Why is it that my top 3 most popular posts on this blog are the ones that are the most controversial? Are you guys trying to tell me that you like my biting sarcasm and wit and when I get sassy and borderline inappropriate? Or maybe is it because you like reading something painfully honest, wait…..EVERYBODY HALT! OMG a blog being CANDID AND NEGATIVE?!?! Shocking.
ALL of us bloggers (with the exception of Will Peach) are guilty of creating a fantasy travel bubble filled with rainbows and unicorns, where our lives are literally picture perfect; where we journey around the world without a care in the world and if anything does go wrong, it ends up as a cutesy-comical-learned-my-lesson anecdote on our blog, if mentioned at all. Hey, I’m equally guilty of this. I want my blog to be a happy place, where I share the best experiences I’ve had traveling and show others how to achieve the same.
But there are three things I can’t tolerate in life: unfairness, bullshit, and mayonnaise (nothing ruins a burger or sandwich like that nasty white stuff in a jar). And if something has been nagging me for years, I’ve gotta stand up and say something! Maybe I am just on a high from the success of a recent article I wrote about how Kaplan Killed the Hopes and Dreams of 42 Bloggers. Maybe I’m just bitter and hormonal from my breakup with Spain. Either way I am about to break it down for you.
I have been living in Spain for the past two years with the English teaching assistant program through the Spanish Ministry of Education (auxiliares de conversación), and you know what? IT EFFING SUCKED! Not the living in Spain bit, that was awesome, rather the program itself.
I literally have hundreds of emails, messages, tweets and comments asking me questions about working in Spain as an auxiliar, whether about visas, apartments, taxes, money or even if they should apply or not, I hear it all. And I almost always give the same answer, “yeah this program is great. I love living in Spain. Bulls. Flamenco. Paella. Sangria. Yada yada yada.” But here it is, my REAL, uncensored, unedited thoughts about coming to Spain with the auxiliar program.
AND I am going to break the cardinal blogging rule here and put HATE in the title of this post. I’ll put in all-caps for good measure. Maybe I’ll lose a few readers. I’ll probably get enough hate mail to make me want to off myself by tomorrow (seriously, you anon readers can be wicked harsh!) but I feel honor bound to share how I really feel about this program on my blog, especially since such a large part of my audience are past-present-future auxiliars. Someone needs to say it. Might as well be me. And according to my stats, this is the kind of stuff you like to read. Don’t shoot the messenger!
Just remember guys, I’m not a hater, really I’m not! If you’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting me, I am bubbly, blonde and happy. Just indulge me this one time on my tirade.
Here are My Top 5 Reasons Why I HATE the Auxiliar Program in Spain (you know, top 5, because I can think of more than 5)
1. It’s a disorganized clusterfuck
To put it mildly. In fact all the things I hate about this program are so disorganized in my head from all my problems dealing with the disorganization with the Ministry, I don’t even know where to begin. I’ll elaborate in bullet points:
- The application process. Who actually understands it? 3 years down the road and I don’t! Don’t even get me started about renewing. What if you’re switching regions? What if you are renewing for a third year and switching regions? Where do we send the documents? Wouldn’t it be nice if we had all of these answers available to us on the application page? The only information we get from the Ministry are monthly newsletters in comic sans font sent every three months to half of the mailing list that don’t say anything valuable and look like they were designed by my 11 year old sister. Why are all the regions in Spain listed on the application when the program has been cut from several of them? Oh that FBI report you had to get for your application? Yeah, you have to get a whole new one for your visa because they expire and we didn’t tell you! Do we have orientation? Who gets to go? Where is it? When is it? Also, everyone is assigned a number upon submitting an application, first time renewals get placed first, then first year applications and third year renewals. Except the Ministry doesn’t always follow those rules and places people willy nilly. I can go on and on
- Hey remember that one time thousands of people didn’t get paid for 3 months? Oh wait, that’s every year!
- It is not unusual for ministry officials to give out conflicting information about everything, if you can get a hold of them at all. In fact, many of the schools aren’t informed about what your role as an assistant is, leaving you open to all mannars of interpretation. You could spend your year sitting at a desk in the back playing solitaire or you could be left alone in the room with 25 screaming 3 year olds. Hopefully you end up somewhere in the middle.
