What an appropraite quote for the title of this blog. Since 2017 I have been keeping a record of our adventures as we have lived worked and travelled abroad. I have made 198 entries and now I come to the hardest one to write. One that I have been avoiding because this is the end of the adventures.

Today was a very hard day because it was my last day at school… Concordia… work. For ever. Today I retired and must hang up my date stamp. Today I had to say goodbye to many amazing people, colleagues and good friends. But first, I need to back track a little and explain myself.

This year has been an incredibly hard year for me. I havent blogged about it at all becasue it has been very stressful. At the beginning of the year, I started with a new line manager and a new Elementary School Principal. She was the Assistant Principal last year and I suspected that things were going to change but boy, what a change she made. As I am getting quite long in the tooth, I have noticed over my career that some new leaders feel that they need to be ‘new brooms’ and need to establish ‘their’ way of doing things. Some, particularly inexperienced leaders do this with such force and gusto that they can often sweep the baby out with the bathwater. This is what happened here.

I was recruited to do a job that I had done very happily and sucessfully for 4 years. Then BAM, this year on day #2 of orientation, I was told that my job was changing underneath me. Again, with all my experience as a manager at the University of Cumbria, I know that there are effective ways to manage change and there are ways which do not work. This was a brand new administrator who was power hungry and thought that simply by being in a position of authority she could do exactly what she wanted, how she wanted. I have subsequently learned that she acted with the full support of the Head of School because he also wanted change Concordia into a cutting edge beacon of technology.

And so, I was forcibly told that I was no longer to support literacy through the library, but that I was to teach research skills in the classroom only. No more read alouds, no more book promotions, no more reader advisory or interaction with the children to recommend books to them. This wasn’t what I went into the job for.

I had to plan a whole year’s worth of brand new longer lessons with effectively zero notice and minuscule amounts of planning time. These lessons all had to be collaborative team teaching (not something I had done before) and only a few teachers actually contributed ideas. At the same time as all that new stuff I was to research Information Literacy Standards to hang the lessons from… it was a challenge. To cap it all, I was told that all my lessons had to be digital! It was clear to me that my job had changed overnight to that of a Digital Media Specialist.

This was quite a shift for me, at my age. This was a world that I had not been trained for or felt comfortable in. I am a books person and believe in the power of print.

A good leader would have notified me of the school’s changing direction and proposed the new way of working for the year ahead, asked me if I wanted to apply for the upcoming renewal and supported me if I did etc etc. Not, do this RIGHT NOW! I sat in some extremely uncomfortable meetings where I was grilled and even asked ‘do you want this job?’ I replied that I was willing to try. Nevertheless, the way which I was dealt with by the new Principal in the first weeks of this year was tantamount to bullying. I felt targeted, unsupported and vey unhappy. It was an extremely stressful time for me.

I was, however, not alone. There were several of us who at that time, received the same (and sometimes worse) treatment. One colleague said that they felt that they had gone from being a respected and valued member of staff to someone who needed intense micromanagement, which felt degrading.

The new Principal in her naivety managed through a system of ‘favoritism’. If you were her ‘friend’ you got everything you wanted. Some of us were deliberately targeted and made to feel like failures while everyone else in the middle could see what was happening and just kept their heads down, not wanting to be on either list.

This was such a change from the loving, caring, supportive Christian school which had welcomed me back in 2019. It is quite telling that the new Principal is not a Christian and was recruited during COVID when it was difficult to get staff into the country and she moved to us from another school within China.

In the 4th week of the school year I had my appraisal setting meeting with me new line manager on a Wednesday and all went well. So it was a HUGE SHOCK when on the Friday I was served with a Stage 3 PIP. This is a Performance Improvement Plan and necessitates very rigorous monitoring to eradicate serious professional deficiencies!!! I did not believe that I had been ‘deficient’ so I refused to sign. This was a massive red flag as to how the new regime was going to treat me. The policy was not even adhered to as I had no written warnings, no evidence presented of any wrongdoing and no opportunity for informal stages of improvement. At the same time I also received my CKD Stage 3 diagnosis (see previous blog) and I realized that all this stress at work was just compounding my health issues.

