Well hello there lovely readers!
Today I want to give you a little update on my experiences as a supporting tutor for the Cultivate Training Programme.
I was made Supporting Tutor at the end of January, so I am now helping deliver the course as well as doing various admin bits and bobs. I am really, really enjoying it, and it's taught me a lot, but to be honest my overarching feeling about it is that it's hard! I think like a university student with 4+ years of intensive training to process things in a certain way and at a certain pace, and I'm now trying to get ideas across to a group of people who think in such a different way to the way I do. I do not in any way mean that as a bad thing - the stuff that comes out of these guys' minds is incredible! - but it is nonetheless different. For weeks I've been about as much use as a chocolate teapot to Linsay (lead tutor), trying to make myself useful by supporting the candidates and helping them get the answers, just to discover that although I'm on the right track, my answers aren't in depth enough and my students still have more work to do. Boo! :(
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| A Chocolate Teapot! |
However, what more can I do? There is literally no point wallowing in the fact that I have now, for the first time in a while, got to actually try at something. I'm best just to keep going, to keep working with the students until both they and I get an idea of the level of answer required. I think (really hope!) I've started to make myself a bit more useful these last few sessions. Linsay and I sat and 'marked' a lot of the candidate's work over a couple of Fridays, and I found that really useful for getting used to the level of answers and evidence needed. I then felt much more capable of working with the group to get them to that point.
I've even come up with an activity which I'll be leading this coming week. I haven't lead an activity alone since week 3 of the course, where I got up in front of the group to explain something and opened my mouth, and a load of rubbish came out. I got the message home evennntuuaallly, with a little help, but that was the first point at which I realised I was going to need to learn some new skills! I am much more prepared this time though, so hopefully I can make myself worth my salt over the coming weeks and end on a positive note.
I am, however, really enjoying supporting the course. The students are cool and the work is challenging, which, you might remember, was something I felt was lacking in my life. My other job, as a Play Worker, is challenging in many ways, but in a frustrating and unpleasant kind of way. This is challenging in a good sense!!
And being in a creative environment motivates me to work on my own creative skills For example: I made some of these heart envelopes recently, and sent them to some of my friends for valentines day.
I also made this for my Dad's birthday last week, although I don't think he was all that impressed by my artistic ability!?
I thought it was pretty funny myself!
See you all next post
Lots of love,
Naomi