- Pretty much the people who run this program don’t know what they are doing, so don’t expect clear answers. Inconsistent information is the name of the game with the auxiliar program in Spain. Get used to it.
- Have you read my post about how I spent over 4 months being jerked around by the guys who run this program in Madrid and why I ultimately left Spain?
The upside? You get a visa to live in Spain, which is nigh on impossible to get any other way as an American.
2. A total hit or miss
Your experience as an auxiliar can be a total hit-or-miss and you might not have any control over it. From my own observations, it seems applicant’s names, regional preferences, city and school type are all thrown in a giant jar, swirled around and plucked right back out. i.e., it makes no sense.
You could end up working at an amazing concertada (semi-private) modern school right in the city center with amazing goal-oriented teachers and well-behaved students. Or you might end up in a village of 5,000 people, in rural back country Spain where your students don’t know the difference between England and America, the English teacher doesn’t speak any English and you have to commute an hour to work every day. The range of possible situations you could end up with is HUGE and they will either positively or negatively impact your year, depending on how flexible and open minded you are.
For example, this year I had an amazing schedule. I worked Monday through Thursday, 9am to noon at 2 schools in the center of Logroño. I had to take a 10 minute bus ride to get to work every day. Totally feasible. I had other friends who were placed at schools in villages over an hour away, that they not only had to commute to, they had to pay the teachers to let them ride with them to and from work, over 100 euros extra a month, and they were given schedules with huge breaks in them so they were stuck in their villages for hours without classes.
I think my year would have gone a bit differently under those circumstances. My schools were generally flexible with my schedule if I wanted to travel, I could make up hours. Other schools don’t let the auxiliars miss any days or hours and some even give them schedules where you would have to work Mon, Tue, Wed, Fri. Complete hit or miss, you have no control over.
I’ve worked with 2 teachers who really wanted to take advantage of having a native speaker in the classroom to help the kids. They understood what a unique opportunity it was to have an American there helping the kids learn English. The other 10 teachers I’ve worked with ranged from they really didn’t give a damn to they wanted to use me so they could get out of doing their job.
Be warned, some teachers will take advantage of you in the classroom. Know your role. We are assistants, not the teachers. We provide supporting material and help, but we don’t plan the lessons. We’re not supposed to be alone with students. I’ve had friends who were forced to do everything, spend hours at home planning lessons and even forced to work more hours or face having a “horrible” schedule or be complained about. I had huge problems with this my first year and getting taken advantage of in the schools. Don’t let it happen to you.
You could get paid on time every month since you start. You could go months without being paid. Unless you are a trust fund baby, I expect that would make a BIG difference in how your year goes.
The upside? You could have the best year of your life! I am a true believer that experiences are what you make of them, so even if things don’t go exactly how you’d for them to, try to focus on the positive! You get to live in Spain!
Me and the lovely Liz of Liz en España and now A Midwestern Life
3. The funcionarios who work for the Ministry
Is it just me or is everyone who works for this program (from the Spanish consulates in the US to the regional coordinators to the directors in Madrid) a certified straight up d-bag?
Of all the people I’ve dealt with over the years with this program, I’ve known one, ONE nice, helpful person! And they fired her after a year!
In case you didn’t know, funcionarios are government employees in Spain, and they basically make a lot of money and can never be fired, simply put. Here is a video that explains them to a T. Ok, sweeping generalization but that’s how I feel about these guys, along with many Spaniards.
Not only do they generally have no idea what’s going on, they are also rude and unhelpful in general. I can talk to them for hours on the phone or in person and leave the conversation not knowing anything more than I did when I started! And on top of that they make you feel bad about it! I have even had them intentionally hang up on me when I was demanding to know when we would get paid in La Rioja last year, sparking my most popular post. I would go into a meeting with the program director’s to ask when we would get paid, and I would leave feeling like everything was my fault for not being ok with not being paid! WTF?!
