The Graduate Diploma of Secondary Education Experience - not sure ...
Why did I chose this avenue ?
I am not sure 100%.
There were different reasons, and I will try to put them in the right order, from the most important to the least, but I am not sure I can even do that. The first reason is that I wanted to get a job which would allow me to still look after my children during school holidays without having to worry about the uncertainty of having non-paid leave holidays accepted, and being able to take the time off at the same time than my husband.
I calculated that the children have nearly 4 months of holiday and we have 6 weeks off each - pb !!! ... and no one talks about it.
Why?
But is this a good reason?
But is this a good reason?
The second reason is that I wanted to engage in a new and meaningful activity. I have been working for Red Hat for three years, and I am not learning anything new now; I am not using any of the hard learnt RHCT IT skills that were highly recommended to us translators in order for us to understand what we translated, proceed with software QAs and be able to built technical books. My salary has barely changed over 3 years. At work, my profession, translation, is not valued: there is no serious QA concern, the emphasis in on IT knowledge. The only aptitude valued for promotion are non main stream open source IT skills which are not transferable unless you are at least at Engineering level. Even if you put the effort to learn some of these skills as I did in August 2010, as a translator, you will not practise them much. So you just go nowhere. In fact, I am not even translating material related to that knowledge!
The third reason is to do with my age. I am now in my middle age phase and I am seeking to 'give back' somehow, and I consider teaching as a profession of 'giving', giving to the young ones (the future), giving to my community. I know this will require an effort since my community has, on many occasion openly rejected me on the basis of my nationality or accent, and I endeavour to teach that very culture to them, but I believe that there is a chance that if I do a good job, I may be precisely a person who will make sure that this does not happen again - well, happens less ! Here could be a chance for me to get closer to my community.
The fourth reason is the human aspect. I am hoping that I should be able to make real bonds with little ones (my students) and 'care oriented people' colleague-teachers. I already made some friends at Uni, the people I met there, who like me, are considering to become a teacher, all seem very very nice people indeed.
The fifth reason is the security: this is a job that will allow me to feed my children, look after them decently in the worse case.
Why do I hesitate so much ?
Motivation: I do not manage to get motivated, especially in the area of Unit and Lesson construction. It seems so horribly boring to me. The level of French is terribly low at any level, how will we engage in anything meaningful? I don't like either all the manipulation of children teaching techniques, mainly oriented towards realist broad economic goals. I would prefer clear and simple goals. Manipulation is lack of respect, even if the intended goal is good. What is good today maybe bad tomorrow, but manipulation is probably the worst mistake.
Quality: This is a video clip which was shown to us during last week's lecture. ADHD is portrayed poorly (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U), as you can see if you know anything about ADHD and this is hitting me directly quite hard. I have been told that I should not take the content of this teaching too seriously, and this was a very good point at the very right time, but unfortunately, if I don't embrace the material, I cannot get motivated.
Fears: and I am not sure this should be the third point :)
I am not sure I can stand up in front of a class of 30 x 16 years old, let's say, and introduce them to French in a meaningful way. I know this is precisely the challenge and I like to take a challenge, but this may be raising the bar high for me. I am NOT a public speaker. I have been in the private sphere for too long. Yet, maybe that is the very reason why I need raising to this challenge.
I think I could put that effort if I was super motivated, but I am not, not enough, damn it, damn, it! And it seems I cannot do much about it, it is highly wired, in the non-logical area, it seems.
So what should I do ?
Get on with it, after all, it is only for two years, the fees can be paid by extra translation work easily, and I don't even need to cut off my working hours that much (I still work 5 days right now).
Or relax, look for other job options (maybe), and look after my children more carefully, organise nice holidays for the family, cook nice meals, be calmer and nicer to all, including myself, as result of the lesser stress.
I am getting stressed right now, but it seems the stress is linked to the indecision. The homework and study do not take much time or trouble, it does not prevent me from doing what I normally do. I will be stressed if I feel I do all that for nothing, just like these 5 months of studies last year for that IT exam which took me nowhere. I don't want to make the same mistake.
I almost did not attend the last workshop on Friday evening, but finally did and did not regret this last minute move (I even walked to the car park and turned back towards the lecture room telling myself the hour will be better spend there than doing IT translation), I think I give it another week.
Who knows, it could be a case of butterfly effect, something MAY happen!
