The Best and the Worst of TAPIF

Best

1. French Social Welfare

Compared to the US, France really has a lot of social welfare structures that really augment the otherwise measly assistants salary. CAF housing subsidies, Sécurité Sociale's healthcare, and travel reimbursement among others. Get MGEN's supplementary health insurance and healthcare is practically free.

2. Free Time

Working just 3 days a week leaves more than half of the week open to exploring and relaxing (hopefully). In addition, 8 weeks of paid vacation provides even more free time.

3. Cheap Transport around Europe
France is pretty ideally situated between a lot of interesting countries in Europe and plane tickets in Europe are much cheaper than in the US. France also has a well built, pretty affordable rail network. With all of the school breaks, you'll have a lot of time available to explore Europe.

Worst

1. Inconsistency
While TAPIF handles applications for U.S. and Canadian teaching assistants, they are only the middle men. Once you are given a placement, it is the rectorat of your region who is truly responsible for you. Some regions provide housing, some don't. The rules and structure of the program are loosely defined and each rectorat will have different interpretations. Do you need to make up hours for strike days? Who knows.

Then at the individual school level, even more questions arise. Do teachers even know that you are coming? Are they given any training on your role? Have they had assistants before? Some schools are great, some are terrible, and the work you might be doing can be completely different at each.

2. Lack of Support Structures
If things do go wrong at your schools, you don't have to many options for where to go get help or voice your complaints. You can contact the TAPIF contact, but as TAPIF is really just a middle man, they have little power. On top of that, there is basically one TAPIF contact for all 1,500+ American assistants. It's obvious that she doesn't have time to answer everyone's emails. You can contact the rectorat, but helping teaching assistants isn't exactly their highest priority.

The prof réferents in secondary schools are supposedly there to help you, but these teachers aren't paid any extra to deal with you and may have been forced to take on the role unwillingly. In addition, you work for this teacher which creates an unfavorable power dynamic. One assistant on Facebook summed this up well, "No one is there to help you if you fail". I had a good experience, but there is a not so insignificant possibility that you might not.

3. Weather Blues
Every year, much of Northern France suffers through a very cloudy, rainy winter. I never realized how much I took the sun for granted at home. Here I really notice when we have a good clear day. Arriving in September and October isn't bad, and it will get better in the Spring, but prepare yourself when the inevitably dark, and wet winter comes. Alternatively, just get a placement on the Mediterranean coast.

4. Bureaucracy
As nice as the social welfare system here is, the paperwork involved is a mess. You need to have a lot of patience as processes are slow and it can be overwhelming. French offices have a habit of losing papers or never contacting you at all.

Luckily a lot of this is improving somewhat as everything migrates online. You can now do OFII validation, CAF, and other functions online which lessens that hassle of mailing letters everywhere. That being said, even online you might not be told that your file is missing certain documents and with the stresses of teaching and adapting to a new life, the additional stress of more paperwork should not be underestimated.

5. Strikes
During the month of October, my region had not 1, not 2, but 3 train strikes in one month. One of them coming just at the start of the La Toussaint break. Then in December France experienced a general strike lasting over 45 days. Now this was the worst strike in decades, so I doubt you will experience a strike this bad, but striking is a French way of life and it regularly disrupts life and travel plans.

6. The Salary is What!?

The assistant salary will never pass for the salary of an actual dependable job. As far as I can tell, the salary hasn't had an increase for over a decade. At just 780€ per month after taxes you really only have enough to live a normal student lifestyle and only if you have secured dependable housing first. Fine, we only work 12 classroom hours a week compared to the 22 or so hours for a fully educated, full time teacher. However, we aren't even allowed by our visa to pick up any extra work on the side. If you are looking for a way to save any money, this isn't it. If TAPIF had the option to work more hours in exchange for an equivalent salary increase, I would do it. Unfortunately, it simply isn't an option at the moment.