I was certainly struggling, like a fish out of water.
I had always thought that I would become a teacher. I have no real memory of why this was of interest at the time, but it may have been because my mother had wanted to teach, but due to the depression in the 1930's, had not been able to follow that path.
As it happened, I moved instead into computing. But at that stage, women left work when they had babies to care for. There was little or no child care, no maternity leave, so you generally stayed out of the workforce. While I was at home with two young children, I had the opportunity to undertake some part time teaching at my old school. The school was accredited to take on teachers who were undertakig formal teacher training on a part-time basis in parallel.
So, there I was, with a possible career change, much more suited to the life of a mother with young children. School times and holidays worked well, and it was an area where part-time work was more easily found.
There was a complication of course - childcare for a two year old and a four month old baby. But I made the necessary arrangements. I enrolled in a Diploma of Education course. My mother looked after the children for two days a week, while the wife of one of the other teachers, another young mother, cared for them the third day I worked. I was only teaching two Maths classes at first, with a third, Science, planned for later in the year.
The experience was not how I expected it to be. I was a dedicated student during my school years. I studied hard and behaved well in school. My memory was that we all concentrated on learning. What I found was totally different. In the time between (only eight years), it appeared that the job had changed to be more around disciplining students than teaching.
Since this was my old school, many of my teachers from my years were there, were still teaching at the school. I was still young; had to change from treating my former teachers with the respect expected while a student to working with them as peers. I was uncomfortable as now I was expected to call "Mr Smith", "Trevor". I was disciplining an unruly mob of children instead of teaching them. I was quite miserable for much of the time. Overall, I was a fish out of water.
In later years, working with an organisation that provided training for people starting to use personal computers, I found that I can teach. In fact I loved teaching people new skills. I enjoyed the challenge of finding different ways to explain a concept if the first way did not work.
What I have learnt is that I enjoy teaching people who are keen to learn!
Joy Shirley.
I had always thought that I would become a teacher. I have no real memory of why this was of interest at the time, but it may have been because my mother had wanted to teach, but due to the depression in the 1930's, had not been able to follow that path.
As it happened, I moved instead into computing. But at that stage, women left work when they had babies to care for. There was little or no child care, no maternity leave, so you generally stayed out of the workforce. While I was at home with two young children, I had the opportunity to undertake some part time teaching at my old school. The school was accredited to take on teachers who were undertakig formal teacher training on a part-time basis in parallel.
So, there I was, with a possible career change, much more suited to the life of a mother with young children. School times and holidays worked well, and it was an area where part-time work was more easily found.
There was a complication of course - childcare for a two year old and a four month old baby. But I made the necessary arrangements. I enrolled in a Diploma of Education course. My mother looked after the children for two days a week, while the wife of one of the other teachers, another young mother, cared for them the third day I worked. I was only teaching two Maths classes at first, with a third, Science, planned for later in the year.
The experience was not how I expected it to be. I was a dedicated student during my school years. I studied hard and behaved well in school. My memory was that we all concentrated on learning. What I found was totally different. In the time between (only eight years), it appeared that the job had changed to be more around disciplining students than teaching.
Since this was my old school, many of my teachers from my years were there, were still teaching at the school. I was still young; had to change from treating my former teachers with the respect expected while a student to working with them as peers. I was uncomfortable as now I was expected to call "Mr Smith", "Trevor". I was disciplining an unruly mob of children instead of teaching them. I was quite miserable for much of the time. Overall, I was a fish out of water.
In later years, working with an organisation that provided training for people starting to use personal computers, I found that I can teach. In fact I loved teaching people new skills. I enjoyed the challenge of finding different ways to explain a concept if the first way did not work.
What I have learnt is that I enjoy teaching people who are keen to learn!
Joy Shirley.
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