Becoming a Teacher!

Hello everyone, sorry I haven’t blogged in forever, I’ve been super busy with work, placement, my studies and obviously trying to squeeze in a social life at the same time!

So in this blog I wanted to talk about where my life is at the moment, in terms of me teaching and becoming an FE teacher. The last time I blogged about teaching was way back in the distant year of 2014, when I began my placement at Bird College. I can confirm that I am still loving it and life at Bird is amazing, they are treating me well J Since beginning way back then I am now teaching five classes all by myself. I am teaching three groups from the Pre-Professional Foundation Year and two groups from the first year diplomas. They are all really lovely and have helped my training experience to be a good one, I think if I had really bad classes then I would be going bald and not enjoying teaching at all, but they have made me feel comfortable in establishing myself as a teacher.

Teaching at Bird College has not only helped me to love teaching, but it has also re-ignited my love for Drama and for Acting and Performing. I mean, what other lesson can you attend and be a fireman, a pirate, a doctor, a politician etc. The thing I love about performing arts is you can be whoever you want to be and you can escape the real world, escape your life for five minutes and just be someone else. When I was in college I had no problem getting up in front of an audience and playing a part, but as soon as I had to get up and speak as myself and talk to people, I became really shy. In my second year of college we did a production of Beauty and the Beast in which I played Cogsworth the talking clock and this role included acting, dancing and singing (I’m an awful singer by the way) but I didn’t care because it wasn’t me singing it was Cogsworth, the old British talking clock. After the show as it was my final year, I was nominated to stand up in front of the whole cast, technical team and audience in order to give out all of the thanks to the various helpers and I was more nervous for that than I was for the show.

I think throughout my degree I really lost touch with why I loved performing so much as a) I didn’t get to do it much and b) I didn’t really have a good time on the course. So coming to Bird and imparting my knowledge on to these young adults has been absolutely amazing and more than I could have ever dreamed of. I have three weeks left of placement and I am going to be really sad when I leave as I love it there so much. The students have really helped me to grow as a teacher and I have learnt a lot from them, and I hope that they have learned from me.

Once this placement is finished I plan to finish off the summer worker at the Enquiry Unit as part of the Clearing team (which I have done for the past two years). If you are a current University of Greenwich student and looking for work over the summer then we are recruiting for Clearing Assistants, it’s a very good way to learn some good office skills that can be transferable into almost any job, and you get paid well. So all is good. https://jobs.gre.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx?ref=JS0142-15. I hope to start a full time job come September, if there is one out there for me.

Speak soon J