FINALLY!! Summer Vacation

It's SUMMMMMERRRR!!! It came a little later than usual, not just because Mexican kids are in school until the beginning of July, but swine flu pushed the closing of school back one week. So, as I sit here on my first official day of summer, I'm pleased by the blank palate in front of me. And I'm really trying to make the most of it because, who knows, this blank palate may not be so blank next summer :). 

One of the major differences about this summer is that I'm now married. That makes it harder to jet-set off by myself without feeling bad or lonely without my husband (and also my bestest friend and travel companion). Without a care in the world, I used to fly out to faraway places the week school was out and stay out until the last possible week. Oh, the joys of youth, singleness, and paid summers off. 

The second major difference is that, instead of two, I'm down to one month of summer vacay. I know, pobrecita me! For the one month, I've come up with some tentative plans:

• Do some schoolwork ('cuz I can never get it fully off my mind). I have a grand plan of making big songbooks of annoying, but great, ESL songs. And perhaps learn to the play the guitar well enough to make merry music in the classroom.

• Prepare an ESL training seminar about teaching English through the usual (songs, poetry, games) but also through the use of amazing children's literature as a springboard to writing. Schooling here is still very traditional and textbook-heavy. 

• Travel un poco. I can't be here in Mexico and not hit up the beach or Oaxaca. In 2007, I arranged to be in Oaxaca for the summer, learn more about the indigenous arts, and study Spanish. Then, the love bug bit me, and I cancelled those plans and followed my love to wherever he was. So now's my chance, and I'm hoping to go to Guelaguetza. Know of any other exciting festivals in July and August?

• Study Spanish. I've felt a lag in my Spanish, as communicating with children can be rife with repetition and command forms, i.e. Hazlo! Dámelo! Escuchame! I need to work on preterite vs. imperfect, future hypotheticals, and general fluency. 

• Read, run, cook, and be crafty cool. Take a look at Etsy and be acquainted with some of the coolest crafters ever born.
  

Oh, and by the way, we completed the "My Life Project" this week, and the kids were very proud of their work. I did take digital photos of the prints to show you, but the images were erased off my camera. I learned a thing or two about giving cameras to kids who have a questionable sense of responsibility, but the final products were fantastic and worth it!

My Life Project

Since the end of the school year's almost here, I am trying out a new project with some of my students. I know it should be the time to wind down, but for me, I like to use the last few weeks for a cool project. This year, I'm calling it the "My Life Project". It's sort of a selfish endeavor for me because I am interested in life amongst Mexico City's poorest, but I'm hoping it'll be a good eye-opening opportunity for the kids to take a critical look at their surroundings.

So what I'm going is this: I'm giving 32 kids a disposable camera to document a day in their life. Then, with the photos they take, they are going to compile a book with English captions (had to sneak in the English somewhere). I've mostly confined the project to out-of-school hours since I don't want a whole lot of pictures of kids sitting in desks. The cameras were a donation years ago from a lady I knew who worked at Fuji in Dallas, and for some reason, it's taken me this long to pull them out. I hope the roll of film isn't warped; and I hope I can still find someone to develop the film. 

We've just started our project, so we have been talking about life with your family, life in a community, the people who make up a community, etc. Then I gave them a crash course in taking interesting pictures. I explained that the "normal" pictures with loved ones standing side-by-side smiling big is not really an interesting photo. Interesting photos capture emotions, the scenery, and often, the way the two are put together make a photo interesting. All this in Spanish, by the way. And all of this with 9-year-olds!

Since the school is a technological dinosaur, I couldn't just pull up photos of other kids who had done similar projects. Instead, I passed out a few National Geographic magazines, and we searched for and discussed what makes certain photographs interesting. Ideally, this part of the project would take months, and the kids would have time to practice taking pictures. But, alas, the resources are scarce, and we have just three weeks and one chance to get it done. Even if the students can take away one really good photo from the project, I'll be happy. The kids are super excited, and I find it a waaayyy more interesting way to conduct English class. :) 

Christel House Mexico

Here are some videos I found on YouTube about my school. The first is in Spanish, and the second is in English. For friends and family back home who have asked, you can find pictures of the kids and facilities in these videos.

