Though I was more convinced than my mother that I was only going to stay for one year, I'm preparing to go back down to Honduras. Right now, my options are endless.
If I get two years of teaching experience, I open the door to international schools. Internationals schools prefer, and some only accept, applicants with a degree in education and are licensed, but there are some that will work with you. Some will pay to get the degree, but that means more than the already implied 2 year commitment because they won't pay for it just for me to leave. Even if I don't have the school pay for a degree, I'll be paid real money with a still shockingly low overhead. Many international schools in Latin America pay between 18-25 thousand dollars a year, airfare, housing, and some provide a car if the living situation requires it. That leaves a lot of free money to put toward online classes.
However, the only online degrees I've found are post-licensure, which won't really work for me. There is a question of quality with a completely online degree, and for education courses it can get to be fairly hands on. Of course, to get licensed, there has to be some kind of student teaching or equivalent, which means being in range of an observer.
It would appear that Virginia has 60 credits of undergrad prerequisites for licensure anyway and I am missing roughly half. I have ordered my unofficial transcript so I can actually figure out what can count or what. These I can start taking online at community colleges to help save money. Some I don't look forward to, but some are classes I had always wanted to take but it wouldn't further my degree goals, so I never got around to it.
Right now I've talked to one graduate program that is flexible and willing to work with me. I could lay both the graduate and undergraduate groundwork while abroad, online, and in the summers, on campus, and then come live in the area for a year to finish up with the student teaching and another hands on class. Because I would already be relatively experienced at that point, they have said that I could even get a teaching job locally and they would work my job into my last year of course work and work it as my student teaching.
The only downside to this program is that it's at my Alma-mater. Not that I have any objections to Longwood, but I am unsure about having both degrees from the same school. The upside is that I would be in a different department.
With the exorbitant number of classes I have to take in a community college, I wonder if I'm better off coming home after next year to take those classes and then work at an international school, starting online classes for the grad program then. This leads to one main complication and fixes one other complication.
The added problem is that I would really need to get a job and loans. In the mean time, I'm sure I'd be itching for my abroad experience to continue and feel a little...trapped. Would substituting be enough of a job? Could I work in a library? I don't know and it really depends on what school I would go to. Not to mention housing. Those are things I haven't even begun to work out because I don't know if that's the route I want to take. On the other hand, coming home for a year and clearing out those classes would a)clear out those classes and b)making getting to the conference much more reasonable.
The conference, which you really have to go to get one of the jobs I want, was in Atlanta last year and flying up from Honduras mid-school year is just difficult. If I did it next year, it would mainly be an issue of money and timing.
I'm also currently inclined to stay in Honduras. There are several reasons for this. Two are personal: I already know a lot of people there which lends to connections and I'm already comfortable there. It will keep me closer to the community I've built and the friendships I've made and I generally know what to expect and how the people work. Mayatan has big connections to the schools in Tegusigalpa and I've heard tell of how to work the tables for the San Pedro schools. While I don't care for either city, I have heard that teachers who go to the San Pedro school tend to stay, which means they like it. There are safe places and I have a lot of friends there. I also think I'm more likely to get a job in San Pedro than anywhere else. One of the professors at Longwood does a lot of work in Honduras, as well and he has a lot of connections in administration. We'll see how that works because if I could get a job through him instead of going to the conference, that could clear up that complication.
On the other side of things, I know that other countries will have other, new experiences. Most other countries pay more, too. I don't want to stay in Honduras just because it is comfortable and I know I have a tendency to do that. There are a lot of reasons to leave, but the connections in Honduras are undeniable. As it stands, it might just depends on where things are with Cid. But even if things are good, it doesn't mean I have to stay and if things are bad it doesn't mean I have to go. It'll just be another thing to weigh.
I plan to talk to a few other programs, including ODU and William and Mary. It looks to me like ODU is more geared toward distance learning, though I'm not sure that means they can be as flexible as I'm looking for and that W&M is more stiff with the program. The thing about what I'm looking for is that I need a program that is already flexible AND someone who is willing to work with me. Longwood is already willing to do that, so no matter what, I can fall back there, or change the plan. William and Mary said in the past that if I wanted to start the program late (when I thought I'd only be at Mayatan for one year and then wanted to come back for grad school immediately) and was accepted, they would let me do that, but something about starting grad school behind didn't sit well with me.
As I said to Dr. Locascio, the Longwood professor I spoke with at length, the decisions I have on my hands are complicated, but it is a good problem to have. I don't think there is a right way to do this, it's just a matter of which goals I want to push ahead first and what things I am comfortable doing at the same time, but it will all get done.
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