In November I wrote an article inciting people of a certain age to jack in their fancy jobs and join me in training to be a teacher at a tough London school. It was a tall order, but I hoped to rustle up enough interest for a small pilot project. A few dozen applications would have been decent. So far, Now Teach, the organisation I co-founded, has received nearly 800.
While sifting through them I have been looking for patterns, many of which are much as I expected — notably that the charms of the corporate world dwindle with time, while the desire to do something more useful gets stronger.
But there is one thing that has surprised me: the part played by death.