Notes from the General Manager

Diane Jacoutot, the General Manager for Teachanywhere will be sharing her "International Teaching" related thoughts with us all at the end of every week in her series "Notes from the General Manager".  First up this week she discusses the wedding on everyone's lips - just how does this relate to teaching overseas?  Read on and find out.....

Jumping by Diane Jacoutot

This week was a very short week in the UK. We had Monday off for Easter and now Friday off for the Royal Wedding of Wills and Kate.  Trying to cram what would have been 5 very busy days into 3 has been a bit of a nightmare but hey, what can you do?  Answer: sit back and enjoy the holiday.

The world and its dog have been talking nonstop about Wills and Kate, and I do hope it turns out well for them. Getting married, speaking from personal experience of course, is a bit like cliff diving in that you think you know what you are doing and from 100 feet up everything looks fine and dandy,  but you do realise that the reality you meet when you get to the bottom of the cliff might be a whole lot different than what you see from the top.  And you know that but if you think too hard about it you will never make the leap.

So what drives us to jump into the water from great heights? The thrill and personal challenge of it all that makes you jump off the cliff (or in my case the high dive at the local pool)  . If it were very easy you wouldn't feel that sense of accomplishment when you are done and it wouldn't be cause for celebration.  It would be the low board or the side of the pool and anyone can do that.

Well getting married is a bit like cliff diving. You are taking a huge risk by hitching your wagon to someone else who you can really only ever scratch the surface of knowing.  You cant ever know what they are truly thinking or predict what they will do 10 years down the line when the kids are crying and (the case of Wills and Kate aside) the mortgage needs paying and you don't have the cash.  But you hope for the best and take that dive anyway.  I did it and am very happy I did but I'm glad I didn't know how hard it would be before I started! 

Now is the time of year when many teachers are mulling over international teaching offers and getting that shaky- knees- cliff -diving- feeling. They think about how safe and secure it is at home versus this Great Unknown of the International World.  I have to laugh sometimes when teachers ring up asking our Teachanywhere team about the very minutiae of things - will the school provided apartment have cutlery? What airline am I flying? How many children will I have in my class exactly? What should I wear on the first day of school? I laugh because it's human nature to try to understand and control that which scares us. It's a very natural reaction that some people have - to try to understand and plot out exactly everything that will happen in their new job and location. But just like Kate trying to understand absolutely everything about Wills before they get married, or just like jumping off the cliff, you really can't.

You have to just close your eyes and jump......