May 30th, 2010

Watson’s School of English is in partnership talks with another school now, and it’s looking good. We will start teaching our group courses there on July 12th. It’s a bigger location than our last school, and more centrally located. Budecska Street wasn’t bad, but this is directly in front of Namesti Republiky tram stop, a few short steps from the Metro, next door to a kebab shop, around the corner from Obecni Dum and the start of Na Prikope, and across the street from Palladium. This is the best location for an English School on the entire planet. It’s also a school with a great tradition, as it was the very first English language school established in Prague after the Velvet Revolution. So, we’re glad to be working with them and I’m really jazzed about returning to teaching, I’ve had 6 months off and accomplished none of the things I wanted to, not even organizing my teaching materials and thinking of new games. Still, there’s one thing that was worrying me a little bit. The reason for the partnership is that both schools were having financial problems. In all of the meetings we’ve had so far, nobody has wanted to bring up the subject of money. When we did, at the last meeting, the response was “let’s just get started and worry about money later.” I choose my tenses carefully. That was worrying me, but on reflection, it doesn’t at all. Their goal, and ours, is to teach English, to make this school, SPUSA/Watson’s School of English, the best school in Prague, to attract students by the thousands, students and workers, professionals and housewives, Czechs and foreigners, young and old. If we can do that together, the money will sort itself out. If we can’t, we’ll have to try something else.