unreflective

Hmmm it would appear I have been remiss for a while. I keep meaning to write after school at least but it just slips away. Yesterday we had the last session of Marketing and the last session of MIE (next week its a course review for MIE) Marketing really is still all very vague. I'm going for the "this is what Sure Start Burley is about, this is what we do, this is what we could do better" kind of approach I think. I'd renew all the books I took out of the library but the website is down so there may be a problem or 2 there. Just to throw extra issues into the marketing mix (ha) the new "Everychildmatters" stuff came out last week that changes where we are going in the next few years so long term planning will be interesting. Who says public sector isn't at the cutting edge of go getting marketing? If I stop having to sell services about children will it make me dislike them any less? I've noticed a marked increase in my child hatred since I planned my marketing assignment... "Children - beat them 3 times a day whether they need it or not" is not an advertising slogan I'm going to be alowed to use is it? Nor "Defy reality bring your children up without state intervention" .

MIE is another mine field. Was greatly entertained last week by one of our groups take on assertiveness/aggression. Different contexts different behaviour comes to mind. This week we did stuff about stress. The health questionnaire and it's "stress indicators" seemed a bit off the mark to me. Is "finding it hard to get out of bed on a morning" really a stress indicator? - I can never get up within 15 mins of the alarm but that's just sleepy not stressed. If it said "do you find it hard to get out of bed on due to your anticipation of the days events" I could understand. Several of the "stress" symptoms seem to me things that are going to happen once a month for most women of childbearing age. Others seemed to be quite seasonal - I feel gloomy quite a lot but I suspect it's mainly due to the time of year, Xmas coming and the festival of consumerism (agravated this year by doing a Marketing module I fear), combined with the cold, damp and grey really aren't going to put a happy spring in a reptiles step (OK so I'm not a reptile but I seem to react to cold like one)

I guess my take on stress is still jaundiced from previous experience "have you found yourself thinking about suicide as a rational solution to your workload recently?" being my "I am too stressed" indicator probably is a bit extreme but hey - that's teaching for you, it just seemed normal at the time. The more I ask people who teach in 2ndary education and FE/have taught the more I find this is normal behaviour for that profession. That's why so many of us leave, we realise it is not right. I still feel having been there has it's plus - no matter how glum you feel because it's wet, cold, december and you haven't motivated yourself to do your marketing assignment (again) there is always the silver lining "at least I'm still here to feel glum and see the wet and the cold".

Poor Helen - she tried to liven things up with a video last night that had potential - understanding how to use others' stress to improve performance. Sadly the quality sucked and instead of going for the "right the pictures are too appauling but the verbal element is what is important so I'm going to switch off the visuals and play the soundtrack" option she left the pictures running (not that it was necessarily possible to do audio without visual I guess). Everyone was a picture of switched off at the end. It was heavy going, I zoned out a lot (that and the fact that it was some fat american bloke telling you how to be a better sports coach ... I thought americans didn't do irony) but the points behind it about winding up, focus and winding people down were interesting and as a manager could have lots of applications.

I think I am in a frustrating place now with the MIE stuff. I've put enough distance in on it to want to be in a position to apply it but I need to move on work wise to do so. However I need to stay here to complete the course and I'm getting more and more sense of "I'm bored now, want to play somewhere else". Consolidation is the key - and practicing delegation and explanation on my minion I guess.

Last week got to be one of the clever kids at data analysis - I seem to be able to follow the explanations OK but I'm not convinced I could do it myself. Luckily we have a bunch of extra sessions to go. Fingers crossed all will be well.