Forgive me for digressing from the usual theme of my posts but I have to get something off my chest.
Last night I think I may have wasted 3 hours of my life… and unfortunately I’m probably going to waste another 3 hours every week for the next 11 weeks!
How? I have been teaching at the local college for the last 4 or 5 years (can’t remember exactly). I got involved in teaching as a way of passing on the knowledge I’ve gained in 21 odd years in graphic design. Our ‘hopelessly out of touch’ Government decided that all non-qualified teachers have to do a PTLLS* course by 2010 or give up teaching.
This course is supposed to prepare us to teach!!!!! From what I saw last night I’m not sure I want to teach anymore. No wonder our kids are leaving places that are meant to prepare them for a career with no idea of what they’re doing…
I don’t want to be turned into an academic. I don’t want to waste precious hours of my life filling out paperwork in triplicate. I just want to share my knowledge to help prepare people to work in the graphic design industry. I don’t want to think until my head feels like it’s going to burst.
At the moment I’m not sure I’m going to see this course through. I’m not a quitter, I love learning, my head is full of ‘stuff’ that I’ve accumulated over the years but this just seems so far removed from what I do and how I do it. I’m not perfect and I’m not the best teacher in the world but I get the result I set out to achieve.
OK so rants over, I’ll get back to some real work.
Till next time
’B’s Mum
*PTLLS – Preparation to Teach in the Life Long Sector
OK, so although school started this week, we haven’t started home-ed yet…
‘B’ needs time… time to adjust. Remember we’ve only just decided to home-ed. I think the reality of it kicked in (for both us) on Tuesday. We were getting ready to drop ‘B’s dad off to do a Mind Body Spirit Fayre, we were loading up the car and I think it was then that ‘B’ noticed everyone going to school (and it hit home). Me, I had to shake the feeling that she wasn’t ‘skiving’, I know it sounds silly, but I did have to remind myself that I don’t have to run around in the shadows, I can stand tall and proud and say ‘we home-ed’ if anyone challenges us.
It was then that I realised how much conditioning has been going on, for all of us. We need time to get our heads out of the traditional educational pattern and get ourselves into our pattern, and that our pattern is going to be ‘B’-shaped! What does ’B’-shape look like? Mmm, kinda random and certainly unusual!!!!
At the end of last week I was convinced I needed to be more organised and get some sort of semblance of order if this was going to work. Today I’m thinking, why on earth did I think that? We don’t have to follow any timetable or curriculum, we can literally just go with the flow…
We’ve already experienced a certain amount of liberation from our previous constraints, in the form of ‘B’s newly opened willingness to try new things and her new found ability to be able to get into the car and actually go somewhere without having a panic attack or not being able to get out of the bathroom until she’d been to the toilet 20 times (and then if she lost count we would have to start again or in most cases just give up and stay home). We went to Southwold’s Maize Maze and had a wonderful time, it’s been sooo long since we’ve been able to go anywhere further than 20 minutes away, in fact, that outing has turned into one of our first home-ed projects, she took loads of photos and asked loads of questions… this is a way she enjoys learning…
’B’ was also a stickler for routine, as with most children with any type of Autistic tendencies. Again this hit me out of the blue, a new word for us… spontaneity. Yes, we have achieved this a few times already. I think I’m beginning to see the full impact of the stress she’s been under, I knew she struggled with school, but I’m seeing a whole new ‘B’ emerging already, things can only get better right? I’d rather have a happy laid-back ’B’ than the little girl that was around this time last year!
As my title says, Rome wasn’t built in a day… we just need a little time.
I’ve a feeling we’re going to be OK.
Till next time
‘B’s Mum
