Meeting other mums at baby groups is wonderful, and sometimes, some of the women you meet change your life for the better.
This is exactly where seventeen years ago, I met Alex Clarke. We both had an infant daughter, we were both teachers, and we both felt that familiar sense of being completely overwhelmed by motherhood.
The connection was strong, and we kept in touch for many years. Then, during one of our reunions, Alex mentioned that she was working for the best organisation she had ever worked for: Adult Learning Wales.
At the time, I was teaching in secondary school and looking for something different. After toying with the idea for months, I finally decided to take the plunge and apply.
And that was the beginning of my Adult Learning Wales adventure.
Everything about it was positive. I enjoyed the subject I was teaching, counselling, and loved the interaction with adult learners. I met wonderful staff who were always helpful and supportive. In fact, I almost forgot that the reason I was there in the first place was because my friend Alex had recommended the organisation so highly.
I knew Alex still worked within ALW. I knew she tutored. But beyond that, I had very little idea what she was actually up to. As it so often does, life took over, and we each carried on along our own paths occasionally meeting while shopping and promising each other to meet for coffee, which somehow never happened.
Until, two years ago, an email popped into my inbox with her name at the top.
I was so excited to see it that I immediately decided I was going to contact her. But as I read the email, I realised something even better: not only could I get back in touch with Alex, I could actually work with her, while reflecting on and developing an aspect of my own teaching practice.
I have always been a curious person, so being given the opportunity to really look at what I was doing as a tutor, question it and consider what else I could do to engage my learners and enable them to succeed was mind-blowing.
I emailed Alex straight away. She had actually forgotten that I worked for ALW!
She helped me develop my proposal and, at every stage, encouraged me to think about how one small change in my teaching practice could have a meaningful impact on my adult learners, some of whom had struggled enormously with the idea of stepping back into a classroom, learning new skills and being assessed.
Alex, and Clair, guided me through exploring my assessment procedures and considering small alterations that could lead to much bigger successes.
It was incredibly empowering.
For the first time, an idea I had about improving my own practice wasn't simply listened to. It was encouraged, supported, positively challenged, tested and, eventually, rewarded.
That first year of Action Research passed in a flash, punctuated by meetings, reading, writing, presenting, critically challenging ourselves and each other, plenty of coffee, lots of laughter and even a road trip to North Wales.
By the end of it, two things had happened. I had begun to see myself as a researcher. And, perhaps even better, my friendship with Alex had been renewed.
When the year ended and our meetings came to a close, I kept thinking about all the conversations we had had along the way. There were so many other ideas we had discussed that deserved exploring.
So, building on my first project, I proposed another Action Research project for my learners, this time looking at the impact of Artificial Intelligence, not only on learners, but on tutors too.
And we were off again.
Discussing, researching, questioning and meeting up with our usual modest ambition of changing the world of learning!
Each meeting seemed more exciting than the last. We discussed progress, responses from learners and reactions from our wider community of tutors. Underneath all of it was my growing determination that learning is incredibly important, but that it also needs to fit within the digital world we now live in, a world that can sometimes feel overwhelming.
That is especially true for adult learners whose last experience of education may have been sitting in a classroom, listening, remembering and repeating.
What had started as a wish to work closely with my friend became a genuine drive to support not only our learners, but our tutors too.
We are incredibly fortunate to live at a time when learning can happen at any age, within our own communities, through organisations such as Adult Learning Wales.
Through Action Research, I have had the opportunity to explore my own teaching and, importantly, to be supported while doing it. I have been guided to reflect, encouraged to question, and mentored into becoming the researcher that, perhaps, I knew I was all along.
Most importantly, I have been encouraged to believe in my own practice.
So this year, having completed two years of Action Research, it feels right that the next step should be about giving something back. I have been offered the role of Peer Mentor for Action Research this year.
Now it is my turn to support other tutors as they do what I have been fortunate enough to do: explore their teaching, question their practice, develop their ideas and build the confidence to make small changes that could make a big difference to the way our learners learn.
Seventeen years ago, Alex and I met at a baby group as two teachers with baby daughters, both trying to navigate motherhood and wondering what on earth we were doing. Neither of us could possibly have imagined that all these years later we would be working together, researching together and supporting other educators to develop their practice. Life has a funny way of bringing people back into your path and I hope Adult Learning Wales realises that allowing me to work closely with Alex for another year is giving us much more than professional development. It has given me back a friendship too. And that is rather wonderful.
Comments
Post a Comment