(ChatGPT generation with prompt: person looking window at Big Ben)
I wish I had time to humor you with the series of creative prompts that led to this masterpiece, but this is the best I could to on a Sunday afternoon.
Not that any international educators are looking out their apartments with a view of Big Ben wondering what to do next, but you get the symbolic metaphor.
It’s time.
It’s time to take stock, to give notice (earlier than ever in school history which is an entirely other blog that I will write about) and make a decision about next year. I’m so old that I remember when the notice period was January for a January-February hiring season. Yes, I know. A full winter break to contemplate the future. I get it.
But here we are, just barely crawling out of the startup typhoon and there’s a memo in your mailbox: ‘So are you coming back next year or not?’
If this were a dating situation, it would be a marriage proposal when you opened the door to go to a movie for the first time. Do people still go to movies on dates?
There are few things more difficult than having to decide if you want to go back to a school for another year, and few things more insecure, especially if you have young children. It’s brutal. I’ve been there. I went overseas when my kids were 7 and 2. My youngest just graduated from my school and you can hear the sigh of relief across continents.
But I digress.
There are two simple things that hopefully drive this process for you and as much as you try, you cannot have both.
- Do I want to be happy professionally?
- Do I want to be happy personally?
What do we want? Both.
Not going to happen. Well, I not going to say never, but once you decide which is more important, you have made up your mind about why you want to stay or leave. Since 2009, I made only one decision to be professionally happy. The rest was all about the family. Yeah, it’s hard.
When we decided “this is the business we have chosen” we made a pact that it would be a very insecure existence, albeit temporarily comfortable for the most part, in faraway lands with lots of adventures. This transaction for lack of security is hard. I gave up a sure pension in American public schools to raise my children overseas and I don’t regret anything other than the fact that my son says he won’t take care of me when I’m eating out of a straw. (I think he was kidding).
Everyone’s circumstances are different. Singles. Families. Dependent spouses and partners. Teaching couples. Distance from relatives. Life changes, etc. etc. The one thing that ties it all together is that you have to be true to yourself and what you want out of this experience.
Yes, it’s earlier than ever and for the time being we cannot change that. Make that list of pros and cons for staying or leaving. Decide if this is for personal or professional happiness (refrain from the greedy both) and go for it.
You can do it. The world needs you now more than ever no matter what you decide.
BONUS INTERVIEW QUESTIONS WHEN IT’S YOUR TURN…
- What do you most love about working at this school and what do you think needs to change the most?
- What’s the value added proposition to this school that no other school on earth (or the country/region) can offer?
- If you offer me a position, what’s the most important thing that I need to know on day one?
- What is the school’s top strategic priority and how can I help with it?
- They say that schools often take on the culture of their host country environment. How has that happened here and how have you leveraged this culture to enhance the educational experience?
- How would you describe the relationship between local and expat staff?
- If you could invent a position that the school wishes it could have, what would it be called?