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[aog5003]

I want to write about my experience at Colegio Ingles de Puebla. I had written something before but was forced to take it down because it was difficult for the English coordinator to hire new teachers. However, now that it is the end of the year, I am going to re-write it.

I have been teaching here for two years only because I had other reasons for staying in Mexico. The students are by far the best part of my job. Even though they can be a little spoiled, they are wonderful to teach, at least compared to my experiences teaching in the USA.

However, my the director or secondary and high school is the most incompetent person in the world. She had a relationship with one of the teachers which resulted in him getting fired and not her. There have been 4 different math teachers since the beginning of the year and eleven people have quit or been fired since the beginning of the year as well because they could not stand the directory of seconday and bach. She is horrible at communicating and also blamed the English teachers for all of her mistakes! For example, one day I was absent due to being sick, and because it was a day that Mexico was playing in the world cup, a lot of students did not show up to school. The Mexican director told the owners of the school that I let all of the kids leave early. When the English coordinator heard this, she told the owners that I wasn't even in school that day. Of course the director got caught in her own lies, and that was not even the first time.

After this year, half of the staff are leaving because of how horrible the school is. The directors are very cheap and make the teachers use a lot of their own pocket money for things they shouldnt have to. (For example, dia del nino, some teachers had to pay 150 pesos for the kids. Some teachers only earn that in one day!)

A lot of other schools offer perks such as paying for your plane fare home, you FM3 documents, drivers, personal days, and more. The school only gives you three "economic days" which is common in Mexico, but what I have heard from other foreign teachers is that other schools will give them time to fly home for interviews, family reasons, etc.

Also, the school limits how many copies you can make . My 9th grade students had to take the First Certificate test, and a practice test is about 20 pages. The school said they "couldnt afford it" and I had to figure out a way to make the copies myself and collect about ten pesos from each student. The owners of the school are very wealthy, but just very cheap. After the English spelling bee, they bought VERY cheap and horrible prizes for the students. After Model United Nations, the English teachers put together their own money so the students would have nice prizes and be rewarded for their efforts.

Basically, if you are coming to Puebla, do not teach at this school. There are many other nice schools here who pay the same if not more, and will treat you much better. Not being respected is one thing that was hard for me and my co-workers, but we made it through because, like I said, we had other reasons to stay in Mexico. After all, it was just a temporary job and we did have each other.

[Samantha]

Two years is not usually a temporary job. You don't have to leave Mexico (or any country) when you don't like the job you are in. If you are qualified, it is usually fairly easy to change jobs.

aog5003 wrote: