Mexico:Villahermosa

From WAET

Figure 1. Villahermosa in relation to Mexico City.

Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico

If one could imagine how an oil town such as a Dallas or Calgary would appear in a Mexican context, Villahermosa is that example. Located in southeastern Mexico, in the Mexican State of Tabasco (yes, indeed, the place where the peppers for the famous “hot sauce” are said to have come from), Villahermosa is Tabasco’s capital and largest city. Originally founded in 1557 on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico by noted conquistador Hernán Cortés, Villahermosa was known early in its existence as villa Hermosa de San Juan Bautista. The city eventually came to be relocated to its present and rather idyllic lush, tropical, lowland marsh region setting beside the Rio Grijalva, about 65 miles south of the Gulf Coast. Villahermosa encompasses much of the core area of the State’s Municipio (Municipality) of Centro.

Figure 2. Comalcalco Church, a typical colonial church in Tabasco.

As of the “XII Censo General de Población y Vivienda 2000” (twelfth general census in 2000), Centro’s official population was 519,873 inhabitants, of which 251,518 (48.38%) were male and 268,355 (51.62%) were female, with the city representing 27.52% of the population of Tabasco (H. Ayuntamiento Constitucional de Centro, 2004a). Local residents claim the unofficial population of Centro, when including migrant workers and undocumented poor, to be at over 1 million people. The average temperature of the city is 96 degrees Fahrenheit (or 35 degrees Celsius), with its jungle vegetation and related variety of biodiversity reflective of its tropical location and climate (Centro, 2004b). The numerous lagoons located within the city are part of the massive water resources of the state. Tabasco has a concentration of one third of the water resources of Mexico, including being the location where the Rio Usumacinta, the third largest river in North America, meets the sea (Cushman & Wakefield Mexico Start Up Services Group, 2004).

Figure 3. Gran Rio Grijalvaat Uyotot-Ja and Pantanos de Centla Biosphere Reserve, an example of local lowland march terrain.

While some agricultural production does take place within Centro. The primary crops include maíz (corn), banana, and cacao production, with each, respectively, representing 58.86%, 23.76% and 7.03% of agricultural surface area in the municipality. There is also some unorganized commercial fishing occurring in the Rio Grijalva and local lagoon systems. Oil is what primarily drives the local and state economy (Centro, 2004c).

Figure 4. A banana plantation, just outside of Villahermosa.

Mexico, Tabasco and Centro are awash in oil dollars from PEMEX, Mexico’s nationally-owned monopoly for the exploration, production, distribution, and retailing of petroleum. “…(D)espite the fact that Mexican oil export revenues make up only about 7% of total export revenues, they account for around one-third of government income, meaning that the oil sector plays a major [even disproportionate] role in Mexican economic policy” (Feld, 2005). Tabasco provides ample evidence of this, where oil only became a major economic factor for the state beginning in the 1970s (US Dept. of Army, 1996b). Since then the significant growth of both Tabasco and Villahermosa has become “economically based largely on the petroleum industry” (Cushman & Wakefield, 2004).

Figure 5. Pyramid Comalcalco, Mayan ruins outside of Villahermosa.

The Southern regional office for PEMEX exploration and production operations is located in Villahermosa. With oil being king in the city and for the state, it is unsurprising that Villahermosa has come to be designed around the automobile, reflecting that “the infrastructure is largely developed to suit the petroleum industry” (Cushman & Wakefield, 2004). This, combined with the limited, unattractive, and what locals consider to be an unsafe “public” transit system, have all resulted in traffic congestion and car pollution becoming significant problems in the city. Local social life also seems to revolve around vehicles, in addition to centering around major shopping malls. These malls are often locales where people travel to simply get out of the heat and into an air-conditioned environment, as well as to shop, enjoy a meal, chat over a coffee with friends, or watch a movie in a mega-cinema.

Colegio Inglés de Villahermosa

The school, Colegio Inglés de Villahermosa, is considered one of the top five private schools in Villahermosa and offers fee-for-entrance education in Preescolar (pre-school), Primaria (American equivalents of primary school grades of 1 to 6), Secundaria (American equivalents of secondary school grades 7 to 9), and Bachillerato or Preparatoria (American equivalents of senior secondary school grades of 10 to 12).

Figure 6. The Colegio Inglés de Villahermosa.

Private schools are now quite common in Mexico as they are seen by a growing number of middle- and upper- income parents to provide a superior education to public schools. SEP’s online searchable database offers the following collected statistics, placed within four separate tables, relating to SEP-approved post-Primaria education levels of Bachillerato (Preparatoria), Secundaria, Profesional Técnico (Trades), and Educación Especial (worker) schools located within the State of Tabasco and the State’s Capital City, Villahermosa (Centro), with school numbers as these relate to particular (Private) schools bolded within the tables^[1]:

While the curriculum for all Bachileerator or Preparatoria programs in Mexico is determined by the SEP, including for the Colegio Inglés de Villahermosa, such programs are considered optional education and, as such, require a fee for entrance. These programs are generally taken by those who have successfully completed the mandatory preparatory education and who plan to seek eventual entry in to university studies. At the privately-owned Colegio Inglés, tuition fees averaged 1,500 pesos (approximately $150.00 USA) per month. The Colegio, owned and executively-administered by members of one family, also charged for most every incidental item, including textbooks, school uniforms, school events (i.e., school gatherings like the annual Day of the Dead social), school outings, photocopies of in-class materials, as well as higher costs for in-house food sold through its cafeteria.

Figure 7. The Colegio Inglés de Villahermosa.

High tuition fees and numerous incidental charges result in the Colegio attracting the children of upper-income and more socially-mobile families. This reflects the “great income inequality” in Mexico, where the richest tenth of the population earns “over 40 percent of total income, while the poorest tenth earns only 1.1 percent” of the income, thereby permitting those few with the greater financial means to access better services, including education (World Bank, 2004). That being said, the Colegio also has a number of foreign students who found themselves living in Villahermosa by virtue of having at least one parent on contract with PEMEX. It also had a handful of children from self-identified middle-class Mexican families (including some scholarship students and the children of some Colegio Maestros (teachers). Through individual conversations with students, I was able to determine that a majority of the students in my three classes had at least one parent working at PEMEX. This confirmed that these students and their families were indeed in the upper-income bracket of Mexicans, for PEMEX is a coveted place to work due to its relatively high-paying jobs as compared to income averages across the nation.

The Colegio has adopted a regimented operating style, with formal uniforms worn by students –a common practice in Mexico for both public and private schools. There are also strict rules regarding expected minimum academic averages of 75%, mandatory homework given by teachers each day in every class, protocols related to fraternization with students of the opposite sex, and specified school locations where food can or cannot be eaten. It was the policy of the Colegio that they wanted teachers to punish any poor classroom behavior exhibited by students with notes to parents and even threats of expulsion.

In SEP’s Mexican national math tests for the 2003/04 school year, Colegio Inglés’ two Secundaria 1 classes both earned equivalent ranks of 30% (class-averaged scores of 6.3 and 6.1), while its two Secundaria 2 classes achieved ranks of 25% and 20% (class-averaged scores of 4.5 and 3.7), and its two Secundaria 3 classes acquired ranks of 22% and 20% (class-averaged scores of 4.3 and 4.0). In Mexico’s national tests in physics, the Colegio did better, with its two Secundaria 2 classes ranking at 43% and 41% (class-averaged scores of 4.3 and 4.1) and its two Secundaria 3 classes achieving ranks that placed them at 61% and 62% (class-averaged scores of 6.1 and 6.2).

Somewhat ironically, the school’s marketing slogan is “Educar hoy, para un futuro exitoso” (educate today, for a successful future) yet the school’s marketing brochure for Fall 2004 featured a color photo of Colegio students working on antiquated typewriters, rather than modern computers. The Colegio does train students on computer usage and computer-related software, however it does not offer its students with any training on or access to the Internet.

The Teacher

My name is Tom Esakin and I was born and raised in Canada, worked in various careers as a political organizer and advisor, as a senior administrator of Canadian charities, and in sustainable development. I lived and worked in Villahermosa from August 2004 until April 2005, and working at the Colegio during August to December 2004. My work in Villahermosa was my first high school teaching experience. I previously worked in Haiti, and was thus familiar with working in foreign locales. In addition, my life-partner is a nationalized Mexican who had, over the years, helped to expand my understanding and general perceptions of Mexico and its citizens.

Mexico, unlike other countries, maintains a mandatory 6 day work week. Despite the prominence and wealth of the private school, standards and conditions are greatly lower than those in Canadian private schools. The World Bank chooses to classify Mexico as an Upper Middle Income Country, considering the country to be only one step below the High Income countries of the G8 and developed world. In practical terms, what this may mean is captured in a recent, groundbreaking, study in Mexico – one conducted by the federal Secretaría de Desarrollo Social and whose study details are quoted in the respected El Universal newspaper based in Mexico City. This study was groundbreaking in that it is said to represent the very first time that the Mexican poor were surveyed by their own national government. The study identified that in Mexico, a country with a national population of 104 million people, 50 million of the country’s citizens or 48% of its population live on less than 45 pesos (US$4.50) per day (Pastrana, 2006; International, 2006). Of these same 50 million citizens, almost one half of them have an income of less than 26 pesos (US$2.60) per day (Pastrana, 2006). Further, within this same block of 50 million citizens, 20 million of them or 21% of Mexico’s entire population are classified as the “extreme poor” and have an income that does not exceed 16 pesos (i.e., US$1.60) per day (Pastrana, 2006). In the study’s survey of 3,000 of Mexico’s poor living in marginal communities throughout the country, those polled explained that they are more fearful of losing their jobs than they are of death and, to the question of “who are the poor?”, 42.7% said that the poor are those who have nothing to eat (Pastrana, 2006). While these statistics can be disturbing to many residents of developed countries, it is worth noting that “…’official statistics’…are socially constructed…”, and one could even further suggest they are socially interpreted through one’s own cultural and societal lens (Hoggart, Lees & Davies, 2002, p.105).

I taught English and an introduction to sustainable development course to three classes of students – one each from Preparatoria 1 (American equivalent to Grade 10) with 37 students, Preparatoria 2 (Grade 11) with 25 students, and Preparatoria 3 (Grade 12) with 27 students. I also served as a Coordinator of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Club at the school, helping to teach sustainable development to the club’s members and its’ lead teacher.

Creating an Open Learning Environment

A day in the life of a student of Colegio Ingles has students arriving at school between 6:30am and 7am when classes begin. On Monday’s, students and teachers must arrive at the school before 6:45am so that they then can participate in the mandatory group ritual of saluting the Mexican flag and singing the Mexican national anthem, followed by school announcements. Students are not permitted to leave the school until the end of the school day, unless met by a parent at the locked front gate. Students begin the early day quietly as they prepare for the start of classes. Each Secundaria student is provided with a locker for books and personal belongings. Preparatoria students, who are taught in the same classroom throughout the school day, kept their belongings under their desk in their respective class. Classes are held for 50 minutes each, with no formal breaks held between classes and one 30 minute combined rest, water, meal, recreation and socialization break beginning at 10:20am. Volleyball was a popular break-time pastime for students of all grades, with a break-time tournament organized half-way through the semester. Classes for Preparatoria students ended at 2:20pm each day.

Students retained the same course schedule for each four month semester. Depending on the grade level, my Ingles classes were held in one of the first three morning classes. “Ingles” and “computadoras” were two of a number of required subjects taken by all students. In the computer lab class, students were taught keyboarding, as well as basic Microsoft programs such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Internet use and information literacy are not included in such lessons. Computer lab access is not permitted outside of regular (although not daily) fifty-minute computadoras class. Students also had elective classes they could choose related to their selected “career” path. In Mexico, students and parents do not speak of a person continuing their educational “studies” in a post-secondary institution, they speak of the “career” they want to “study”. Sal, the Colegio’s Physical Education instructor, arranged for students to play basketball after-school on his own time at a nearby city park. The year I was at the Colegio, the school invited students to participate in the first Student Council elections to be held in years, with students (upon receiving Colegio permission) being able to join identifiable political slates with whom they developed and then campaigned on political platforms. I also developed and taught break-time courses on democracy, political campaigning, and policy development for student slates running in the elections. Once-per-week during a 30 minute break period and also once-per-week after school, interested students could participate in the activities of the school’s UNESCO Club, which had a school-directed focus on the school grounds and its physical environment.

During the average day in the life of a school teacher (or “Maestro”), once on school property, they were not permitted to leave without an exit note from an immediate supervisor (used to pass through the Colegio security check point) or upon the official end of the school day. Teachers were required to use a punch-clock to note their times of entrance and exit in to the Colegio. If a punch-card was not used, a teacher was not paid. If late three times during one semi-monthly pay-period were noted, the teacher was docked one full day of pay. Based upon their contracts, the school could require teachers to work anytime during a twelve hour or more period in a given workday during the formal six-day (Monday to Saturday) work week. However, in practice, the work day normally ran from 7am until 3pm Monday through Friday. Whether a teacher worked more hours in a day or on the weekend was at the full discretion of the Colegio administration. Occasional evening work was, as anticipated, required for student functions. Yet it was also a common directive by the Colegio that teachers attend mandatory training sessions, which most often were scheduled during long weekends (four day breaks in Mexico, over a Friday to Monday period). The Colegio adopted the Accelerated Learning Method as the pedagogical method for teachers. In a mandatory week-long workshop, teachers were indoctrinated in this program which was largely based on memorization with a variety of techniques used to help “accelerate” a student’s memory skills. The teacher’s job is to teach the SEP curriculum designed to ensure students can pass the end of year national exams. Exams do not contain essay questions but require memorization of specific data for identified subject areas. Information such as formulas and equations and names and dates were the primary focus of such programs. Maestros, while once belonging to a respected profession, are now considered near the low-end of the social and professional spectrum in Mexico, with matching low wages reflective of this reduced social status. Thus, Mexican nationals often take teaching positions as a temporary career move until more desirable work becomes available. The teaching field in Mexico, as in the rest of North America, has a high percentage of women.

Figure 8. School UNESCO office and team.

I consciously developed a set of personal teaching guidelines to follow at the Colegio. The first was to make the learning experience one of equality, where the teacher and his “fellow students” would co-learn (in essence, I would be a co-student). The second was to expand the students’ learning experience by attempting to open up the world to them while encouraging students to open up their world to me. This included my wanting to be called by my first name of “Tom” and being fully open to admit when I did not have answers to questions, all to make co-learning more evident. The third was to teach the individual and not the class and, if the individual was not learning, it was incumbent on me to change my approach to one that worked more successfully for that individual student. Fourth was to consciously engage students in modern computer and Internet technologies as part of their studies. While aware that English was the official subject being taught in the classes, I wanted to use it only as a foundation upon which other subjects could be introduced to the students. Finally, I sought to teach the students in a way that would help prepare them for university studies. On the very first day of classes I explained all of this to my co-students. Cultural differences in communication styles were also discussed, particularly that Canadians may have a more direct style in communicating as compared to a more indirect Mexican approach. I additionally explained that I did not believe in “right or wrong” answers, only in different ways for people to look at things, and encouraged my students to have open dialogue about these ways. This approach is similar to one proposed by Michael Apple and James Beane in Democratic Schools (see Apple & Beane, 1995).

After I had each class develop their own “Code of Conduct” for behavior in their individual class. Ideas from students in each class were written up on the blackboard before an agreed code was transcribed and displayed at the front. In a subsequent class, each class also came up with their own “Consequences” for the breaking of their own “Code of Conduct”, which were then added to the display. In all classes one similar “consequence” was extra homework, which itself also came to involve Internet-based research. Humorously, after three months of teaching Internet-based research, one day one student in Preparatoria 401 literally pleaded that she be given extra homework – which, as an always well-behaved student, she did not require. It seems she wanted an excuse to conduct research on a particular interest, figure skating. This was a seemingly unusual interest for a person raised in a tropical climate – yet, also surprising to a Canadian, was that Villahermosa has a skating rink located at one of the local malls.

Using the Technology in an Open Learning Environment

While a majority of students had an e-mail address, approximately one third of students did not. I learned at this time that none of the students in any of the classes had ever been involved with research using the Internet, for school or anything else. I provided the students with details of where to acquire free e-mail addresses (e.g., Yahoo or Hotmail), and gave a brief explanation about search engines and how to search the Internet (e.g., Google, Yahoo, Dogpile). I also asked students to subscribe to the online “Word of the Day” service from www.dictionary.com, explaining that each day in class I would review the online word from the previous day to see who had accessed it and to ensure class understanding of each new word. I explained that one of my main purposes was to help prepare the students for university studies. Interestingly, throughout the four month term only two students expressed challenges in accessing the Internet. One came to say he was “grounded by his parents” from using the computer and, while this student did very well in his grades in my class, he was doing poorly in a number of other subjects. The other student said she did not have a home computer and that her mother did not want to pay for regular Internet café access. Therefore the student and I arranged for research to be conducted through a print-based encyclopedia.

The formal course textbooks, developed by Oxford University, were always followed for the classes but supplemented with the addition of other cultural contexts and computer work. As an example of this, all of my classes had independently requested their “Code of Conduct” include the right to a regular outdoor class, which I would try to hold once every three weeks and would always include Internet-based research on a subject matter related to a cultural context (e.g., Thanksgiving Day in Canada or the United States, Remembrance Day in Canada and the United Kingdom, the First and Second World Wars and the Battle of Gallipoli, and the then-occurring American Presidential election in 2004) during these classes. Students were asked to research a given aspect of the subject matter and then to come to the outdoor class to read from and possibly discuss their downloaded material. I would randomly select what I thought were appropriate words from the readings, spell and define these for the students, speak to these words, and ask for thoughts as seemed necessary, and then remind the students that any of the identified words might appear on their next test.

After every four weeks of classes, an exam period was held over five days, where the Colegio required the teachers of English to provide each of their classes with a different exam on each day – with tests to be offered in each of vocabulary, reading, speaking, writing and grammar. For the September test period, I introduced the students to the concept of in-depth Internet-based research, receiving a test through the Internet, and a “take-home” exam. The vocabulary test format included a selection of the words e-mailed to students in that given month from the online Word of the Day service and a selection of words from the research shared in the outdoor classes and the textbook. These words, which were to be appropriately defined and used in a sentence, were e-mailed to students during the weekend before their vocabulary test. This process encouraged students to access the Internet prior to the test, as well as to use the Internet to search for clarification of word definitions and usage.

The take-home grammar test, used only for the September exam period, utilized one of the standard written grammar tests as found in one of the textbooks. In the September test period, students were assigned to groups and then given Internet-based research (conducted in English) on an assigned country and its peoples. Students were taught in and directed to use the five “Ws – Who, What, Where, When and Why,” plus “How” – as a guide when conducting their research, and were required to download a minimum of four pages in English to bring to their class on the days of their tests. The countries and peoples assigned are presented in Table 3.

Table 7. September Test Countries

Countries and its peoples were assigned as follows: 1. Serbia and Serbs 2. Turkey and Turkish 3. Netherlands / Holland and Dutch 4. China and Chinese 5. Thailand and Thai 6. India and Indians 7. Japan and Japanese 8. Ethiopia and Ethiopians

During the appropriate test, students were asked to use their downloaded Internet pages to answer the questions. Their speaking test consisted of students speaking from their downloaded material. Their written test consisted of using the downloaded pages to write an essay-style response to a given question, and the students were only informed they would write an essay from their material on the actual day of the test. An unexpected challenge with the research assignment for the tests was a “cultural difference” unrealized by me – this was that none of the students in any of the classes, even in their final year at the Colegio (Preparatoria 3 or the American and Canadian equivalent of Grade 12), had ever written an essay.

An unexpected understanding for me was to learn, through the exercise of trying to understand what books might be of interest for collective reading in my classes, that the reading of books is not a common activity in Mexico’s schools. While the SEP includes highlights from books within its educational materials, it does not require students to read full books. This explained how, in my Preparatoria 2 class, only 5 of 25 students had ever read a complete book. Reading revistas (magazines) served as the most commonly acknowledged reading material for students in all classes. When the students were asked about reading books for pleasure, this was widely regarded as an odd concept.

To add to this point, the Colegio Inglés itself did not have a library for student usage. The Colegio had a very small, dated, library which was available only as a resource for teachers (e.g., I only once used it to try and locate a photograph of the Earth as taken from outer space, but the library did not have any book with such a photo… and nor did the UNESCO office and its library located in downtown Villahermosa). One student, in need of access to books for a school project, advised me that she had been denied access to the library for a project. If taken at face value, SEP claims that, throughout Mexico, there are 815,000 Bibleotecas de Aula (classroom libraries) at public schools. This includes Primaria, Secundaria, and Preparatoria public schools (Secretaría, 2004b). SEP further claims that there are 225,000 Bibliotecas Escolares (school libraries) located in public schools throughout Mexico (Secretaría, 2004b). These statistics might be considered in light of Hoggart et al.’s (2002) observation that while statistics from “governmental agencies are likely to present a more comprehensive picture…”, one must keep in mind that “[t]here is politics to what information is presented to the public, how it is presented and what use can be made of it” (p.76). They also note that in the UK itself, there are an “…abundance of ‘fiddles’ in the computation of educational statistics” (p.107).

To my surprise over the four months of the term, it was not the use of technology or introduction to Internet-based research that proved the most challenging for me and the students, but the seemingly simple act of the students calling me by my first name of “Tom”. It soon came to be known that in Mexico’s more hierarchical societal structure, from the moment a person enters Primaria and until they leave either Secundaria or Preparatoria, students call their teachers by the title of “Maestro”, which is the Spanish equivalent to Teacher. I eventually came to learn that, apart from being the first-ever foreign teacher at the Colegio, I was also the first-ever teacher to encourage their students to call them by their actual name. The long and challenging process of encouraging my students to call me Tom (and after four months of teaching, I was not successful in having all of the students refer to me by my first name) re-enforced, for me, the shortcomings of the behavioral or rote model of learning. It re-enforced for me that memory is not learning – and this came to be the basis for me to teach “learning” styles to my students.

The “automatic” response of students when they were directly asked a question by me was to reply to the teacher with Maestro, as had been drilled into them for nine or more years. In the first couple of weeks of class, when a Maestro reply was given by a student I would gently remind that student of my first name of Tom. After this period of time, when the Maestro reply continued, I started to say that if a student called me “Maestro” I would then refer to that student as “Student”. This worked for a period of time, but also only for a few short weeks. Then, out of good fortune, the movie, “I, Robot” (“Yo Roboto” en Espanol) was released, and that provided the basis for me to help his students understand how to learn to “consciously” give answers versus simply answering unconsciously by rote.

Figure 11. A scene from the movie, I Robot.

In the movie “I, Robot” there were what I came to refer to as the “old robots” – those robots which simply took orders from humans and did not think for themselves. There was also what I termed the “new robots” – the new breed of robot that seemed to think for themselves. I suggested that people who simply gave an answer out of habit or by rote were akin to the “old robots” and those who took the time to think about their responses were similar to the “new robots”. I then advised my students that if they called me by my name of Tom, I would answer by calling them by their own first names, but if they called me by the title of Maestro, I would reply with “Roboto” (“robot” in Spanish). This seemed to come to have a profound impact on so many of those students who simply responded to the teacher with the rote response “Maestro”. By the end of the term there were still a small number who would still call me by the title of Maestro, but these students indicated that they did so because he said he felt it respectful to use Maestro over Tom. Clearly, when the students were explained the benefits of thinking for themselves and connecting these benefits to a known pop-culture commodity such as a movie, behavior noticeably changed as they used their own cognitive abilities. It was also a good example of how I was able to use a technology other than a computer and the Internet – in this case, a pop-culture film – in my classroom in a way was engaging for the students.

