Why do I want to be a teacher?

Why do I want be a teacher? I want to inspire children to reach their full potential in a fun and exciting environment. I want to help children to love to learn, which is a skill that will help them through their entire life.

As a child I had some amazing teachers whose lessons, attitude, and inspiration stuck with me into my adult life. I believe all children should experience having a teacher who is passionate about their and job invests in individuals.

Struggling with dyslexia all my life, I taught myself many different ways to cope in the classroom and beyond. My dyslexia has made me a very determined person, and has made me want to empower all children to reach their full potential, and help them believe they are capable of things which they might otherwise not believe. My disability has also made me want to inspire children to develop skills and different ways of understanding obstacles to help them with their lives.

I have worked with children since I was 15, starting out volunteering at my local Sunday school as part of my bronze Duke of Edinburgh award, to now working 3 part-time jobs working with children. The first is at Carlisle Cathedral working with the choristers, aged 7 to 13; within this job I supervise children before they go to choir practice each day. I spend time listening to them, showing an interest in them by making sure they know their opinions and views are valued and ensure they have a safe place where they can be comfortable in who they are. I also work as Senior Teaching Assistant at a small rural primary school (Wiggonby, Cumbria), working in the mixed year Key Stage 2 class. I enjoy the challenge of working with four year groups at once, covering numeracy with years 3 and 4 as one group and years 5 and 6 as another and teaching spelling with years 3 and 4. During the summer term, I will also be working in an 11-18 Academy, Trinity School in Carlisle, where I will be a Learning Support Assistant working across the curriculum, mainly in Key Stage 3.

I worked as the Arts and Crafts Director at a Summer Camp in America in 2012. I planned art lessons and taught them to children of all abilities and mainly poor socio-economic backgrounds from the ages of 6 to 16. In 2014, I spent 6 months working with a children’s charity in the Township of Fisantekraal just outside Cape Town, S.A. Whilst there I planned and led after-school clubs for children in the community aged 4 to 14. I also worked with a small group of girls on building their confidence, self worth and on how to express and understand their emotions.

When I was 19 I trained as a Teaching Assistant through an apprenticeship scheme. I was based in Newlaithes Infant School in years 1 and 2. Here I first discovered how important it is to work with groups of children who all learn and understand at different rates so that by the end of the session they have all had the opportunity to understand what they are being taught and can respond to it. It also taught me the importance of finding different, creative ways of explaining the same thing so that all children no matter their ability can understand it.

All my experience, training and background have led to my decision to pursue teaching. I am passionate about children having access to the best teachers possible and I cannot think of any other way I would want to use my talents. For me, teaching is not about having a job; it’s about making sure children have the best possible start to lifelong learning.

Desires of the Heart

Recently I have been thinking a lot about the desires of my heart and how God is acting in them,and how I am dealing with them. Today I am mainly going to focus on my main desire, this is the desire to be in a relationship/get married. I have grown to know that a relationship or getting married shouldn't define who I am and that I am enough by myself.

Thinking about relationships and my future with them keeps bringing me back to my past relationships. It makes me think about the mistake I have made and how much I have learnt from them. My longest relationship was for about 2 1/2 years, It started when I was 17. I thought we were going to get married and that we would be together forever, I think most people do at that age. At the time I thought it was the best relationship ever. Now as I look back on it with a more mature and open mind I can see all the faults in it, and the fact the relationship I thought was so perfect was actually slightly abusive.

He controlled what I wore, who I saw (if I was with my friends he would turn up after about half an hour and get me to leave), he controlled what I did and when I did it, he was with me all the time, he made me doubt what I thought I knew and doubt who I was as a person. I didn't realise he was doing this to me until after the relationship was over. He ended it suddenly and I was lost and felt worthless as I didn't have him controlling me I didn't know how to function in the real world and what was coincided normal. I started dating lots of different people and trying to find my worth through guys and how many compliments I received from men. Not a healthy way to live.

I have now been single for over 5 years now and I now know who I am as a person and what kind of man would be perfect for me. Though I do hesitate to ask a guy out or let myself like a guy. I keep my heart quite guarded and am still scared to let my self fall as I don't want to hurt my heart like it has in the past. I know my past relationships have affected this, I have been trying hard to overcome this and I think telling people and saying this out loud will help myself to over come this. I know that heart brake is all part of the dating world and if I don't put my heart out there I cannot get my desire of a husband and God will not just magically make one come into my life. so from this moment on I am going to be more confident in this area. I have amazing friends who I know would eat a whole tub of ice cream with me over a broken/cracked heart from a break up or a rejection. God is good and he wants me to be happy and have the desires of my heart. I am content with being single and I love my life, but I am going to stop being scared and trust in him. I am an amazing woman of God and he will put me in the right path of someone, I just don't know who and I don't know when, and every good story has a little heart brake in it right?!

