Job Discussion Forums

[torentosan]

Hello all,
I have five years of ESL experience and have just got my state teaching license. I am ready to make the transition to better things.

I will make a grand stab at getting into a good international school, however the competition will be keen.
Therefore, my backup plan is to get into a public elementary school.

My question is for those who know, those who are there and who have knowledge of the way things go.

Do public schools there hire full-time foreign teachers and if so, are they paid more or the same as local school teachers?

I ask this question because it seems some countries do, some don't, and some have a system where foreigners just show up to teach a class or two. Also, it is hard to find the information quickly...

I appreciate any information you may have.. Thanks!

[FreddyM]

I don't think SEP hires any foreigners into the government schools. SEP has a lot of requirements and loopholes you have to go through, difficult enough for locals to get into, most likely almost impossible for a foreigner who has no training or credentials officially recognized by SEP.

And on top of that, the pay sucks in comparison to a semi-decent private colegio. Your credentials make you an outstanding candidate for an international school, where you'd easily make twice or more than any government school.

[MotherF]

[BadBeagleBad]

[Isla Guapa]

[torentosan]

Thanks for the info.
Anyone have a list of private schools?

[MotherF]

What city are you looking at?

You can search here:
http://eduportal.com.mx/


Isla, I know some secundary school teachers in the state of Morelos, and some primary teachers in the state of Puebla, and they also get "placed" in schools by the union, the first job is almost always way out in the mountains somewhere and you earn points to be placed in more desirable schools. I know the son of a Mexico city area school teacher and he once said his mom never wanted to move back to Oaxaca because she had been very lucky to get her job placement and it was too good to give up and she would move down in level if she gave it up.

[notamiss]

My father-in-law, a secundaria teacher, was a very principled man, and he did something extremely unusual when he retired – he gave his position to a young teacher whom he knew, who he thought was very good at teaching. This instead of selling the job or keeping it in the family. What he did was almost unheard of – not to benefit from whom he picked to fill his position. This was in DF in the 1980s.

My sister-in-law taught primaria for over 30 years until recently retiring. Her first job was far from home, but over the years, she always kept an eye out for someone in a school nearer home who was interested in trading, and school by school she worked her way closer. Her last few years before retiring were spent in a school just down the street from her house.

[MotherF]

I'm keep thinking about this and I'm a little concerned that there is so little information out there that someone would even ask this question. I know that foriegners work in Japanese and Korean public schools, so I do get that someone would ask if there was such a program in Mexico. But.... I'm also disheartened that the current situation has been so neglected by the English speaking press. I spent some time today seeing what was out there and found some information

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUjRi2-KEho&list=PLDNI14zH0J2hH9BVkG4IJv-k9dyo1tcDQ

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/09/2013913221252883327.html

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/mexican-education-reforms-pass-senate

http://www.thedialogue.org/uploads/LAA/Daily/2013/LAA130910.pdf

One thing I found that all of these article lacked was historical prespective. The Secretaria de Educacion Publica (SEP) was only created in 1921 and at that time the idea of rural education was created with the goal in mind of forming a national identity since the majority of the people thought of themselves as members of their local groups, not member of a nation. To this day, forming a National Identity is the main thrust of the content of primary education. And public school teachers are taught through the Normales to view themselves as a sort of missionary sent to bring information the masses.

This is an interesting article that deals with those ideas, http://www.dimensionantropologica.inah.gob.mx/?p=929

This also gives some insightful background information,
http://people.uncw.edu/martinezm/Handbook/html/education-overview.htm

[Isla Guapa]

[MotherF]

I'm not sure when the next time I will see them is, but there is plenty of documentation of the SNTE also controlling who gets what position and when how they earn promotions to more desirable positions.

A couple of years ago there was a documentary called ¡De Panzazo! About the Mexican school system and you can find i ton youtube. It received a lot of criticism and it retrospect considering who the producers where I think it was probably made as a primer to help sell the current educational reform. If you watch it, you can also read this op-ed piece from the journada which raises some valid points about the film. http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2012/02/25/opinion/011a1pol

I have to major critiques of it myself. One is smallish. Near the beginning they show a classroom full of indigenous primary kids and ask them their opinions. All they get in reply is embarrassed looks and it goes on rather too long for the length of the film and the size of the overall topic. I'm not sure what the directors point was, but that is totally normal for indigenous children to ask that way. They are universally shy and their culture is very much a children don't speak their opinions, especially not to an authority, until they are adults and full community members type of culture. And also, they ask them a question that they have no way of knowing the answer to. And they have been taught in school (which is where they are seated) that every question has a correct answer. They ask how their school is, if it is good. But they have only ever been to that school and they have no idea what other schools are like. I'll never forget once when I was giving a girl from my mother-in-law's village a ride through our small town of about 80,000 people and she asked me if that's what the streets in the USA were like. It was so hard to answer, she knew this and she knew her village and a town of intermediate size that lies in between and that was all. Driving through this town and driving through say, Dallas, Texas were no more alike than driving through her village and this town. But on the other hand, there were people, shops, cars, all the things you find anywhere...

Sorry to be so long winded...

The other critisms is they talk about the exam results in math and Spanish and mention that kids have been studying those two subjects everyday for eight years before they take this international exam. Now, I don't know about all schools or even most schools, but my 4th grade children do not study those subjects every day. They have a lot of subjects they have to cover so the teacher has to decide how to organize their time and personally I feel like Spanish especially is lacking in early elementary. You need to teach the kids to read and have a very high level of comphrension, and then later, they can learn anything through reading. Elementary students have History, Civics, Geography, Science, Math, Spanish, Art, and Physical Education. The first three subjects are almost entirely about Mexico and from what I've seen they repeat many topics each year, something that wouldn't be necessary if they left it until later and focues and reading and written expression in the first years.

[aliaeli]

I met someone on a bus who said that they had worked at a SEP school, and she was a foreigner.
You have to jump through all of the hoops of SEP though.

[aliaeli]

I met someone on a bus who said that they had worked at a SEP school, and she was a foreigner.
You have to jump through all of the hoops of SEP though.

[BadBeagleBad]

[Isla Guapa]