It's true that schools in Latin America don't have savings potentials on the same level as the best of Saudi Arabia or China, but the Dominican Republic and Peru both have good schools with a decent savings potential. I have a friend in the Dominican Republic who is saving 25K/year.

If you just want to work in a place for less than two years, try negotiating that in the contract. I know there are some schools that start with just one year contracts anyway. Even if you feel like admin are lazy and don't deserve a teacher who completes a contract, the children do.

I think it depends on what you want to teach in the future. For example, the first option, the Master of Education in Teaching English as a Second Language, would seem to only increase your marketability for teaching English as a second language (eg language schools.) The last option, the Master of Education Technology, would seem to mainly increase your marketability for tech teaching jobs (although in an interview you could probably spin it as enabling you to teach language arts with 21st century technology.) I'm not very familiar with the Masters in International Education International Baccalaureate, but since your undergraduate is already in education this would seem to only increase your marketability for IB schools. The Masters in Curriculum and Instruction would seem to increase your general marketability as a teacher, although it might be more of a program for admin (eg curriculum coordinators.) The second and third options (English Lit and Creative Writing,) would increase your marketability as an English teacher.

I have friends who saved lots of money teaching in Myanmar (formerly Burma.)

The school's offering for you to start on such short notice is a red flag in itself. Suggests to me that something was bad enough to make someone quit in the middle of the year or the school didn't plan ahead very well. I would definitely insist on the school paying for the flight as a condition of going given the context.

Walter wrote:
> You do work yourself up into a lather, Grumbler. I wonder why. Who are you to set
> yourself up as the arbiter in determining a hierarchy of crimes on boards like this?
> When Dave poses as an expert on all things in international education and bullies
> and belittles others who disagree with him – and meanwhile claims credibility on
> the basis of mendacious and duplicitous experiences and qualifications – then I
> think it is right and proper for me to call him out. If you think otherwise, so
> what?
>
> As for what you so inelegantly call doxxing, I’m pretty sure that I wasn’t the one
> threatening to expose Dave.

The very motto of ISR is an anonymous forum for "Teachers Keeping Each Other Informed". Doxxing constitutes not only illegal harassment, but also undermines the whole ISR project. Revealing the private personal information of others on this anonymous forum sets a chilling precedent that discourages other educators from sharing about their experiences.

Broken promises over pay, professional development, and teaching assignments had made me think about leaving from the moment I arrived.

The last straw, though, was the "resignation letters." When the school fired my friends, it used threats and manipulation to extract "resignation letters." Thus the school systematically slithered its way out of the severance pay legally required by law. When colleagues asked for extra personal days for a honeymoon or death in the family, the school demanded the employees to sign resignation letters with the month and year section empty so they could pull them out at a convenient moment.