
back quickly.
Good luck,
Olivia
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Aaron
non-member comment
Wow you dodged quite the bullet!!