TASIS

I was talking to an old TASIS England friend last summer. We had both recently gotten the TASIS alumni magazine in the mail and both admitted to reading it from cover to cover, several times, poring over the articles and the photos and the little snippets of news from former students and teachers. We both found it remarkable that after leaving TASIS eight years before, we still felt such an attachment to the place and the people.

So it is with the TASIS schools. Peter and I spent three years in Thorpe at TASIS England, right after we were married. We've never worked so hard but, at the same time, it was the best place at which I ever taught. With three years under our belts, we were there for longer than many teachers and most students. International schools are funny places, always in transition, with nomadic teachers who spend a couple years here and a couple years there, and transient students, shuffled around because of their parents' jobs. TASIS is no exception. For most schools, this is the recipe for an apathetic alummi base. TASIS is special, however. Of the former students and teachers we know, they all hold an incredibly strong allegiance to TASIS, whether they were there for one year or stayed on, becoming a 'lifer'. There is a spirit at TASIS that makes it TASIS, and it is that spirit, I think, that makes all the difference.

TASIS is an acronym for The American School in Switzerland, more like a brand name at this point, for a cluster of schools and programs founded by Mrs. Fleming, the mastermind of the TASIS mystique. We last saw Mrs. Fleming at graduation in 1998. She was eighty-eight at the time, still sporting plunging necklines (that would have been risqué on anyone else but were so "Mrs. Fleming"), buckets of perfume, flamboyant lipstick, and large gaudy jewelry. Mrs. Fleming had a knack for knowing everyone at her schools, despite the continually changing faces and the fact that she lived in Switzerland and only visited the campus in England a few times a year. She was an educator ahead of her time, seeing value in the international experience in the mid-1950s when she moved to Switzerland and founded TASIS, an experiment in international education. Schools in Puerto Rico, Greece and England were to follow, along with summer programs in Switzerland, England, France, Italy, and Spain. She was recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education in 1983 and had a musical written about her entitled Oh, What a Life!

What a life, indeed. Mrs. Fleming passed away last month at the age of 98. During her years, she influenced the lives of thousands of people around the world, including ours. And so we are traveling back to England today (thanks to 50 Euro round trip tickets!), along with many of our former colleagues and students, to attend a memorial service in honor of Mrs. Fleming. It will be a reunion of sorts, which we are looking forward to. TASIS breeds good people, just like Pennington does, and we feel lucky to be a part of the TASIS family.