A year ago I sent out around thirty applications to various teaching positions in southern California to try to find work closer to where my mother lives. I heard back from two, one in Thermal, and the other, an administrative position in Indio. I think both places reached 127 degrees the summer of 2006.I'm far from fluent in Spanish, and I've been teaching a long time. Perhaps this is why I didn't get responses, but schools in Chile wanted me, and every school I visited welcomed my teaching skills with open arms.
Before I left, I researched several places and set up entrevistas. The first interview was at private school, Santiago College, which invited me back to teach a lesson in phonemic awareness to third graders. I also visited a fourth grade class and talked about California and my novel HUNGRY. I was given the Chilean hello upon my second visit, touching cheek to cheek with both the director, Sra. Farba, and the curriculum specialist whose name was Susanne, if I remember correctly. They were amazed that in California we teach EVERYthing: art, music, p.e., on and on and on . . .
I followed this interview with another at the Universidad de San Sebastien, within walking distance from our hostel. On his trip to Chile earlier in the year, Bill had talked to Sra. Pichilaf, a professor there, and found out about the commitment the country has made to teaching English. American English, at that. I don't have a master's degree, but I do have over twenty years of teaching at Title One schools and two credentials. I was offered a job to teach writing, English, and reading pedagogy to university students enrolled in the education department. San Sebastien was the first of many brand new schools Bill and I saw. The students who go to it are from the public school system, and many are the first generation in their families to have an opportunity to get a degree.
We then visited with Mr. Donald Bergman, the director of Nido de Aguilas, the American International School in Santiago, considered to be one of the most prestigious in the country. The atmosphere of the office made me feel I was back home. Half of the students are Chileans, the rest are children of diplomats and foreign business people. As an international school, representatives come to various hiring fairs in the United States. There is one in San Francisco in the spring. It's important to know that to receive a higher salary, you should be hired at one of these fairs. If I chose to work at Nido, I'd go to the San Francisco fair and make the job official this way.
I work with a Chileana, my good friend, Veronica McGee. She suggested we go to Lincoln International School, as she worked there in the 1970s. We mentioned her name to the director, Mr. Seaquist, and a big grin spread across his face. Veronica had been his teacher! Mr. Seaquist offered Bill and I both positions, starting whenever we could move to Santiago. Lincoln is a small school, which I liked a lot. Students are taught in English through the 6th grade (maybe the 8th? can't remember), and then they are taught in Spanish. I found this to be a common practice, as students need to pass the national exams to be able to graduate.
St. Margaret's British School for Girls is in Concon, a couple hours north of Santiago near the city of Vina Del Mar. (I apologize for writing "n".) I felt like I had walked into a spa. The school is bright and shiny and new. Every classroom has a view of the ocean. In emails to friends, I compared the view to that of Fort Ross on the northern California coast. The director, Sra. Avril Cooper, was warm and was thrilled when she found out I was Anglican. The student population consists of all girls, from kindergarten to 12th grade. The school is committed to the International Baccalaureate Program and sends its teachers to England to be trained.The last school I went to was a complete surprise. Seven hours north of Santiago are the sister cities of La Serena and Coquimbo, which I plan to write more about. In Coquimbo, however, Bill was walking around in a stunning area that looked like Joshua Tree by the sea: beautiful boulders rolling down to crashing waves. In the U.S., this place would have been gobbled up by millionaires long ago, but it's one of the poorest places in Chile. Here, he found a brand new school which looked very much like St. Margaret's with the same panoramic view of the Pacific. He thought it was a private school. I went back with him the next day, and the welcome we got, two Americans just wandering in, was one of the most amazing experiences of our lives.
The school's name is Juan Pablo Segundo, but even though it's named for a pope, it's a public school. The Chilean government has spent three million dollars on new schools for the area. I brought my resume along, just in case. We told Verela, the English teacher at Juan Pablo, that we were visiting Chile and were considering moving to the country. She told us I could start work immediately if I wanted to!
Many of the children at the school are descendants of English pirates, the corsarios, who with Francis Drake used Coquimbo as a port to raid Spanish Galleons. There were many children with fair skin and freckles. Juan Pablo Segundo is two years old, and this is the first time the children had even gone to school. The first thing they had to learn was how to use a bathroom, as they used the Joshua Tree like rocks around their homes before. The teachers are highly dedicated. They say that the kids can be challenging at times, but that they are sweet. They and their families are incredibly happy to have the gift of education finally given to them.
We were invited to come back for a tea, a celebration for the three students with the highest grade in each class. While we waited, the president of the school, a charming 7th grade girl welcomed us in her very best English, while other students huddled around with pretend microphones as though she were interviewing us for television. The tea was delicious, along with sandwiches and cake, and we were told to go to the Education Department in town and drop off another resume. We did this the next day, and I'm proud to say our Spanish was good enough to get us pass the security guard and to communicate with a secretary about why we were there.
So many opportunities boggled us. We're still sorting things out. Coquimbo has its charms, and it's cheaper than Santiago. In La Serena, we found lunches for $1.60, where comparable lunches in Santiago were around $3-$5 dollars. I love being near the ocean, and Coquimbo/La Serana offer this option. Santiago, though, offers more varied opportunities, closer to the airport for trips back home, and living in a city would be so different from our life in rural northern California. We go back and forth and back again, able to imagine an array of permutations for our future.
Then . . .
On our last day, Bill and I were making last minute shopping choices (and, boy, do I wish I brought home more sweaters, scarfs, and shawls to give as presents). We were standing next to a stall with mugs with Allende and Pinochet's faces on them. Mugs on mugs, I guess. The vendor was putting her finger to her throat, indicating what Pinochet did to Allende, and Bill made a comment about how, perhaps, Pinochet's portrait should be on a chamber pot. He started talking to a gentleman standing nearby who laughed heartily at the joke.
Mr. Mattus is an epidemiologist who works at the World Bank in New York. His wife is the Chilean ambassador to Peru. He found out that I taught, took my name, and gave it to a friend who is a professor at the Preuniversitario de Chile, a feeder school to the Universidad de Chile. Yesterday I received an email and was offered a position to teach IMMEDIATELY!
Ahhhhhh!!!!! We have to sell the house in a depressed housing market. We have three dogs. I have to focus on writing, and school will start again here in California before I know it. But I think Chile is calling us, and in a year, we may be there.
