Attracted to a slower pace of life and beautiful beaches, more foreign families are uprooting their kids, quitting their jobs, finding new ways to support themselves and moving to Mexico’s small coastal communities. The thought of educating children in Mexico seems like a daunting prospect, but in hindsight, it may be one of the best decisions I ever made. Towns are responding and developing international and bilingual schools that cater to foreign children and accepting more foreign students into local public schools.
We are one of those families. In 2015, we left our jobs and home in the United States, moved to the small beachside community of Chacala, Nayarit, and enrolled our daughter in El Jardín y La Selva , a nonprofit community school. We had no idea when we dropped her off for her first day of preschool what a positive experience it would be.
As she is about to graduate from primary school, I’ve been reflecting on what she’s gained by attending a small school in coastal Mexico. I share these perspectives to help other families considering making a similar move. One of the fears I had pulling my daughter out of the American school system and placing her in a small-town Mexican school was that she’d fall behind her peers in the U.
S. True enough – when we returned to the States those first few summers, many of her friends were more advanced reading in English. But I learned over time that the social and emotional skills she gained at El Jardín were far mor.
