I had my first teaching job lined up and a mortgage application in process. Now it looked like I would have to return to Germany and start training again from scratch. There were just 72 hours to save my dream of living in the UK
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n the early hours of Friday 24 June 2016, the result glowed on my phone: 52%. Barely a majority, but nonetheless a verdict. I lay in my rented bedroom in Devon, still in pyjamas, watching everything I’d planned dissolve. When I saw the headline “UK votes to leave EU”, my first thought wasn’t political. It was: “What does this mean for me?”
It was the final day of my second school placement, the culmination of my teacher training for a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE). I’d moved from Germany the year before to train as a Religious Education teacher, convinced I’d found a profession and a place to call home. In Germany, RE meant teaching Protestant children Protestantism or Catholic children Catholicism – separate lessons, separate truths. Here, I could teach all major faiths side by side, invite discussion and let curiosity lead the lesson. In a world pulling itself apart along religious and cultural lines, that felt like the better approach.
But when I enrolled in the programme, I had no idea a referendum was coming. I’m embarrassed to admit that I’d barely followed British politics, and even as the campaign kept rolling, I couldn’t imagine the leave vote winning. Great Britain outside the EU? It sounded like a thought experiment, not a future.