This video below is something that I saw when I was in South Africa and empowers me to be a woman of God.

Changes

Today as I travelled home on the train from a training day I looked out the window, The rain was coming down hard and the sea was wild and deadly looking. As my tired eyes tried to make sense of what was going on outside the fast moving train I thought to myself, a few months ago a day like this would have been tough, I would have been fighting back the tears and thinking what is the point of it all. Today was different. Today was very different.

Today when I looked out the window I felt happy. I have felt happy for a while, and not just my mood has lifted, but can't stop smiling, cheeks hurt kind of happy. It is good to have changed back to my old self, in fact I'm much happier than my old self could have ever imagined and things only look like they are going up! I have laughed so much and so extaticly and whole hartedly my eyes water non-stop and my stomach is slowly becoming a six-pack! this is a fantastic change, I love it!

Today I was thinking about my future and the changes that will be coming up in it. One of the biggest changes that is coming my way is I have made a choice to do some more study, a PGCE to be in fact. There were always 2 things I thought I would never do and that no-one would ever make me do, But God has different plans! I was never ever going to be a teacher and I never wanted to stay in Carlisle as I hate it (or so I thought)! Now, I have friends, happiness and a great bible study based in Carlisle and I want to stay so badly, though if Gods plans change I will be happy to follow where he wants me. The whole being a teacher thing has developed over the past few weeks and I feel more at peace with this next stage than I have about any other in my whole life. This is a massive positive change and a few months ago these ideas wouldn't have even crossed my mind. The difference a day or a few of them.

I am excited about my future for the first time in a long time. I know God has so much more excited things in store for me and he will reveal them when I am ready, and I am feeling so open for Change (something that normally scares me silly!) and all God's plans are going to make me feel more at ease. I have such a peace that God is going to give me the desires of my heart in a much more imaginative, overwhelming, awesome, fantastic way than I could ever think of.



Sorry haven't posted in a while, been far to happy to sit still long enough to write! I think at some point soon I will write about the desires of my heart, as I have always been to scared to share them as some strange way to protect my heart in case they don't come true!

A Love letter to myself

Dear Self,

                I have been meaning to write this letter to you for the last few weeks, but I have been puttin it off because I knew it would be hard. In this letter I am going to make you some promises that once written down will be easier to keep, and if I forget them then this letter ishear to remind me. I know I am hard on you and not ver nice to you at times, but this will change. If I made new years resalutions this would be one.

Promise 0ne:

I promise to let you feel good about you accomplishments and not compare you to others as I have always done. I am me, and no one else is better at it than me!

Promise two:

I promise to not beat myself up because I don't conform to what society wants me to be. I won't judge myself because I have a job and not a career, I won't feel like a failer because I still live at home with my mum amd dad and that I'm not living independently like a 25 year old "should"

Promise three:

I Promise to look after you better than I do now, they say your body is a temple, well I havent been treating my body or mind very well, this stops NOW!

Promise four:

I promise to daily see the good that I bring to others and have inside me, and to help myself when I am stuck I am going to tell you some of them now.

You are a strong, deturmind, independent woman who is beautiful on the inside and out. You are confident, but don't be scared to show it. You have an infectious bubblie persanality and your laughter makes others smile and laugh, You should do it more often. You have such a big heart, don't let what has hurt you in the past stop you from using it and stop you from letting others love you. Walls that you build yourself seldom come down with out you pulling. You are silly in the fun way, and when you are silly and hyper you are so happy that it sines out of you like the sun and people are drawn to you because of it. you are at your best when you are the sun.

I don't often say this and you don't often believe it, but I do. I love you! And you are worth it! And most of all you are enough, you dont need to be any more or any less YOU ARE ENOUGH!!

Love Me  xxx

Why do jobs/careers difine us?

I find when I meet new people the ask what I do, or what I want to do in the future. People are always shocked when I say I don't know. To be honest I don't think many people do so why do we lie? I feel it is because people define us and our success and who we are though this. Why does a job define us? Is someone who emptys bins for a living lesser of a person than a pilot? or is a teacher more important than someone who is unemployed?

