Adam Yonkers, a Palo Alto High School government, world history, contemporary world history and foreign policy teacher of 12 years will take a leave of absence for the 2019-2020 school year to live abroad with his wife and three children. There, he plans on either continuing teaching, working as an educational consultant or participating in a fellowship program. “I’m still an employee,” Yonkers says, “I’m excited to come back.”

V: What are your plans for next year?

Y: I’ve always thought of myself as a teacher, [and] what’s super cool is that you can teach abroad. … My hope is that I can use my EU citizenship — because I’m a dual citizen of Ireland — to basically get visas for my family and then move our family to some place in Europe where they can study at an American school, learn different languages, you know, experience different cultures.

V: What is your destination?

Y: There’s two places that we’re weighing right now and we just don’t know if we’re going to get the paperwork done. One of them is Switzerland — Lugano, Switzerland — which is the American school. The other one is the British school in Amsterdam. … They have [the kids] been admitted, but we are still kind of waiting for my kids’ paperwork in terms of Switzerland and Ireland.The big issue is Brexit. Brexit’s really gumming up the system in Ireland, especially because there’s so many English people who are trying to get out of English nationality or dual citizenships so they can remain in the EU. … Nevertheless I’ve put my paperwork in there.

V: Why did you make this big decision to move to another country next year?

Y: My dad made a decision to move our family to West Africa. … This is after John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King — all of these figures had been assassinated and he felt like he was going to leave his law practice. … [He] signed up for the Peace Corps. So the deal with the Peace Corps is that you’re basically sent where they need you. And so we were sent to Benin and he became the Peace Corps director and we lived there. The reason I tell you that is that has probably changed the narrative of my life. …  being exposed to different cultures and learning a different language and seeing different things. … I want to give that back to my kids. I have three children. One’s three, one six and one’s eight.

V: Why are you leaving now?

Y: My oldest is eight, before middle school. … Sometimes you get into middle school and life kind of takes over. … We can travel with them [the kids] more easily and my oldest is still young enough that this will make a big impression.

V: What do you hope your kids take away from this trip abroad?

Y: Number one would be an expanded worldview. … Palo Alto is just a bubble and there’s this whole other world out there. … Number two, I would like them to become more multicultural…  It’s [Switzerland] a little bit of a melting pot and it’s also situated in a way that’s like right in the center of Europe so we can experience a lot of different cultures. Amsterdam is also a really cosmopolitan city.

V: Are you concerned about the kids’ adjustment?

Y: Yes, I am. We’re asking a lot out of our kids, having them be adaptable, assimilating into culture. I think all of that is putting a lot of responsibility on them. But adults are more set in their ways then kids are. It will be hard. It will be challenging. But I think they’ll come away with a really cool experience and they’ll look back at it and be like, I’m so glad you did that mom and dad.

V: What do you hope to learn and bring back to Paly?

Y: I’m a foreign policy teacher and Switzerland has a very interesting geopolitical approach to issues. They’re very neutral famously. … I would like to take back some of what I’m teaching about back here because I teach about world history, I teach about current events. In Amsterdam, foreign policy wise, that’s where the Hague is. … the International Criminal Court. As Brexit happens we’re also going to be in there in an interesting time. That’s going to be testing the fabric and the unity of the EU. … I really feel like it’s important that in order for us to be more effective in terms of foreign policy, we need to be able to triangulate our policies with an understanding of where other people are coming from. And a lot of times we haven’t made really good decisions based on, I feel, just ignorance. We haven’t really understood where the Europeans are coming from or whatever country where we’re dealing with. …This is part of me wanting to be a lifelong learner.