The New Adventure

In which I start something new...

I've been keeping this pretty quiet until now because I wanted to quietly get on with it: late last year I applied to do my teacher training. This week I had an interview and despite it not going particularly well I have been accepted. That's typical me in critiquing my performance in an interview despite very quickly being told I'd been accepted. I'll start the course in September and by this time next year will hopefully be within weeks of completing it.

It's taken a long time to get here. For those that don't know, I studied primary education at university and was making good progress. Then I had a horrific final placement which was the most awful period in my life and it took me a good few years to deal with the trauma of that time. In hindsight, I was set up to fail. I'd never taught children that young before, it was an inner city school where ninety-five percent of the children had English as an additional language (EAL) plus I was spending over two and a half hours commuting there, with a sizeable walk either side of a train ride. I was also poorly supported with a class teacher that had no clue how to mentor me and a tutor from university that was more horrible than anyone has ever been about me. It's been eight years but I still feel a deep hatred for that woman.

Though the option to continue and qualify remained open, I couldn't face the trauma again. Unsure where to go next, I ended up with a job as a teaching assistant in a special needs school. As time went by my confidence began to build and I found my career gradually progressed. I went up a level as a teaching assistant and then became a higher level teaching assistant, now leading a class for around half the week and sometimes longer when there were absences. As my confidence grew, my view of qualifying as a teacher began to as well. I went from thinking it was something I would never do, to something that maybe I'd do one day to then finding myself applying when a good way of doing it came along. 

I was somewhat overwhelmed when I learned I had been accepted and I had to take a moment to hide in the toilet and process it. Aurelisa, who I passed in the corridor, was frankly lucky she didn't receive a full on emotional outburst from me at that moment. After all these years it's finally happening. It feels really emotional to me that other people believe in me and the comments I've had from people have been so lovely and positive. 

I don't know if I have the same belief in myself. Obviously there's enough of me that does to have started this process and my general self-confidence is relatively high. I'm also aware of the differences from my previous attempt. I am vastly more experienced than I was before, having learned so much from my many talented colleagues and dealing with challenging situations on a day to day basis that the average person on the street couldn't possible hope to deal with. The irony is that a lot of the tools I've picked up working with students with communication difficulties means I'd actually feel pretty confident taking on that class of EAL students that was so challenging back in the day. I'm also really grateful that I'll be doing it in a supportive environment and I know I'll have the backing and support that I never had back then. 

All the same, there's a huge element of doubt in my mind. Am I just making the same mistake all over again? They say time heals all wounds but I'm not sure that's true and my past experiences mean there will certainly be some extremely tough times ahead for me mentally. I was literally sat here the night before my interview and a little voice wondered if I should cancel it because the thought of this whole process was so frightening to me. 

But you know what, it may be scary but as someone said to me, scary is good sometimes. For a good few years now I've been wondering 'what if?' and it's about time I found out. Whatever happens, I know that I'm going to fight my way through it, wrestle away the self-doubt and work harder than I have ever done before to succeed. I have this little image of a classroom door with my name at the top and I'm determined to make that a reality. 

I've tried to make my thanks known but this feels like another opportunity to do so. Thank you to the exceptional class teachers I've worked with who have taught me so much, the wonderful teaching assistants who have had my back during the tough times and everyone who has believed in me when I didn't. 

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