Looking Back on Studies - Teaching

Warning: word heavy post.

I had done various bit of teaching off and on for some little while, but always it bugged me that I ought to know that what I was doing was correct, the best way possible, and so an itch to scratch, I needed a teaching qualification.

This time yet another college locally and studying:

City & Guilds 7302 Level 3 Introduction to Delivering Learning.

So in the Autumn of 2004 I took this short course, with the Certificate issued in 2005

Guess what… another personal difficulty, made my appointment for interview and enrolment and my mother-in-law died unexpectedly.  A bit hectic dealing with everything personal but was able to make the interview, the funeral, the course and everything else necessary personally.

This teaching course was a mini course, 11 weeks long, learning to teach adults.  Very intensive.  Yet again City & Guilds played their tricks, 8 weeks in and they changed how things were to be done.  Some of the assessments had to be reworked.  Panic for many, but having been part of C&G for such a long time, not a surprise.  I just don’t understand why they do things part way through, why it doesn’t wait until the next intake.

Amongst those in my class were a nurse, who needed to teach other nurses, specialist skills, someone who was teaching IT to those seeking work, another on the beginning of teacher training.  Many were out there already teaching successfully within their workplace, but needed the formality of a qualification. 

So this short course taught me, how to lesson plan, assess results, different types of learners, all inclusive language etc

For the most part it confirmed that I was on the right track with what I’d been doing in my own small way.

The next step up was a one year teaching course, however there was a problem with this, and I briefly explored the options of trying to do it.  It required X amount of hours teaching practice.  For the most part this kind of thing is usually done with the person teaching their subject in a college situation whilst studying how to actually teach.  Locally had their quota of creative tutors, plus it was never my intent to teach weekly in a college environment.  Sadly offering workshops as my teaching practice was not acceptable, and thinking about it, for the needs I had outside of a formal teaching environment, I didn’t think I actually needed more by way of paper qualification.  My itch was scratched.

Over the years I've done lots of day workshops in various subjects, spent a couple of years attending a drawing class (though you'd never guess) participated in the Embroiderers' Guild Development Scheme, attended conferences and opportunities on marketing, promotion, business planning, artist development - indeed it was at one of these I was invited to participate in my first Art Trail.

I have not taken on any further formal studies since the above, although for many years I kept regular updates with the options of a degree in embroidery, or courses offered via the Open University.   However, nothing else has come along to make me say I must do this.

I have an armful of qualifications as an adult which would surprise a few people from the distant past, not least the school teacher where I managed a Grade 4 CSE in Art!!  Plus as almost every time I study the formal stuff, there is a family difficulty, I think it safer for others, if I stay away…..

It feels good to have recorded the journey, so often we forget or let it slip by, a means to an end, but this how where what and why is what makes up me today.