As some one who has worked in many areas and had many different jobs, taken me to other contries or just cleaning toilets, I have met many people, all of whom have great worth and mean no less or more than anyone else. So why do we put this importance on jobs and careers. Why is this the norm? Why when we meet people do we not try and find out who they are rather then what job do you do? oh that must mean that you are like such and such.

I get anxious when I think about my future andwhat my future job might be. Society says that I should know what my career is going to be, when I am going to start a family, when I will own my own house. This makes me axious as some days waking up in the morning is a task. Somedays I get into bed and think I made it through the day with out crying. If you are having one of those days, Congrats you are doing great and you have worth. That is something I wish people said to me more often, not what do you do? What are your plans for your future? You do't have plans for the future? You have to have plans for the future? How can you not?

I will tell you how! I am living in the day and feeling Gods love, I am recovering one step at a time from not thinking i am going to be able to make it out of bed some days. I am not there yet but i am getting there. Thinking about careers and jobs is hard and scares me and makes me anxious, there is a big world out there to concore and it is overwhelming. My job does not define me, so you shouldn't define me by it and I won't define you by yours. It is a way to make money, for some people it is a passion and a calling for others not. So please don't judge.

Don't Judge Myself By My Cover

Today I went shopping for clothes. I hate shopping for clothes. I hate having to choose something that has a number on it bigger than I would like. Over the past year I have put on weight, and normally I am confident and happy with my body. Today I was not. I was pinning my worth, my abilities to a a two didget number on the inside of an item of clothing that only I have to see. When a number that was bigger than last year was the number that fit me in one shop but the same number was too small in another I cried. Why oes a 2 didget number affect me so much? My age is a two didget number and that affects me no where near the same amount, All my friends are "Further on" with their lives than me at the same age, but it is the hidden number that affects me. When someone finds out what the hidden number is they don't believe that it is correct. They tell me I have a beautiful curvey figure and I'm stunning, everything a girl wants to hear, But I don't listen. I listen to the voice in my head saying this hidden number means you are worthless, you will never achieve anything, no one will love you, you are useless, you will never have a boyfriend/husband/family. Why do I let it tell me these lies?! I felt really bad about all this then I thought to myself I will just return the clothes that didn't fit and buy something else. Shopping shouldn't be a dreaded thing that will bring on all these feelings I am a strong, beautiful, loved woman of God and o one can say otherwise not even this hidden number in my clothes!

Looking Forward.......Looking Back

So it's new year a time that that people normally look back on the past year. They focas on the good and the bad, things that changed them in the year and things they are glad to leave behind. Then they look to the future and always say this year is going to be my year, so much is going to change and it is going to be a good one, the best infact. So I thought I would look back on this year and put some high lights and talk about the defficulties I had and also a little bit on what 2015 might hold for me.

In January 2014 I went to South Africa for 6 months which was eye opening, but also mad me feel really alone. I found that I hate being by myself, but regularly find myself on my own. Even though I am chatty, friendly, enthusiastic and everything else you imagen popular people with mutiple friends to be, I am lonely and have few friends. I find people want lots from me but don't give back anything so I am giving on empty. Whilst I was at university I gave my all to people who needed someone to talk to, help with problems and the like, but when I was in need these people were nowhere to be seen, they weren't willing to help, left me to sturggle and cope by myself, even when I asked for help my so called good friends didn't seam to care. I no longer speak to these people, even though they promised to keep in touch, on facebook I see them all being there for each other like they never were for me, this makes me think whats wrong with me? Why didn't they want to help me? Why didn't they care? Did all that I did for them (which drained me and affected my uni life so much) mean nothing at all that they wanted to throw our friendship and my hard work to the side of the road and drive off fast without a second glance? So I built up walls and these walls were extreamly tall and thick when I arrived in South Africa. The family I stayed with, and a family that took my under thier wings, and "Aunty Dotty" helped chip away at these walls so by the time I left Cape Town, they were still there, just weaker. Also whislt I was in South Africa i took myself off my my medication thinking I was fine. Looking back now I know this was a stupid idea and something I will never do again. Whilst I was in South Africa I wrote a blog about what I was doing, but I also kept a journal of how I was feeling and writting thigs down was so much easier than saying things out loud. Hence why this blog is being written, it is so much easier to say how I am feeling when I write it down. This is proberly the most important thing I learnt this year. Below are videos and photos of how I felt and things I did in 2014...

 as for 2015 I just want to feel more opptermistic and excited about the year, and that This year WILL be a good one!! It Will be my year!!!!