“Normally we use Christians but in times of crisis, substituting funcionarios has been very successful.” Source
They are probably so unhelpful because they aren’t informed themselves. But last time I checked in the real world in a professional job, when you don’t know something, you say, “you know what? I am not sure. Let me check and get back to you” instead of “this is so-and-so’s responsibility, go ask them” that is, if you can get a hold of anyone at all.
I have scheduled meetings with coordinators and they have shown up an hour late, most of the time they don’t answer my emails or phone calls. In fact, the only time they call me back is when I threaten to go to the US embassy or I call them directly out on not doing their job. Then I get a phone call from some official all fussy and upset by my insinuations.
For example, my first year in Córdoba, we weren’t even provided with the contact information for the regional or city coordinator. If we had a problem, we didn’t have anyone to talk to except with our schools.
If I had a euro for every time I got a runaround answer from a ministry official in Spain, I would be as rich as Iker Casillas.
The upside? You learn to take things into your own hands, I guess. Honestly, I can’t really think of an upside to this unless you miraculously end up working with amazing coordinators and directors. We’ll go back to the you get to live in Spain thing. Big upside.
4. The Visa Nightmare
I call it a nightmare because every time I had to think about my experiences with the visa and NIE, I want to die. The entire paperwork process from applying for the visa, applying for a NIE, renewing your NIE, and the details of living in Spain with a student NIE could not be more stressful and complicated!
I understand that this process is not really within control of the Ministry of Education, but at the same time, it is a government sponsored program, and one of the guarantees is a NIE. I think the Ministry needs to do two things:
- Provide a better guideline for auxiliars about how and when to apply for the visa and the NIE and how to renew it. Really, it cannot be that hard to put something together. In fact, it would be great if that was what they talked about at orientation instead of 2 hours of how the Spanish education system works in rapid-fire Spanish that I am sure half of the first years do not understand. Shouldn’t the English bilingual coordinators speak English?
- Coordinate with the local extranjerías about the auxiliar program. They need to understand this program, what dates should be given on the NIE’s, renewals, ect. It is not that hard to go meet with them and explain so that everyone is on the same page. This would avoid so many nightmares
This all goes back to the disorganization and hit or miss. For example, some people are given papers that expire exactly one year after they submit the paperwork, so September or October of the following year. Some people are given cards that expire exactly on May 31. The rest, somewhere in the middle. It makes absolutely no sense. You could end up completely screwed like with what happened to me. If I was given the correct papers with the correct dates, I could still be in Spain right now.
It gets even more complicated when you try to renew your papers, and if you try to switch regions. Some regions will let you renew no problem. Others make you go back to America and get a whole new visa. Hit or miss. Some regions even let you submit the paperwork in the fall to renew and then told you a month later you needed to buy a last minute flight to America and get a whole other visa. It’s actually ridiculous. Try buying a $1000 flight home when you haven’t even been paid!
Sometimes it takes so long for the offices to process your paperwork you can go the whole year without getting a NIE! Or they give you appointments after your visa has expired.
The upside? You (hopefully) get papers to live in Spain! It’s almost impossible to get a visa otherwise as an American. That is if you can survive the deathly obstacles thrown at you
5. Kept blind and in the dark
I think singlehandledly the thing I hated most about the program besides the disorganization is the fact that the Ministry did a terrible job of informing us of ANYTHING!
It’s one thing to be disorganized but at least tell us what’s going on. Here are the 3 main things the Ministry should keep in contact with the auxiliars about
- If there are going to be delays with payments, tell us! It’s not that hard. We shouldn’t have to complain and whine about it to the newspapers and American embassies into shaming the Ministry into paying us, or at least saying when we’ll be paid. Last year they weren’t planning to even tell us in La Rioja about the delays until dozens of us called and emailed and demanded to know what was going on.
- When the government cuts hundreds of auxiliar positions and even whole regions, it is their duty to tell us! You shouldn’t have to find out everything on facebook or through me. In fact, I think the government should be contracting me since I have been doing half of their work for them for YEARS!
- They should explain clearly what our job is, what it entails, our benefits, our rights, ect.
