A great 20 minute video to listen to tonight while you're doing the dishes, or, at least, that's when I listened to it.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
Showing posts with label School. Show all posts
Showing posts with label School. Show all posts
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Development Inventory for Preschool
Picked up a MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory for Samuel's preschool prep. Has anyone had an experience using these?
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Creating A Different Ending - Part 3
This is a longer story than I thought it would be, but as soon as I started writing I just felt that a number of things needed to be said to make all of the issues 'clear'. I hope they are clear, but I think a number of factors still need some explanation.
To recap, I found myself turning 31 and holding a general BA in English in my hand, which had turned out to A) be a degree that I wasn't all that excited about and B) give me no help real help whatsoever in finding a job I loved.
Fortunately I didn't jump head first into more debt and MORE school in an attempt to 'fix' the situation. Instead I sat back and thought about it. The process went something like this:
Me 1: Ok, so what's the problem?
Me 2: My degree sucks and I don't want to work at this kind of job. I feel unfulfilled.
Me 1: Is work the only element of your life?
Me 2: Well, no. I think my vocation is to be a wife and a mother, and I want to stay home and do that.
Me 1: Do you need a degree for that?
Me 2: No. I don't need a degree for that. However I still feel a nagging sense of unfulfillment.
Me 1: And you've prayed about this and truly feel what?
Me 2: I truly feel that God has created me for my primary vocation, but also for several secondary vocations. One of which is clearly some sort of work besides being a stay-at-home mama.
Me 1: Ok, so then that would explain your sense of being unfulfilled. If you are not living the life that God fully created you for, then you will never be completely satisfied.
Once I realized that my sense of being 'not done' with my education stemmed from something larger than myself I felt much calmer and more at peace with the feeling. I had been previously thinking the situation through as an 'all or nothing' sort of deal. Either I was a mama, or I was a student. Either I was a good housekeeper or I was a good employee. I realized that there was the possibility in my life for many smaller goals and interests, and once I came to that conclusion I felt much better.
I also, through looking closely at my discomfort and the whys and wherefores surrounding it, came to grasp what the big problem was. The programs I had been looking at matched my previous mindset in intensity. They were all or nothing programs, requiring vast amounts of money, time and resources that would take me away from my primary vocation. I was FIRSTLY created to be a mother and a wife. I was SECONDARILY created to be a student/employee/etc. I could accept that in my future there may be other goals, other vocations, other things God might lay on my heart, but my first and foremost priority, and therefore the aspect of my life through which I should view all other aspects, was my primary vocation.
In other words, I couldn't ever be happy doing something that interferred with what I was supposed to be focused on.
I'm going to leave it at that for now. If you want to read more about my journey to discovering my primary vocation, you can here, here, and here, to start with. There is also a tab called 'domestic vocation' on my sidebar.
To recap, I found myself turning 31 and holding a general BA in English in my hand, which had turned out to A) be a degree that I wasn't all that excited about and B) give me no help real help whatsoever in finding a job I loved.
Fortunately I didn't jump head first into more debt and MORE school in an attempt to 'fix' the situation. Instead I sat back and thought about it. The process went something like this:
Me 1: Ok, so what's the problem?
Me 2: My degree sucks and I don't want to work at this kind of job. I feel unfulfilled.
Me 1: Is work the only element of your life?
Me 2: Well, no. I think my vocation is to be a wife and a mother, and I want to stay home and do that.
Me 1: Do you need a degree for that?
Me 2: No. I don't need a degree for that. However I still feel a nagging sense of unfulfillment.
Me 1: And you've prayed about this and truly feel what?
Me 2: I truly feel that God has created me for my primary vocation, but also for several secondary vocations. One of which is clearly some sort of work besides being a stay-at-home mama.
Me 1: Ok, so then that would explain your sense of being unfulfilled. If you are not living the life that God fully created you for, then you will never be completely satisfied.
Once I realized that my sense of being 'not done' with my education stemmed from something larger than myself I felt much calmer and more at peace with the feeling. I had been previously thinking the situation through as an 'all or nothing' sort of deal. Either I was a mama, or I was a student. Either I was a good housekeeper or I was a good employee. I realized that there was the possibility in my life for many smaller goals and interests, and once I came to that conclusion I felt much better.
I also, through looking closely at my discomfort and the whys and wherefores surrounding it, came to grasp what the big problem was. The programs I had been looking at matched my previous mindset in intensity. They were all or nothing programs, requiring vast amounts of money, time and resources that would take me away from my primary vocation. I was FIRSTLY created to be a mother and a wife. I was SECONDARILY created to be a student/employee/etc. I could accept that in my future there may be other goals, other vocations, other things God might lay on my heart, but my first and foremost priority, and therefore the aspect of my life through which I should view all other aspects, was my primary vocation.
In other words, I couldn't ever be happy doing something that interferred with what I was supposed to be focused on.
