Job Discussion Forums

[mikejones]

hi,
i'm about to finish a two year stint in saudi arabia teaching SAT english and was wondering if i should teach esl english in mexico or pursue the texas teaching fellowship in the u.s.? currently i hold a b.a. from an american university and my only experience is teaching in saudi. i plan on finishing a celta this summer either in montreal or in houston. i'm sick of saudi and feel like i'm losing my sanity here as i am unmarried and need a change of scenery. plus i'm really jonesing for mexican food and a different culture.

so can anyone advise me on the matter?
thanks,
mike

[MELEE]

The answer to your question, depends on what your long term goals are, and what age group and setting you want to teach.

[ls650]

Yeah, that's really comparing apples and oranges. No one else can truly know your situation well enough to say what's best for you.

[Samantha]

I'm pretty sure you will indeed find a different culture in Texas, but for Mexican food, I recommend Mexico.

[geaaronson]

I would choose the teaching fellowship in a heartbeat. Those opportunities are hard to come by and infrequent at best. You can always go to Mexico after you finish the fellowship.

[mikejones]

basically my long term goal is to finish up my engineering degree (of all things.) i like teaching, but i want to continue to grow as an individual, and so i see teaching english and esl as vehicles in that direction. right now i'm leveraging my humanities degree, but i have three years of undergrad engineering under my belt as well, and i want to finish that, too. it might sound funny teaching english and studying for an engineering degree in my spare time, but heh, i'm single. i also wouldn't mind teaching math or science as well, but i don't have the math or science degree to back it up. i probably could pass the state exam, though. lol.

some might say that i should just go back to school and take out loans to jump start my long term plans. i've thought about this, but being a muslim, i don't want to get involved with interest. speaking of which, do you know of any muslims living in mexico???

[mikejones]

in addition, i am also thinking about going back to the middle east, but maybe this time around going to the u.a.e. it's more westernized with a better infrastructure, and i would hope that i would meet better people.

as t.e. lawrence (a.k.a. lawrence of arabia) once wrote:

"I met a limited, closed-minded people whose inept intellects fallowed in incurious resignation."

after finishing my engineering degree, it might be cool to be a professor in the middle east. perhaps i could work at an american university overseas. but like i said, i'm trying to pay for my education without taking out loans, and so steadily gaining experience in esl prep classes, and in high schools seems to be decent stepping stones in that direction. the engineering degree is just something that i've always wanted to finish, and realistically i could further utilize the technical aspects of it in my teaching. for instance, it would be cool to design and set up my own Blackboard software for online and distance learning. obviously the programming aspect of the engineering degree would take this into account. also, to have a PhD seems more valuable in many ways over a celta. no offense, but here in saudi if you have a PhD and don't mind living here, you start off making 16,000 riyals in a university. they are desperate for professors over here, and will take just about anyone. esl is in high demand as well, and there are a number of people here who do not even have a college education, (but have a celta), and they are making 12 g's a month. if they work two shifts then they double that. not bad making $6,000/ month.

[MELEE]

With three years of engineering studying. There is a good chance the Texas Teaching Fellows would take you on in high school math or science instead of teaching ESL. At the end of the time, you'd be Texas state Teaching License. While I don't think this would further your goal of teaching at a University in the middle east, it would allow you to teach Math or Science at an international high school pretty much ANYWHERE in the world.

Where as teaching English at a language institute in Mexico, would allow you to eat as many tacos as you wanted for the time you were here. You'd probably really enjoy it. But at the end of the day, you wouldn't be much closer to your goals as you've described them.

btw, no I've never met any muslims here, and muslims are not the only people who try to avoid debt.

[mikejones]

something tells me that i'd probably meet more muslims in texas. i mean one of the two saudi embassies is in houston.

don't get me wrong, i like diversity, but i also want to be around my people, too.

[Milenka]

There are Muslims in Mexico, albeit not as many as in other countries. Just google "Islam en M�xico" to see it for yourself.

Don't let Catholic/State propaganda mislead you into thinking that ALL Mexicans are Catholic. Many embrace other religions, and many of those, like myself, don't have ANY (and no, I never add the odd remark 'gracias a dios' to that statement).

Cheers,
Milenka

[john_n_carolina]

...Texas Teaching -- do science, and i think there are ways for the school district to pay for your Masters once you start. at least when I checked it out a few years ago.

one side thing to remember, is teaching in a public school in downtown Houston will not be Disneyworld. I would doubt if any first year teacher has energy to go to class at night after a 730-430 day at an inner-city public school. so, you might not even have energy to study at night. you might be pouring Whiskeysours instead and praying for the 3PM bell on Friday.

[lozwich]

Something for your life outside work.. I heard from a Muslim the other day that you can't get halal food here, which means you'd have to be vegetarian, which brings its own set of challenges...

[NinaNina]

Having been an elementary school student in the east, west and south in the '70s, I have to say schools in the south are another kettle of fish. At the time, I was surprised by all the teacher and principal violence toward kids (I was in Lumberton, North Carolina, which was very small town and maybe not comparable to a Texas school).

So when my friend went to New Orleans for the emergency teaching positions there a couple years ago, I told her she might be surprised by this attitude, but I also wondered if it was a thing of the past. Indeed, she saw repeated cases of a teacher abusing kids and, with no CPS reporting procedure equivalent in New Orleans, had only the principal and parents as options for reporting the incidents. Well, the parents shrugged it off and the principal harassed her (as my California principal did whenever I needed to call social services for emergency intervention on the part of my students), and she had to leave before the year was over.

Maybe these are isolated incidents, but the fact that she was not contractually required to report the violence to a social service agency (the way licensed California teachers are) certainly encourages this type of problem proliferating.

[mikejones]

i think i'm going to forgo everything i talked about and just go for the tacos. mexico seems like a better place.

but on a more serious note, kids here in saudi are no piece of cake either. most of their families are loaded and they could care less about going to school. i think i could role with the punches for a while until i received my masters, then just ship back to the middle east.

[mikejones]

oops. i meant roll with the punches, not role with the punches. my bad.