This lack of Ministry information directly leads to mass hysteria on the dozens of facebook groups and expat forums about this program. When I mentioned that to a director in Madrid he yelled (literally yelled) at me about how we shouldn’t listen to these things on Facebook. I kindly replied that it’s the only way we learn anything or know what’s going on, which led to awkward silence…
The upside? You learn to be patient or you just lose your marbles
The point of this post is not to whine and moan about the auxiliar program in Spain. It is to share an actual and honest opinion of a program that has been glamorized far too often. People have been asking me for years about what I really think about it, and I feel it’s high time for an honest answer. Negative hate and all.
Are you an auxiliar in Spain? What was your experience like with the program? Have or heard any horror stories? What did you hate the most about it?
Image 1 Source
About the author
It’s difficult to start to unpack all of the problems i have had this year in my attempt to live and work in Spain as an American. The frustrations began before I even arrived to such a degree that my wife and i both had to take on an attitude that was built on the idea that we would not let Spain take us down or defeat us. My wife and I were both officially accepted and placed in Madrid, specifically. Weeks passed as we waited to get our particular school placements. She got hers, I did not. However, I did receive a request to re-apply to a different region through Profex many additional weeks later. Turns out no one over 35 can teach in Madrid. Pretty sure that was not listed anywhere and also seems problematic in that I had already been cleared to teach in Madrid. The only remaining placement that would work through the Ministry for me would be in Valladolid. It was conceivable that I could take the bullet train a few times a week north and I could still be with my wife in Madrid. Let me make it clear that we planned on living in Madrid because we wanted to be able to travel easily and cheaply by air or train to other locations in Europe and the pay was/is higher. Our combined incomes would allow us to live well and travel. Awesome, right? Well, this was no longer going to happen. There was also no other region where my wife and I could be together at such a late date, or at least no one would tell us of such a location. So many emails were exchanged with so many government workers who had so little to say about any of it, really. We soon (upon finally arriving in Madrid at the very beginning of September) realized that me commuting to Valladolid and spending 300 euro a month on transport while only making 700 (as opposed to 1000) was rediculous. I resigned my position and was soon picked up by another program entirely. Awesome, right? Sure. Now I work 20 official hours a week. What i mean is that my schedule is M,W,Th from 9-4:30 and T,Th 9-1. M,W,Th include that lovely Spanish 2 hour unpaid siesta (which really just serves to make my day longer). Fridays after work, I am required to attend courses that the program conducts so that I can claim “student” status for my visa. The classes are typically 5 hours. My Fridays can be 9-8pm days. I do not get paid for these hours. This is all part of the program I am in (It’s a very well known one.) My current school is an hour outside of Madrid by two (sometimes three) metro trains, each way. That’s two hours of commute time per day. Additionally, I am required to come early at random days by a half hour to meet with teachers about curriculum every couple weeks. Also, unpaid. I make 850 euro for 20 “official” hours (although I encourage anyone to do the actual math on this). The job itself? I love the kids, they save me. However, almost from day one I did in fact find myself in a room full of thirty 3 year olds all by myself. Happens ever day. My job also consists of me taking half the class (3,4, or 5 year olds) to a separate room (basically a meeting room the size of a closet) and teaching them English in some form that I have devised. No supervision or direction. Totally on my own. I have to be the disciplinarian for 15 kids jumping around in a closet. I’m starting to get the hang of it though, and teaching myself child psychology, basically. All the while, I’ve been sick. I really mean all the while. Since the second week I got here. So…two months or more. Four rounds of antibiotics and I’m still not good. Strep/upper respiratory infection, we’re still not sure what the problem is exactly. I can never be out without having a doctor’s note when I get back. Can never legitimately stay home to simply be sick in bed if I dont have a note say that I can be in bed on that specific day and time. Traveling? When? I can never get out of my schedule. Take a day off and make it up like some do? Not an option at my school. Oh, and my school is an officially licensed bilingual school…but no one speaks English. And my Spanish sucks.
