Done & dusted …

The end of an era 

I eluded to this being the year I step back from a lifetime in education of sorts. 

I qualified 45 1/2 years ago & my whole adult life has involved education in varied forms. I taught in mainstream with all the admin & extracurricular activities involved in that in several countries. 

I was asked to train rural women to work in nursery schools in the highlands of Lesotho & that is what I did. I wrote a programme & taught it to the rural ladies. When they went to the capital city for a training course, they were amazed to be given a copy of the one I had devised & they were so pleased to be ahead of the curve. It was in these rurals that I was invited into communities & homes that were suddenly thrust into a new way of living & we helped them make sense of it all. 

In England, my first jobs was working in libraries, helping out with all the usual jobs & the more unusual ones of story times etc, something that comes naturally. 

An opportunity to work in a university library came up & the academic setting was wonderful, not just doing the book part but also supporting students. There were times when their emotions & pressure got the better of them & a calmness was needed to restore their equilibrium. I decided against taking a Librarianship qualification & instead took a bridging course to be confident in the UK educational curriculum before returning to mainstream teaching for a while.  

Without wider support, teaching is difficult with a young family & a chance encounter with the Mum of one of the pupils I had taught at me on an independent path. 

An Elective Home Education tutor was needed for their community who don’t  traditionally transfer to secondary sco & I took on the role ‘until you find someone else’

My student numbers grew from the initial two to 36 weekly students, some in groups, some individually.  It was challenging to initially work out a system for the 4-18 year old age group but it soon settled into a great rhythm with flexibility on both sides for life’s challenges.

My tutoring bags were a regular feature in life - filled with all the things I need for each day, for different ages & stages.  

Some students stayed for a few years, some for their secondary years, others for their entire schooling, mortified at the thought that they would have a new teacher each year in school. 

It is an enormous privilege to work in people’s homes, in their private spaces, to be privacy to their lives, to know their extended family too. I have shared their joys of marriages, births & good fortune, but also the sadness of illnesses & death. 

Today my final students were the last of the 4 siblings that I have tutored for the last 19 years - a great chunk of all our lives. 

It is the right time to step away, to have time & energy to enjoy whatever time I have in retirement & to be thankful to my parents who encouraged me to education because, in their words, “you will always have a job!”. How right they were … 

The students & families kind words of appreciation is welcome, I am glad I have made a positive contribution along the way. 

Thank you for stopping by, it is appreciated 

Dee 📘📗🗓️📅📚