If you're interested in donating time or money, you can visit the Christel House website for more information. In the short time I've been there, I have been amazed by all the random affiliations with this school. Case 1 of random affiliation: while standing in a Turibus line, there were two ladies from Indianapolis in front of me with plans to visit my school the next day, and Case 2: met a friend of a friend who attended our 10 year anniversary last year on behalf of ING. It took the commitment of one person, Christel de Haan, to bring this international community together--cool!

Unbeknownst to be me, two relatives of Christel House students died during the influenza. Here's the 411 on that:

Teaching English in Mexico Part 2

Okay, where I work is not ordinary. It's an NGO that takes kids from one of Mexico City's poorest barrios--metal shacks, mud floors, no running water--and gives them a full day's education, access to health care, technology, English, etc. If you saw the kids, the smiles on their faces, the slicked back hair, the uniforms, your first thought wouldn't be, "Poor kids. They look so dirty and malnourished." Their school is bright, noisy, full of laughter, but those happy thoughts quickly fade as soon as you hear their stories. I'll recount the ones heard in just the past two days. A 1st grader was taken from his mother because she punished him as a toddler by dunking his head in buckets of water. A 3rd grade boy and his brother were placed in an orphanage because their mother pad-locked them up in a dark room for 3 days without food or water. A 4th grader is in therapy because her uncle rapes her. And the stories, unfortunately, aren't unique...whether here in Mexico or around the world. 

Poverty, lack of education, and substance abuse breeds such atrocities, and it's rampant in this country. Today, I read that Mexico is initiating an English program within 5,000 primary schools with the hopes of expanding it nationwide. In reflecting on my own job and seeing how sometimes teaching English to kids that often don't have a firm grasp of their own language and are struggling to just survive, I wonder if the government might be better off trying to build more schools so all kids can attend, working toward a longer school day, spending more money on teaching training, teacher salaries, early childhood education, etc. Teaching a second language in a global world is a worthy effort, but ensuring all kids can even step through the doors of a school each day is an even worthier one.

14.6

What a week for the peso. Since making the decision to move to Mexico, the peso has dropped over 30% and continues to make historic drops each day. I've been watching the peso since September, trying to decide when would be a good time to send money home to pay off school debts and other things. I kept hoping the 11 would go back to 10, then the 12 back to 11, the 13 back to 12, and now really wondering if the peso will ever drop below 14 this year. And trying to predict its variability is as confounding as predicting Texas weather. The Bank of Mexico even tried to buy pesos yesterday to pull the peso back up, but to no avail. 

In a conversation with a fellow expat co-worker today, she moaned the fact that teacher salaries here don't add up to much when there are debts to pay back home. She calculated that she makes about $4 an hour--maybe about average here in this country--but definitely not enough to send home. She said she'll be packing up her bags and heading back north when the school year ends. Vales keep her fed, but the cost of rent and debts are posing too big of a concern despite really wanting to stay. 

I'm thankful my husband has a job that allows us to live well here in this country, but our stomachs will be churning when we have to finally give in and send that money home at a 30% loss. 

UPDATE: buying up pesos seems to be working. As on Feb 6, the peso fell to 14.1!

What's up with pubic education here?

Before moving to Mexico, my initial intention was to find a teaching position within the public or private school setting. It was something of an internal comparative research project to find out why Mexican schools sit at the bottom of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) list. In tested areas of reading, mathematics, and science, Mexican students routinely score at level 1 proficiencies, which indicates they only possess knowledge level skills and lack critical thinking abilities. Could schools here be that bad? (Yes, and click here to read more about the recent 2006 PISA results) There are other countries who share similar economic straits as Mexico but don't fare as poorly, so if it's not tied to socioeconomics then it must be something inherently wrong with the system.