I would like to reiterate that it is really hit or miss. I was placed in Extremadura in two schools in two different cities (one in a city and one in a town). Scheduling has been a nightmare (sometimes I am at school all day with so many free periods in between) and going to the town is a hassle as I must commute with teachers, but must walk a half hour to a spot where teachers are willing to pick me up, plus another half hour commute. Doesn’t sound so bad but in the rain or cold it sucks pretty bad. That’s not so bad in itself, but the schools do not take advantage of me well – I am in a “bilingual section” with kids who do not even understand the question “where are we now?” supposedly teaching them science in English. I also frequently get left alone in the classroom with no teacher with no advance notice. Basically, my experience with my schools was full of problems my fellow auxiliares do not seem to have experienced. I think it’s bad luck – I came with a highly open attitude (this is NOT my first year living abroad), but it just has not been a positive experience so far.
Also, settling in in Extremadura was a challenge – people here are not used to dealing with foreigners so even simple things like getting a phone, internet service or bank account are nearly impossible until you have your NIE, which of course takes time.
I was hoping to spend 2 years or so in Spain, but I have now decided it will be a major challenge to finish out the entire year. I fully intend to try, as nothing is worse than quitting, but it is not something I will enjoy, unfortunately.
Like the others said….hit or miss.
good luck with your year! When I was having a lot of problems my first year in Andalucia I threw all my energy into blogging and planning trips, it saved me!
Don’t give up! I gave myself a second chance and moved to la rioja and had the best year of my life! Not to generalize but northern spain and bigger cities have a much more “modern” with it attitude about foreigners and things in general, it made it a lot easier than in a pueblo 🙂
Buena suerte chiki
I was also an auxiliar in La Rioja. I had great schools that were in small pueblos. The teachers and headmasters were FANTASTIC. I still keep in touch with them. I send my kiddos books in English so they can practice reading more than just their textbooks. I loved living in Spain it was absolutely incredible and I hope to go back someday. I agree that the program is very disorganized, but then again, what do you expect from a country that is disorganized in every sector of its being? I might be different from other auxiliares in that I went to Spain for the experience of teaching children in another country, so my anger subsided when my schools so graciously lent me the money until the ministry of education could get its shit together. I also knew that this had been going on for the entire history of the program. So, when I considered going back, that played a huge factor in my decision. In the end, I loved my schools, my region, the teachers, and my kids, but if the payment situation (my very livelihood) was going to continue being messed up, why would I go back? I don’t know. I guess, I’m just the type that if I don’t like my situation, I change it. I don’t see the point in complaining and then going back again, over and over again. It’s like being in a fucked up friendship or relationship with someone that keeps screwing you over and you keep going back to that person. Why? I don’t know, that’s just my opinion. I see where the anger comes from though. No one likes working for nothing.
Hi Miriam!
That’s so nice you were able to build a long lasting relationship with your kids! I did that my first year but this year was tougher because I split my time between two schools and then had a day one and day two schedule which meant I only saw them twice a month. It was a lot harder that way but I build a lot of good relationships with my students at my academy and in my private classes. I still talk to them a lot and I have to send them christmas presents!
I wholeheartedly agree with you about if you don’t like your situation, change it. The ministry offered me a spot this october in Madrid but I’ve said no. I just don’t want to deal with it anymore. and now that I’m out of Spain I have cool opportunities I can try!
Wanted to add that these issues aren’t stopping me from reapplying for 2013-2014! Even though there are aspects of the problem that sucked, it gives you a legal way to live in Spain for 1, 2, 3 years…to me, it’s worth it.
Need to start saving money, though. Can’t help but point my finger and say “Told ya so” to all the first years moaning about the payment problems on Facebook. Unfortunately, it shouldn’t be a surprise at this point!
Seriously, it’s been happening for years, even before I started doing it in 2010! Definitely the rule, not the exception. Also, it’s the same people who were like, “I don’t care about the money, I just want to live in Spain!”. It’s a little different when you’re not getting paid, eh?
yeah except you can’t reply hold everyone to reading the facebook groups before coming, that’s just not fair.
I didn’t participate them until my second year, once I realized what a great and terrible resource they were
I agree about the facebook group–I had no idea these resources existed until my second year!