By the end of term, the process of learning with technology for both the students and me was underway. A good illustration of how this process of co-learning was indeed experienced on uncountable occasions involved a discussion about Slovenia with a student in the Preparatoria 3 class who was engaged in country specific research for a geography class. The student had approached me at the end of one class, seeking some guidance with his geography project. As a number of the students in all classes had befriended me, they would frequently ask me for advice on various matters, whether school related or otherwise. This student felt comfortable enough with me to approach me for help on this homework assignment. After the discussion, I engaged in Internet-based research to discover that the student – and not myself - was indeed correct, Slovenia is in the Adriatic region and not in the Baltics (the student had said such a thing, but I was uncertain about the accuracy of the student’s research). I then e-mailed the student with my findings, plus sent him a number of web links related to his area of study. Outside of trying to advise the student of the accuracy of his own research, I was consciously using the Internet as a tool to help expand the student’s knowledge in and experience with his research.


Final Reflections of the Teacher As a new high school teacher, I found that young adults have this way of teaching me more about myself than I, as a teacher, was supposed to teach them. So many teachers are used to being contacted by grateful parents and approached on the street by past students. When I left the school I had the parent of a student in Preparatoria 3 e-mail me to thank me for teaching his son as, “when [my son] told me you were leaving school, I felt very disappointed because [he] hasn’t shown so much interest in any other English teacher he’s had before”. I had students, often with their parents; stop me in the malls or in the downtown of Villahermosa to thank me for being their teacher and “friend.” Finally, the e-mails I continue to receive addressed to ‘Teacher Tom’ always put a smile on my face and have me think of the best future possible for the students I taught at the Colegio.

References

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Notes

Case Studies

Mexico

The province of Villahermosa, Tabasco is located in the country of Mexico.

About the authors

Thomas C. Esakin has a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Philosophy from Simon Fraser University, has taken graduate studies in Political Studies from the University of Saskatchewan and is currently finishing his Master's of Arts in Sustainable Development from Staffordshire University. Tom taught at the Colegio Ingles, in Villahermosa, Tabasco. Previous to this, Tom spent nine years in the Canadian non-governmental organization sector, including as Executive Director of JUMP Math - a national math education charity. Prior to this Tom was a political aide and organizer for over ten years.

A citizen of both Mexico and Canada, Walter Lopez Rivera received a Bachelor of Science from the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara in Mexico. Walter has also studies in English, media relations and marketing at post-secondary institutions in both Vancouver and Toronto. Since Summer 2004, he has been invited to join a number of business partnerships in Mexico, including a retail enterprise in Villahermosa that offers English language training packages in Canada; an educational consortium involving Canadian and Mexican concerns that pursued sustainable development projects in the Mexican oil sector in Tabasco; and the opening of a chain of retail clothing stores.

Noemi Rivera Ruedas, a citizen of Mexico, was employed in the Mexican education system for 40 years, having retired in June 2005. In her last three years working in the profession, she served as Directora of the Escuela Secundaria Federal para Trabajadores N.Y. “24 de Febrero” in Puebla, Puebla, Mexico. She has degrees in: Profesora en Educacion Primaria (Teacher in Primary Education) from the Instituto Normal Mexico in Puebla; Maestra con Especialidad en Biologia (Teacher with a Speciality in Biology) from the Normal Superior del Estado de Puebla; Licenciada en Psicologia (BA in Psychology) from the Benemerita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla; and a Maestria en Orientacion Familiar (Masters in Family Orientation) from the Universidade Iberoamericana de Puebla.

In his final year of doctoral studies at the time this chapter was published, Michael K. Barbour is completing his Ph.D. in Instructional Technology at the University of Georgia. Originally from Newfoundland, Canada, Michael has completed his Bachelor and Master's of Education from Memorial University of Newfoundland after having finished his Bachelor of Arts (Honors) in Political Science from Carleton University. A classroom teacher for five years, Michael is interested in the use of web-based distance education a way to provide equitable access to mandated curriculum in rural school settings.

Citation

APA Citation: Esakin, T. C, Rivera, W. L., Ruedas, N. R., Barbour, M. K. (2006). Mexico:Villahermosa. In M. Orey, T. Amiel, & J. McClendon (Eds.), The web almanac of educational technologies. Retrieved <insert date>, from http://www.waet.uga.edu/