It's said that the hardest thing is to say goodbye........

So I'm coming up to the end of my first full calendar year as a Director of Studies with EF and whilst I'll write a blog entry on my full year at some point, this one is more about change.

Over the years, especially as an Area Manager in the pub trade before my career change, we were taught how to manage change. Change, we were told, is inevitable. To stand still is the equivalent of falling because as you stay in your nice, warm, comfortable area, everyone else is changing around you. And progressing.

Now having had a few years to contemplate these pearls of wisdom I agree. Up to a point. I still think Opal Fruits should be called Opal Fruits. I still occasionally call that nutty caramel bar a Marathon and think Snickers, sounding suspiciously like 'sniggers' was a waste of marketing money.

People however, need to change. They need to develop and they should receive encouragement at every point of their journey to do this. Back in the day, when we were looking for new managers to run a pub, we'd scout the current ranks of assistant managers. Here was a talent pool that had been trained (indoctrinated?) in our values, methods and processes and that could easily step up and fill the void. And yet, some managers would actively discourage you from taking their assistant. Why? well, i guess it meant change. Having to train a new assistant, maybe doing more jobs yourself in the short term.

Imagine how the assistant would have felt, knowing they're capable enough of doing the job, only to find their manager held them back? Yeah, people are frightened of change.

So what does it have to do with this blog entry? Well, people move on. In the world of EFL/ESL teaching, a high percentage of people are "in-between things". Maybe the plan was to stay for a year and then move on. Travelling the world and paying for it by teaching the language. Maybe stay for a second year because of friends that have been made, relationships begun, and often a love of the job itself. As a DoS this is a change that you have to accept. We have made our decision to stay in this particular role but we can't expect our teachers to stay just because we want them to. If the time is right for the person to move on, we should encourage them. If we believe they have more to learn or we have more to offer them, we should absolutely point these things out, but, we shouldn't hold someone back for selfish reasons.

The friendships will always be there......