Spencer Bowers

I Have: an Educational Experience in Poland Spencer Bowers

A couple of US educators decided they would like to teach abroad following retirement, since they had a similar interesting experience in the UK in the 1980s. They saw an ad in a local paper and traveled to Warsaw, Poland to teach in an American International School. English was supposed to be spoken in the school, but actually very little was understood. Their situation was further complicated when they realized that unlike other European countries they have visited, little English was spoken in Poland. Bringing their collective 60-plus years of experience into a place where it could not be used, the teachers found themselves in situations where they had little control. They enjoyed the interaction with colleagues-foreign and native. They learned the intricacies of public transportation in Poland, marveled at the culture and the beauty of the rebuilt Polish cities, and learned to appreciate its intelligent and hard-working people. They were sometimes able to take trips to parts of Europe which were less-easily accessed from Western European locales.