“Correspondence School” was something many Canadian kids who grew up on farms in the Dirty Thirties experienced. Older boys were needed for the harvest; older girls were needed for food prep and child minding - not many got education past Grade 8, and the trip to the one-room school houses (which held Grades 1-12) was a damn cold one, in sleighs, pulled by old Nellie the farm nag, with a hot baked potato to keep your hands warm and then provide your lunch at noon. You’d put another one in the wood stove in the classroom so that it would be ready by home time.

Canadian distance education actually got its start in 1889 to provide opportunities for rural teachers who could not attend school full-time. My grandfather was one of these teachers during The Depression. He had seven children of his own to feed, so in the early days as a young teacher he went where no one else wanted to go, splitting his time between various country schoolhouses teaching other people’s children.

The world’s largest and most successful distance university was founded in the UK by Royal Charter in 1967. Oooh – you online youngsters with the world at your fingertips and everything from Shopify to Amazon to Uber and DoorDash at your beck and call – do realize that back then you had to go to the actual building and put “bum on seat”! The Open University (OU) revolutionized all that. You could get university learning materials delivered to your door by post. 

There was an Allied presence in Europe for a very, very long time. Entire families had been “exterminated” and the ground was littered with the blood of broken hearts. The Berlin declaration of 1945 had most of north-east Germany as the British occupation zone – including the city-state of Hamburg, and this will become significant as our story continues.

You can imagine what the Cold War did to escalate tensions and the number of military personnel. Yet more soldiers were stationed, and families went with them. Many children grew up in Germany on military bases as British citizens. Full and unrestricted sovereignty under international law was not to be enjoyed by any German government until after the reunification in 1990.

I arrived just at this historical moment to begin what was to become a 20-year adventure in Europe. What a crazy, crazy time!

The remaining elements of British forces in Germany did not disappear until the end of 2019, and many remain to ensure NATO capability in the region. So for over 70 years, there was a strong military presence, and one got used to seeing soldiers as something commonplace. Not only soldiers - but their wives and older children - were very grateful for the learning opportunities afforded by the OU. 

One could study at an acclaimed British university, in English, and go back home to the UK with a completed degree. It was gold. What the university took an awfully long time to realize was that the entire continent of Europe was waiting for the same opportunity: to the victor go the spoils, and the whole world wanted to learn English. Just a few small twists and turns of history could have made Russian the Lingua Franca, if you’ll pardon the pun.   

My timing was perfect to launch a career, beginning with teaching Business English in Hamburg in April, 1990. 

With not a word of German under my belt, I began learning about foreign business, culture, and the challenges of communication in an emerging Europe. You must remember - there was no internet yet. I taught at an exclusive private business school in the old part of the city near the historical city hall, which was constructed over a ten-year period in the Renaissance Revival style - the backdrop for literally thousands of films. I felt like I was in a fairytale myself!

Business people from every walk of life flocked to the school to take 1:1 lessons, join in group conversation classes, or take part in the famous two-week “Bildungsurlaub” - a yearly undertaking of two weeks of all-day intense Business English classes, paid for by the state, as part of it’s approach to supporting citizen’s continuing education. 

It was here that I really learned how to listen.

Teaching a language is not about talking. It’s about giving your students the opportunity to speak, and reframing incorrect grammar and syntax, so that they can advance and become more fluent and more self-confident speakers. You introduce new ideas and vocabulary bit by bit. Over time, these become familiar words and phrases and the “way” of thinking or negotiating, or convincing, or doing small talk, becomes second nature. 

You had to know what to focus on and what to let go of – after all, if you corrected every little mistake, your student would become defeated and never come back. If you corrected random errors, there would be no cohesive cognitive architecture to make sense of it all. Talk too much, they don’t get to practice; talk too little and they’re bored and don’t get the right pronunciation.  

The school started sending me out into businesses all over Hamburg, and soon asked me to draft their Business English curriculum. While this was fun, and a feather in my cap, I wanted more. I didn’t just want to talk about business, I wanted to understand what, exactly, made people in business tick. What made us all similar? How and why could we be so different? 

One day, someone came in with a catalogue from The Open University. Then and there, my life changed once again. Still teaching, I began studying psychology and graduated in time for my young son to start Grade 1. I jokingly say that the arrival of my son and the arrival of my study materials were very closely matched in terms of excitement and gravitas. 

He was just a baby when the first bundle of books and papers arrived in the mail. Correspondence school had begun! 

This, you could say, is just one chapter.

About the Author

Anna is an organizational psychologist and executive coach, with a special interest in all things technology. We’re part of the team at Garleff Coaching and Consulting Group. If this article has struck a chord, please let us know.
Anna Garleff Cell: +1 587 224 3793 / anna@garleffcoaching.com
www.garleffcoaching.com