A weird thing always seems to happen during the last couple of months of a school year in the life of an international school teacher; a bittersweet moment between those who are moving on to their new lives and the ones that are staying around for another year starts to occur. It ends up being the busiest time of the year and not just because final grades are being completed and the final units are wrapping up, but because there are gathering after gathering that happens in order to say that final goodbye. But it is part of the lifestyle, this constant first impression that is brought on by the new group of teachers that will arrive the next year while maintaining a bunch of relationships with the friends that have been created over the years that have been spent with the group that you have spent a year or two with. A tickle always happens in the back of my mind every year, thinking that I will see most of these people again in random places all around the world, but after eleven years of teaching on the international scene, I have come to realize that it is only a select few that I keep in touch with in the way that I would have thought at the end of the school year.
This phenomenon is not uncommon in other industries as well as this one, but the difference comes with the fact that at the end of every year, it is guaranteed to occur in the international school community. There is another big difference as well; when this group moves on, they really move to places like Switzerland, and South Korea, and back to their hometowns in America. It is not like they are just leaving the job, but whose paths can still cross because we still live in the same town. The only way we find out about each other is in passing through social media which does not feel the same as the face to face contact.
This year, I will be saying goodbye to a lot of great colleagues that I have gotten to know over my first year in Peru. It will be sad to see them go though I have only known them for a year, but in that year, I have been able to share some great memories from them, and learn new ways of exploring the profession that I have been a part of. I also know that they had the hardest year out of any of the other people that I worked with. The ones who are departing have a different mindset than the ones who are staying behind, and for those new individuals that show up in that last year, it is hard to make strong connections with them, especially if you know that you are one of the ones leaving. The ones who have been in international teaching for a long time know that the relationship that they will make with the new group will be a short one, and they are also aware of the possibility of never seeing those people again, so it gets hard to push to build that strong relationship in the first place, especially with all of the other things that they have going on during the school year. Still, it is hard to make it through a school year when you work so closely with some people and not to make those relationships to last in the first place, so by the end of the year, they find themselves saying those hard goodbyes to the people that they believed would not have been on that list at the beginning of the year.
It doesn’t make it any easier for the ones that are staying behind. There is the friend group that is staying behind, but if there is a piece or two missing, then the friend group does not feel the same the next year. This group also has to contend with the backlash that is felt by the students as their favorite teachers move on to other exciting adventures around the world. They have to console those students the next year as they go through the remembrances of those that made the school a great place in the first place. Those teachers also have to welcome the new people in who are taking the places of maybe some of their best friends of all time, and trying to find a way not to compare them to the person who has just left. They are never going to be the same person and they will always do things a little bit differently. It is not a bad thing, but it is still change. And though an international school teacher has learned how to do deal with change, it is still never an easy thing for anyone to have to experience.
The day’s departing sun is the perfect image to capture the feelings that are going through people during this experience. On one hand, it is always beautiful to watch the sun dip below the horizon on any given night. The sky lights up in a dazzling display of colors, and we can’t help but just watch it go, knowing that it is moving on to the place where it is supposed to be. At the same time, it marks an end of a day well spent. It gives us pause to reflect back on that day and what it had to offer. Did we get the most out of that day or were there some things that were left undone or not said? If there were, then it is too late to go back and correct those mistakes because the day is now done. It is this bittersweet moment that we are running to every night to witness in the hopes that it can fix those conflicting emotions we have just by making sure we are there.
This is what the end of the year feels like for international school teacher. It is not just about getting excited for that time off to spend away from grades and with family; it is about saying goodbye to the friends we have made, and preparing for the memories made with new ones.
John Collings 