I'm going to leave it at that for now. If you want to read more about my journey to discovering my primary vocation, you can here, here, and here, to start with. There is also a tab called 'domestic vocation' on my sidebar.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Creating A Different Ending - Part 2
If my education wasn't what I expected, neither was the education of my friends, either. Those who went into graduate programs complained about the complete lack of anything resembling a life, their inability to afford a child or a house, and the constant moving around from temporary lecture job to temporary lecture job. Those who took a B.Ed. and became teachers found themselves largely unemployed, or employed by one of the big school boards on a part-time basis, teaching only a class or two. Several ended up doing what I was doing, working a retail job, despite their qualifications. Many worked and took out loans until they joked that they would never be out of debt.
I was fortunate that after that third year of college I didn't take out any more loans and paid for any further courses in cash, and so my loans, which seemed huge to me, were nothing compared to the money owed by my peers.
I found myself, at the age of 29, in a new province, armed with my degree. Getting a job, I had been assured, wouldn't be a problem, except that it was. Regardless of my education I couldn't even seem to get a part-time administrative job for almost two years. Eventually I resorted to volunteering in an office to try and get some 'hands-on' experience, and once the secretary I was working with left, I was offered her job. My degree did practically nothing to help me with working a 'grown-up' job. Although I'd heard that administrative work was a field many English graduates went into, I was unhappy. I didn't want to be a secretary, I wanted something else, but I still didn't know what that was.
In the meantime, our family was growing. We had our son in 2010 and our daughter is due in April of 2012. David was also working towards becoming an ordained minister. We agreed that once this elusive job happened, if I felt that I was supposed to return to school part-time I could go. We felt strongly that any further debt should not be entered into at this point in our lives since I was at the very end of paying off my student loans for my first degree, but I was faced, at the age of 30, with deciding all over again what I was supposed to do with my education, if anything.
I explored a variety of options, including several diplomas and certificates that would give me various qualifications, but came away feeling unfulfilled about each of them, and only after several months of searching, thinking and praying about my options could I figure out why that was.
I'll keep you on your toes until part 3!
I was fortunate that after that third year of college I didn't take out any more loans and paid for any further courses in cash, and so my loans, which seemed huge to me, were nothing compared to the money owed by my peers.
I found myself, at the age of 29, in a new province, armed with my degree. Getting a job, I had been assured, wouldn't be a problem, except that it was. Regardless of my education I couldn't even seem to get a part-time administrative job for almost two years. Eventually I resorted to volunteering in an office to try and get some 'hands-on' experience, and once the secretary I was working with left, I was offered her job. My degree did practically nothing to help me with working a 'grown-up' job. Although I'd heard that administrative work was a field many English graduates went into, I was unhappy. I didn't want to be a secretary, I wanted something else, but I still didn't know what that was.
In the meantime, our family was growing. We had our son in 2010 and our daughter is due in April of 2012. David was also working towards becoming an ordained minister. We agreed that once this elusive job happened, if I felt that I was supposed to return to school part-time I could go. We felt strongly that any further debt should not be entered into at this point in our lives since I was at the very end of paying off my student loans for my first degree, but I was faced, at the age of 30, with deciding all over again what I was supposed to do with my education, if anything.
I explored a variety of options, including several diplomas and certificates that would give me various qualifications, but came away feeling unfulfilled about each of them, and only after several months of searching, thinking and praying about my options could I figure out why that was.
I'll keep you on your toes until part 3!
Friday, February 10, 2012
Creating A Different Ending - Part 1
I wanted to talk about school today.
In 2000 I graduated from high school. I lived in Ontario and we had 13 grades to finish, and so I was newly turned 19 years old; I still have trouble believing that that was 12 years ago. Throughout high school there had never been any doubt in my mind that I would go to university, I just didn't know what for.
I had been 'good' at several subjects, but great in only a few, one of them being English. Looking back now I realize that I probably had the ability to be excellent in many more areas but my interests were never really encouraged. My family believed that I should be a teacher, and that was that. I was good at writing, I enjoyed reading and I was shy but funny and I had many friends; it seemed to everyone but me that teaching English was a good fit.
What stands out the most for me now about my search for a university is how haphazard it was. All graduating students had to take aptitude tests (which all said I should be a teacher!), and talk to a guidance counsellor about our futures, but that was all I remember. I spent lunch hours looking through the thick university catalogues in the library, making lists of every university in Canada that offered a program in English which was, well, every university in Canada, pretty much. At the meeting with my guidance cousellor I suggested a few alternate routes, one I remember is international trade law, but I also recall a desire to do relief work, or work for the UN in some capacity. None of these were really taken very seriously, or if they were, they were followed by an overwhelming list of everything I would have to do to get from a 19 year old graduate of high school to a professional in my field.
I found the college I ended up attending by browsing through one of those library catalogues one day. The only thing I remember about the entry was how the author described it as a place for the 'cream of the crop' and for 'only the best'. It offered me a challenge, and the possibility to leave my hometown and strike out on my own. The Ontario Universities Application Centre offered three spaces on their form for choices, so I applied only to that college and to two 'safety schools'. I was accepted to all three and despite not really having enough money to attend, took out massive student loans and went anyway.