First thing I discovered about public school here is that all teachers HAVE to belong to the teacher's union. Talk about putting a choke hold on the system and letting it suffocate. I have seen good things come from teacher unions in the states, such as pay raises and a collective voice, but, for me, teacher unions ultimately give rise to complacent teachers. And it's teachers who make the difference in the success of a student--not money, not class size, and not access to technology or materials. Teacher unions in the US differ in their strength and authority over the system, but teacher unions here in Mexico seem to have a complete grasp over how the system is run. Every time you hear about teachers in Mexico, it's because they're protesting. Not just 3 days but for 3 weeks. And all across the country from Oaxaca to Morelos to Baja California to Mexico City. They might be fighting for worthy causes of better pay and quality of education, but the system isn't going to improve without better teachers. To me, the heart of the matter goes back to quality of teachers. It's a problem in the US, but it's a bigger problem here. 

A few stories from Fall 2008:

*Teachers protest regulations on the practice of selling/giving their jobs away

*Head of the teachers union gives union officials Hummers

Because of my foreign status, I couldn't work in a public school, but I did find something more adventurous and as close to public school kids as I could get. I work for an NGO, but SEP-governed, school here in Mexico City, which takes kids from one of the poorest delegations and provides them with educational, health, and community opportunities. As part of their vision to help these kids break the cycle of poverty, they are taught English in the primary grades, much like their private school counterparts. That's where I serve, and it's where I've had my firsthand public school-like experiences. 

While it's not the case in every classroom, I have noticed a general lack of classroom discipline and rigor on the part of the classroom teacher. I see one too many teachers "planning" their lessons on the fly, checking their cellphones for text messages, executing their lessons without real authority or passion for what they're teaching, and a lack of interest in whether the students learn or not. I thought the US system of No Child Left Behind was broken, but I see now that over-accountability is better than none. Under NCLB, I was nervous if my students didn't meet academic standards. My job and my school were held over an intense microscopic lens that put us all in fear. It's not a good system, by any means, but students were learning more than before NCLB. 

There are some good things to be said about where I work. One of the differences at my school is that students go to school from 7-4 instead of the regular public school hours of 8-1. It's a much longer school day for everyone, but in a country that has lots of catching up to do, it's an example I think public schools should follow. Also, the teachers at my school are not unionized, and because it's an NGO, directors have the right to fire sub-par teachers. Being able to fire ineffective teachers, like in other workplace settings, is a right and a power that should be held by administrators, not by unions. 

Teaching requires a highly styled and skilled type of individual who is able to charm students into the wide world of learning  and one who can also organize and manage groups of 30+. It's a struggle all teachers face, and it's one that I'm not sure should ever be overcome. I still have lots of thoughts on this mini-research project of mine and plan to ask some local teachers about their thoughts on unions, the state of education here, quality of teachers, etc.. in the meantime, would love to start some conversation on this with fellow foreigners.

Teaching English in Mexico City

If you're looking for a position teaching English, it can be quite troubling not knowing where to start and not having any contacts. Here are a few that I have come across that helped in my job search:

A good article by Michelle Joyce in Transitions Abroad containing a small list of schools in Mexico City. 

Monica Gomez of Global ERS, a FREE, highly-efficient one-woman placement agency based out of Puebla but staffs throughout Mexico. 

Teacher MexConnect, another staffing agency with a more comprehensive network in Mexico, charges a fee of $25 or $60 depending on the number of resumes you want to submit. 

El Universal, a major DF newspaper, has an extensive online classified section. Click on 'aviso', then 'empleos' for job opportunities. 

Also, the January 2009 publication of Chilango, a local magazine, provides a guide to private schools in Mexico City, divided up by location. Almost all are bilingual schools, and many will be hiring in the coming months.