Upon arriving in San Miguel de Allende way back in the day (2015), it was just going to be a temporary stay—a breather—while we got our bearings and we figured out our next move. Almost immediately, we began making friends. And most importantly, our son began making friends. We don’t talk about it much, but that was incredibly important. While traveling and bouncing around, it can be a huge challenge to socialize a young, energetic, creative child who seeks close in-person friendships. So as we met people—fun, adventurous, creative, energetic, inspired people—we began to relax and have fun. Through meeting people, we began to learn about some of the school options that were available in town—there is only so much you can learn online.

For a first school experience, we opted to enroll in the Victoria Robbins school for the primary purpose of making friends and socialization, with some Spanish thrown into the mix. We thought he’d do a few months, but Ethan liked it so much and we liked that he liked it that he ended up staying for a year and a half. He had a great time and learned so much. Most of the friends he made during that time, he is still close with and he sees many on a regular basis.

For a variety of reasons, we decided to return to homeschooling and we did that for another year and a half. We’re not sure who learned more during that time—our son or us? He did extremely well academically in that environment (testing well into the upper high school and above range in English and above his grade level mathematically), but we noticed that his Spanish skills weren’t coming along as we had hoped. Not exactly surprising, since we were his teachers…But, we felt we would really kick ourselves if we lived all this time in México and we he couldn’t speak Spanish!

So, we hired a private tutor to work with him in Spanish twice a week, two hours at a time, mano a mano. He made great progress in just a few months, but we felt that he really needed a kickstart to boost his confidence. Through some very fortunate timing with an acquaintance in town, we enrolled him in Siglo XXI, a local “bi-lingual” Méxican school. The difference this time was that bi-lingual meant ALL the classes were in Spanish, except English class. All the kids were local and only a few spoke English with any confidence. It was now full-immersion for 7-hours-a-day…plus homework in the evening! And he did marvelously.

We’d enrolled him near the end of the year, so he only attended for May and June. Needless to say, they were well on their way through the curriculum at that point. There was a huge learning curve, but it was all do-able, and we couldn’t be more proud of his adaptability and tenaciousness. We really liked the school for many reasons—maybe we’ll post more on that one day. They were very welcoming to our son and excited for him to participate. I think our biggest takeaway from the experience was that there were significantly fewer expat families (only one other, and in a different grade) because frequently the parents of those that come here don’t have the Spanish skills or the confidence with Spanish to engage and try it out. But they should! Overall, it was an eye-opening experience. The kids, in general, were bright, enthusiastic, curious, motivated, very welcoming, and extremely bien educado.

Which leads us to where we are now as summer break comes to a close and the new school year begins. What have we chosen to do next? Stayed tuned for the next post on choosing Colegio NWL San Miguel..

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