I won't give a long, detailed account of college life here, but I will say that that first year I tried to keep my options open. I mentioned to my parents before I left that I might want to be an archaeologist, but they were still firmly in the take-English-and-become-a-teacher camp, and so I took the pre-requisites for both programs and delayed the choice until later. That year I became friends with a large group of English and History students and their passion for the subject swayed me. By the beginning of second year I was determined to become an English professor.
The Summer between third and fourth year I came home to work in a small bookstore. The full-time paycheck, combined with meeting the man who would become my husband and realizing the extent of my loans, convinced me to take a year off from school. One year turned into two, then two into three...my friends had all graduated from college now and my boyfriend had turned into my fiancee. My life had shifted from the college experience into something else, not quite adulthood as I imagined it, but something beyond the become-a-teacher existance I'd been living. I still felt as though I needed to finish my degree, though. I took a few courses at one of my hometown universities, but ultimately the big name of my first choice college was pulling me. Despite everything, I wanted my degree to say Big Name College across the top, not Provincial Second Choice, and so we left our jobs and our futures and moved me back to school.
I spent a year and a half taking courses part time and working full time at another bookstore. David and I agreed that I would finish a three-year general BA rather than a four-year honours, which is what I had previously been working towards. By this point I was again uncertain about whether English was the right path for me, but since I didn't know what was, I just wanted to finish anything at all and move on with my life.
I was married in the Summer of 2008 and graduated a few months later. It had taken me nine years to get a three year degree and become...a bookstore clerk, a job I could have taken right out of high school without any education at all.
In the past two and a half years since that walk across the convocation stage to get my fought-for degree I've thought a lot about what went wrong with my education and what I would change.
But that's part two.
In 2000 I graduated from high school. I lived in Ontario and we had 13 grades to finish, and so I was newly turned 19 years old; I still have trouble believing that that was 12 years ago. Throughout high school there had never been any doubt in my mind that I would go to university, I just didn't know what for.
I had been 'good' at several subjects, but great in only a few, one of them being English. Looking back now I realize that I probably had the ability to be excellent in many more areas but my interests were never really encouraged. My family believed that I should be a teacher, and that was that. I was good at writing, I enjoyed reading and I was shy but funny and I had many friends; it seemed to everyone but me that teaching English was a good fit.
What stands out the most for me now about my search for a university is how haphazard it was. All graduating students had to take aptitude tests (which all said I should be a teacher!), and talk to a guidance counsellor about our futures, but that was all I remember. I spent lunch hours looking through the thick university catalogues in the library, making lists of every university in Canada that offered a program in English which was, well, every university in Canada, pretty much. At the meeting with my guidance cousellor I suggested a few alternate routes, one I remember is international trade law, but I also recall a desire to do relief work, or work for the UN in some capacity. None of these were really taken very seriously, or if they were, they were followed by an overwhelming list of everything I would have to do to get from a 19 year old graduate of high school to a professional in my field.
I found the college I ended up attending by browsing through one of those library catalogues one day. The only thing I remember about the entry was how the author described it as a place for the 'cream of the crop' and for 'only the best'. It offered me a challenge, and the possibility to leave my hometown and strike out on my own. The Ontario Universities Application Centre offered three spaces on their form for choices, so I applied only to that college and to two 'safety schools'. I was accepted to all three and despite not really having enough money to attend, took out massive student loans and went anyway.
I won't give a long, detailed account of college life here, but I will say that that first year I tried to keep my options open. I mentioned to my parents before I left that I might want to be an archaeologist, but they were still firmly in the take-English-and-become-a-teacher camp, and so I took the pre-requisites for both programs and delayed the choice until later. That year I became friends with a large group of English and History students and their passion for the subject swayed me. By the beginning of second year I was determined to become an English professor.
The Summer between third and fourth year I came home to work in a small bookstore. The full-time paycheck, combined with meeting the man who would become my husband and realizing the extent of my loans, convinced me to take a year off from school. One year turned into two, then two into three...my friends had all graduated from college now and my boyfriend had turned into my fiancee. My life had shifted from the college experience into something else, not quite adulthood as I imagined it, but something beyond the become-a-teacher existance I'd been living. I still felt as though I needed to finish my degree, though. I took a few courses at one of my hometown universities, but ultimately the big name of my first choice college was pulling me. Despite everything, I wanted my degree to say Big Name College across the top, not Provincial Second Choice, and so we left our jobs and our futures and moved me back to school.
I spent a year and a half taking courses part time and working full time at another bookstore. David and I agreed that I would finish a three-year general BA rather than a four-year honours, which is what I had previously been working towards. By this point I was again uncertain about whether English was the right path for me, but since I didn't know what was, I just wanted to finish anything at all and move on with my life.
I was married in the Summer of 2008 and graduated a few months later. It had taken me nine years to get a three year degree and become...a bookstore clerk, a job I could have taken right out of high school without any education at all.
In the past two and a half years since that walk across the convocation stage to get my fought-for degree I've thought a lot about what went wrong with my education and what I would change.
But that's part two.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)