Diplomacy Graduate Prefers Teaching
Although she has qualified as a diplomat, Miss Natalia Garcia Diaz, a young Mexican woman at present visiting Christchurch, prefers to follow a career as a teacher.
She is a member of a party of 25 Mexican tourists making a 35day journey around the Pacific. “For me this is a trip for pleasure but also a trip for information,” she said yesterday.
From a teaching position in an elementary school, Miss Diaz has risen to be the head of the geography department at the University of Mexico. “She is the head of geography teaching in the whole of the country,” said her interpreter, Miss C. Aquirre.
From a geography teacher’s point of view, the volcanic zones in New Zealand were particularly interesting, said Miss Diaz. “My post-graduate students study the volcanic zones in this country. It is one thing you have in common with our country.” Mexico University also had a degree in diplomacy to train future diplomats, said
Miss Diaz, who took her diplomacy degree there.
Entrants to the course were restricted and had first to sit a general knowledge test for suitability as future ambassadors.
Course subjects aimed to qualify the entrants to represent their country in other countries. They included the history of international diplomacy, political economics, sociology, psychology, international law, private law and a variety of languages. “I have had to study so many languages French, Italian, English, Spanish, Greek and Latin—l cannot speak them all,” said Miss Diaz, with a smile.
“But I would not like to be a diplomat. As a diplomat I would have to leave my country, but as a teacher I may remain there. What I like best is to teach physical geography and by travelling I can prove what I have learned.” With her 24 companions, Miss Diaz hopes to be in Sydney for Christmas. While there she will present a series of geographic drawings, executed by students in the
Mexican high schools, to the Minister of Education (Mr C. B. Cutler).
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Bibliographic details
Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31247, 20 December 1966, Page 2
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336Diplomacy Graduate Prefers Teaching Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31247, 20 December 1966, Page 2
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