Hello and thank you for taking the time to read my very
first blog post in the run up to the LRTT Fellowship in Uganda 2017. I have just been accepted as a fellow and
begun my fundraising for the project. I
came across this amazing project through a serendipitous viewing of a post on
facebook! I actually saw it and thought, ‘Wow! That would be a wonderful thing
to do and a fantastic opportunity…for someone else.’ You see, I’d figured I was
probably too busy with work and uni, that as a mother of a beautiful three year
old daughter, Eleanor, it was too big an ask to tell my husband I wanted to
leave the country for a month and I doubted my employer would be entirely
willing to let me have a month off.
I told three close friends about the programme, wondering if
it might be something that they would be as enticed by as I was. I also read up on all the different locations
and continued to research what the programme was about, although, at this
point, it was entirely to satisfy my curiosity.
A week and a half later, I was still thinking about the programme. Wouldn’t it be amazing to travel to a
developing country and explore pedagogy from an entirely new perspective? How
do teachers teach outside of the mainstream British education system that I
have spent my career within? Would the
pedagogical approaches I had studied as a teacher, during my MA and continued
to explore as part of my current Doctorate in Education be transferable to an
alternative culture and teaching context?
How might the skills I’d developed in over a decade be of benefit to
other teachers?
I’d always enjoyed taking on roles of subject and
professional mentoring within a teacher training guise and for the last three
years I had been working outside of schools for an online teaching and learning
provider where I had grown increasingly involved in the training of new online
teachers. I always found these elements
of my job to be really interesting and rewarding, especially because I hold a
strong belief that working with others on developing their teaching is the best
way to reflect on and improve your own practice; watching someone else teach,
identifying what they do and how they do it is a great way to gain inspiration
and learn new techniques that make you a better teacher too!
So, after all this time obsessing, I mentioned it to my husband and my parents in passing, anticipating a less than favourable response. My husband, the man I would have to leave as a solo parent for a month, instantly told me to go for it. He has been nothing but supportive and encouraging. He hasn’t hesitated for a moment in telling me that we could make it work. He spent hours sat scouring the internet with me, checking facts and stats on safety and security in the fellowship countries. My parents were a little more surprised by the revelation, Mum in particular concerned about my safety, but they got on board as soon as I was able to allay their fears and even went so far as to donate the money required for the deposit for my place. I could not ask for better support from my family. My daughter on the other hand, thinks it’s a terrible idea…I’ve got six months to convince her mummy going away is a good thing.
No doubt this will be the hardest thing for me in taking
part in the programme. I’ve never had more
than a couple of nights away from my little girl. I will miss her so much, but my husband who
is very wise sometimes (just don’t tell him that-he’d never let me forget it!),
suggested that it’s not a good enough reason not to do this. I will be giving up 29 nights with my
daughter, but how many other people’s daughters could benefit from the good
this programme will do? How many people
have an opportunity to participate in a charitable programme with the capacity
to make such a huge difference? As much
as being away from my daughter will break my heart, it will be amazing to
explain to her why mummy is going and how the programme is helping other
children and their teachers so that they too can have the kind of future I
imagine for her. This is the sort of
example I want to set for her and its why I will be able to do this.
With family support in place, I spoke to my employer. It’s a big ask for a teacher to take a month
off in term time, but then I work for a company that was established in order
to make education more accessible and with the purpose of making the best
teaching available to all irrespective of location or background. I don’t think there was more than thirty
seconds between me dropping this bombshell and my boss agreeing to it and
offering to make a donation to the fund!
My interview went really well and within a week I had my
place secured. So far I have been so
very lucky in gaining support. It’s all
seeming a bit too good to be true! But
now the hard work begins. I’ve begun
fundraising via my gofundme
page and I am beginning to plan as many activities as possible for the New
Year. I intend to keep this blog as I
prepare for the project and to update everyone (anyone who might be interested,
that is) as I embark on my fundraising efforts.
