In a former life (read: when I was a fresh-faced GCSE student) I briefly entertained the possibility of training to be a teacher when I left school. I don’t remember the exact thought process behind this swerve from the previously intended career I’d held to since the age of 5 or 6. I wanted to be a police dog handler – the perfect career choice for a bossy child who desperately wanted a dog – but at the age of 18 discovered my eyesight was too bad to join up, in the days before cheap laser surgery. The prospect of teacher training was a backup choice, but an odd one, as I absolutely loathed school and barely went. It wasn’t that I didn’t like learning, far from it; when I bunked off school I didn’t go out downtown or round to a friend’s house – I’d sit in my room at home reading. I just hated the environment that the formal learning occurred in and preferred self-directed learning at home on my own.
Eventually, I abandoned my vague plans of teaching because I didn’t think I’d be able to overcome my rampant antipathy towards children and assumed there wasn’t much chance of specialising in adult education. I ended up working for a bank and from there I went on to a career in finance and throughout my financial career, I taught as a private tutor to colleagues who were taking their CeMAP (Certificate in Mortgage Advice & Practice) which I thoroughly enjoyed. There was something so satisfying about the dawning comprehension of a teammate who suddenly ‘got’ how to work out the loan to value percentage of a mortgage or the different types of freehold. Of course, I was teaching people who genuinely wanted to learn, because without the qualifications my team was studying towards, they could not advance to the next pay band and reap the rewards of being a fully qualified mortgage advisor in the heady days of the sub-prime mortgage boom before the financial crash of 2008.
Fast-forward to 2018 and although life has been somewhat turbulent, the enjoyment of learning is still very much evident. I completed my undergraduate degree in archaeology at UCL in my early thirties (I like to call this my ‘mid-life crisis degree’) and now I’m studying for an MLitt in Museum Studies. My partner likes to call me the ‘Eternal Student’ because I’m enjoying being a learner again and could see myself going on to do a Ph.D. The module that prompted this e-portfolio is one I hope to get a lot of value from, as I have encountered learning from both sides, as student and teacher at varying times, but have never studied learning in and of itself.
This e-portfolio will take the form of blog posts in the main and is intended to be a self-reflective piece of work in that it will cover not only the readings assigned each week but also my responses to what I’ve read or encountered. As I am no expert on the subject there may well be errors in interpretation but this is part of the learning process; any misrepresentations are of course my own. I’m really looking forward to exploring the topic and welcome any contributions or comments you might have. Please feel free to interact!