Shanghai next stop for Granville teacher
GRANVILLE – Debra Lancashire will teach fourth-grade students at the prestigious Concordia International School in Shanghai, China, starting in August.
The former Granville Intermediate School teacher will be leaving behind her position here to further her personal and educational career overseas.
To Lancashire, this is an opportunity of a lifetime.
“It just feels like a fantasy, you know? I feel although I am going to a strange country, to a culture I have never experienced, learning a language I don’t know, having food I have never tasted, and leaving behind great friends and family — I am truly stepping into something amazing,” she said.
She will embark on her journey to the school at the end of July, when she will fly out to China and stay in an apartment to teach for three years, all expenses paid. This will be her first time going to that nation.
It wasn’t easy getting the position. The interview process was rigorous, Lancashire said. After attending a series of interviews — almost similar to speed dating, she said — she had to go through another assortment of Skype conversations, long phone calls and other challenging procedures until she found out she had got the job.
“I’m just having coffee one day and I’m talking to this other international teacher before we left, and the superintendent just comes down and hands me this blue bag and says, ‘Welcome to Concordia,’ and I just cried,” Lancashire said. “I really couldn’t believe it.”
The Concordia International School is a private Christian institute nestled in the heart of Shanghai. While the school welcomes many ethnicities, it is American and the students there are taught English.
Traveling to China has provided a lot more to her than a job, however. Lancashire, who also has developed talents in massage therapy and aeronautics through the years, hopes to strengthen her extracurriculars through this new experience.
“I’ve been teaching and learning massage for many years, and this is a great opportunity to learn some new techniques, like Chinese herbal remedies and natural healing,” she said. “I’m just so excited because I’m going to be exposed to all of that. It truly is a blessing.”
Although her leaving is especially hard for her friends, family and the Granville schools community, where she has been serving as a sixth-grade teacher for nearly 15 years, they are all optimistic about her departure.
“She has inspired so many people locally,” said Louissa Summers, a close friend of Lancashire. “Now she will continue her gift on the other side of the world.”
Lancashire has been a staple of lifelong learning and endurance in the Granville community. She hopes that her departure to China will encourage others to pursue their dreams, no matter how old they are.
“I have a poster in my room of the Athens agora, with Socrates teaching his pupils all around him, and the title says, ‘Seek Knowledge,’ and on the bottom of the poster I put, ‘Be a lifelong learner,’ ” Lancashire said. “And I think I’ve lived that throughout all my life. I think that’s what I want kids to know the most: Be a lifelong learner.”