Q1. Where did you move to and when?

I moved to Pachuca, Mexico, just outside of Mexico City, 6 months ago (August 2006).

Q2. How long did you work in Thailand?

Nearly 4 years.

Q3. What was your main reason for moving?

Bureaucratic and intransigent educational system and arcane and frustrating immigration policies

Q4. What are the advantages of working where you are now compared to Thailand?

Significantly more trust of foreign teachers than I ever found in Thailand. More open to new ideas. More personal responsibility. Better quality and more committed foreign teachers. Better trained and more innovative native teachers

Q5. What do you miss about life in Thailand?

The celebrity of being a foreign teacher. The low cost of living. The wonderful, inherently friendly, and largely non-controversial nature of Thai students and people.

Q6. Would you advise a new teacher to seek work in Thailand or where you are now?

I think a qualified teacher would find Mexico more professionally satisfying, but Thailand is certainly more of an adventure. It depends on what they are seeking from the experience.

Q7. Any plans to return to Thailand one day?

It depends on whether the system ever becomes more inclusive of foreign teachers and accepting of Western ideas.

Q8. Anything else you'd like to add?

I find the disservice that Thailand is doing to its youth, with the educational system it has, really sad, and really hope that sometime in the near future they begin to make lasting reform that is not responsive to fads and trends, but is more conducive to progress and learning.