It was a little brown envelope stamped from l’Académie de Bordeaux that beckoned me abroad to France, where I have been teaching for the past eight months. It arrived in Spring. I had just written my last final at Concordia University and was unsure of how to get started in the world as a graduate of Creative Writing, so I looked into teaching abroad. I was bilingual, France was looking for teachers, the choice seemed easy.
But it wasn’t. And if you are anything like me, you may be reading about TAPIF (or other teaching programs) and scrolling through online reviews or people’s blog posts. I clearly remember one morning sitting at my kitchen table having just read a handful of disheartening reviews and thinking I should just trash the brown envelope. You don’t even like kids that much, my inner voice laughed. You’ve romanticized the idea of elsewhere! You’ll regret it.
But I am adventurous by nature. I like a good challenge. I believe in stepping outside of comfort zones deliberately and I was in need of a change of scenery. So after my inner voice ran out of things on its list of everything that could possibly be disappointing, I reminded myself of one thing:
Make it your own experience.
Meet every moment. Rejoice in the unexpected and when the disappointments arise (which they will) it helps to remind yourself that you knew it wouldn’t be perfect. Be prepared for days when you say, “What did I get myself into?” — because yes, the role of a teaching assistant can often make you feel dispensable, and at times, invisible. But if you approach everything with the mindset of “this is just an experience,” you’ll start to play with the disappointments; you might even be entertained by them. As a writer, I always find myself thinking: if my life were a novel, it is these harder moments that would make the best chapters. So come home with a story to tell. Come home an expanded person. That’s the advice I can give you, as my contract here ends.
Would I recommend TAPIF?
To be honest, I would not recommend this position for professional reasons, but rather life reasons.
I probably should have known that any job that asks you to work only 12 hours a week, spread out on three days, is not a job that asks very much of you. I more than often left work feeling like I had done absolutely nothing. There were projects I had hoped to introduce but soon realized the English curriculum was already built and extremely restricted. There were moments when I took this to heart, and schools that made me want to call in sick when I wasn’t, and occasions when I considered quitting entirely. To give you an idea, I sometimes failed to see the difference between me at the front of the class or a Youtube video playing on the overhead.
Yet, that’s not the whole truth. I will also remember the mornings, difficult mornings, on which the children and I burst out into uncontrollable laughter. I have had a handful of colleagues I was lucky to connect with, and got to share conversation with them over coffee in the break room. I got to know their private thoughts about what it’s like to teach full-time, about France as a country, about the dreams they had but never got around to building and the choices they made in life at my age.
I got to learn that children are exceptional storytellers and liars. They say things with such passion that you just go along with it. Beatrice told me in all sincerity that the tooth fairy had once left her 100 euros, and one day at recess Lina had whispered that she was an undercover gilet-jaune. I’ve learned that children ask very little of you, perhaps only that you stop thinking for a minute, and just listen. They don’t need you to be entertaining, or to sing the songs on key. They won’t ask you for your qualifications and will never make you feel like you’re not good at what you do. Whether I feel I had an impact, or actually taught them any English they will remember, may not actually be what matters. Maybe what matters is that I showed up in their life as someone from far away who had things to say, pictures to show them, tricks to give.
Then, in all the other hours of my week, my own life continued to unfold in moments of immense gratitude. On my part-time salary I met my parents in Prague in October where we watched red-trams in the streets and fed clouds of gulls from old bridges and discovered a rose garden concealed on Petrín Hill. In Decemeber I flew to Holland in time to celebrate Sinterklaas celebrations with an old friend, and bike along canals lined with yellow holiday lights. I got to take morning trains with the sunrise, and watch the French countryside go by in fields of cattle and abandoned castles.
I have also gotten the opportunity to experience Pau as a real place, which months ago had been just another name on GoogleMaps. I’ve tried to live the little things, like learning the city’s bus routes nearly by heart, and timing morning coffee at La Mie Caline perfectly before the T3 pulls up at the station. Ask about this city and I could tell you which grocery store has the endless supply of ripe avocados. The films that play here won’t be heard of by the cinemas back home. I’ve encountered people I will never forget and who will never remember me, like the guy who wore cable knit sweaters working the popcorn stand on Wednesday nights, or my favourite clerk at the grocery store with straight bangs and green eyes.
And in the middle of all these small things, places and people, is the one memory: a sunny day in late fall, la rue des Cordeliers, when the person I now love was someone I didn’t know. Just a smiling face, round shades, and an accent I will never want him lose.
The point of me writing all of this is really just to say that none of it could have been clear to me that morning I considered trashing my brown envelope. So if you are searching for reassurance, advice, or clarity as I had been, I would tell you (from my extremely biased position) to just go for it. Say yes. And as my brother wrote to me before I left, “Leave no stone unturned.”
