Ah, my chance to write my review of the year post, which has become a bit of a tradition for me (2009, 2008, 2007 - have I really been blogging that long?) . Compared to those three this has been relatively sedate, but that isn’t a particularly fair comparison and January still feels a life time ago.
To say 2010 was an educational year for me would be to play a little on words; but education, both mine and pupils, has been the main theme of my year. I have done a few other things, including a fantastic trip to the Philippines over Easter to celebrate the marriage of two friends. Oddly I didn’t write about it at the time but the week I spent seeing a bit of a beautiful country and the time I spent meeting my friend Dean’s family was a wonderful break.
I completed two teaching placements this year meeting loads of teachers and students. I’ve also written what felt like far to many essays. Some of the people I studied with are on the way to becoming lifelong friends and I’ve been able to catch up with a few of the friends I’ve had a bit longer, although not as many as I’d like to have. Next year perhaps?
I’ve ended the year in paid employment, the first time in three years. I still feel like a complete neophyte in the classroom, but I remind myself how long it took me to master programming so try to forgive myself some of my failures. The important thing is am I learning? And I’d say it’s rather like being thrown in the deep end of the swimming pool, it’s learn or drown. Not that the PGCE wasn’t useful but there are things that it can’t teach you, and the experience of being solely responsible for classes performance and being judged for that or knowing that a class will be with you for at least the whole year can’t be taught. I’m also starting to realise the truth behind some much of the AfL stuff we were taught, and struggling to work out how to incorporate it into my lessons. The marking is never ending but crucial if I’m to see who is actually working, who’s struggling and who the lazy whosits are.
There have been fewer big excitements this year, Canterbury and Cromer are exciting in their own ways but not quite the same as Accra or Ada Foah and moving from Lewes to Worthing isn’t the same as London to Tamale. I have had another chance to sit through a graduation ceremony which I didn’t expect.
I’ve also learned to embrace my inner mouse. If the students are going to give me a nickname they could do a lot worse than “Stuart”
[...] good idea the first time I blogged about the year. I’ve done it 4 times now, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010, and each year I’ve had some life changing event to comment on. Unfortunately for this blog [...]