This situation was not ideal so two days later I handed in my resignation. My line manager at the time said that he thought I could do the new job. I agreed but said that I didn’t want to work with someone who treats me the way the new Principal did. He agreed. He could see that I was being bullied but was unable/ unwilling to challenge it.

The Principal did in fact back off a bit once she knew that I was leaving. She focused her energies on getting her ‘friend’ recruited… but in that respect the rest of the year was slightly easier for me.

Others were starting to also make complaints about the new Principal but it was all to no avail because the new Head of HR was also a problem and in a shocking move in February of this year she was sacked by the Board of Governors, along with her husband, the Middle School Principal. It has been quite a tumultuous year all round.

Back in the library I was attempting to do the new work but not really enjoying it. In my heart I am a book person who believes in print, literacy and promoting reading for pleasure. My library colleagues around the world have been amazingly supportive and given me lesson plans for this different approach and some of those have worked well. Suffice to say that I have been stretched and extremely busy, not least because in a separate reorganization 5th Grade was added to my workload!

Many kids, parents and teachers still wanted to hear stories read aloud and so I tried to supplement the new stuff with the traditional stuff on alternate weeks (even though I wasn’t supposed to). As if all that wasn’t enough, I was also ‘required’ to attend curriculum planning meetings for a whole day every single week and sat in many hours of maths assessment discussions which were not in the slightest bit relevant to me whatsoever. I felt that I was being forced to do this as a way of punishing me for being ‘old fashioned’ I am not against planning or meetings but only where they are relevant.

I was coming home exhausted every day and even Shifu could tell that my Qi was low.

Many more things happened throughout the course of the year. But that is all too late for me. I have been replaced. Not by the Principal’s friend as it turned out. But that is another story.

I did wonder about another job. I heard that the lady who replaced me at Shrewsbury was also leaving so I held out for that, but in the end the school decided to save money and not replace her! Then I looked at Northern Thailand and had a successful interview at. British school there. But my kidney doctor advised me that there were significant risks in certain parts of the world which have seen a rise in cases of dengue fever. if I contracted that I would probably die. We decided against that.

After much soul-searching Kevin and I have decided to end the adventure and return to the UK. I will be retiring (early) and after 37 years in the profession am hanging up my date stamp.

I can’t get my pension for another 3 years so I will teach Taiji. I will be setting up a Taiji School called Milun UK and I will be available to teach Qi Gong, Taiji and mindfulness to small group or private classes. It has taken me a while to gather all the documentation and video evidence but today I submitted my application for accreditation as an Instructor at the Tai Chi and Qi Gong Union of Great Britain. If anyone in the north west is interested in learning and improving their health just let me know.

To this end I have started a YouTube channel called MilunUK and I would welcome subscribers as I build up their business.

Things that I am looking forwards to about our return to Blighty:

* seeing family and friends

* stable internet

* having a toasted tea cake (or 2)

* playing as much Taiji as I want every day

Things that I am NOT looking forward to

* the weather

* the political situation

* strikes

* energy prices

* food prices

* NHS waiting times

* the crime rate

It’s going to be a reverse culture shock!

Friends and colleagues here gave me a beautiful farewell party. I couldn’t believe it when I walked in and saw the life-sized poster of me

They made speeches and sang to me. It was lovely. I even got one of the Concordia jackets with my name and year of commencement on it. Such a thoughtful gift.

We played final games of Mahjong.

I am bringing back my automatic table so if any peeps back at home would like to learn how to play. Now that I am retired I have plenty of time.

One first grade class even wrote a song and performed it for me. It was such a special moment and I cried unashamedly.

Back to today. It was the last day of school and a bitter sweet one. So many hugs and photos and flowers and gifts and promises to keep in touch with an amazing set of friends and colleagues. Sad faces from the children who tell me that they will miss me. Conversations with parents who value the work that I have done. Sadder faces from colleagues. I have formed some friendships here that will last a lifetime. Here are some of the people that I care about and who have made my time here so special.

I must remember not to cry because it’s over but to smile because it happened.

Finally, this isn’t goodbye to Shanghai for ever because one of our book suppliers has asked me to do a little consultancy work for them. I will be back!