Brains

This morning I am trying to make up for last night and write what the rose wine wouldn’t allow me to do. To be honest, my mind was a little congested yesterday after my morning at college and then a very hectic trip to Sainsburys.

This week we had a talk from a paediatric occupational therapist on brain based learning, hang on, am I in the right room? I’m a teaching assistant, I’m not training to be a psychiatrist! And as a parent I know all the tricks in the book when it comes to trying to get out of doing work! So for 3 hours I sat in a room full of women, being talked at by someone that is obviously clever and passionate about her job but quite frankly, was pretty boring. About an hour and a half in to the monotone, the lecturer asked us to fill in a little multiple choice questionnaire, which of course we all dutifully did. We were then asked if we’d got mainly A’s, B’s or C’s, this then told her what type of learners we are, visual, auditory or kinaesthetic. If she’s so clever, surely she should have done this at the start so that she could adjust her presentation accordingly? As it turned out, I was the only one in the room that was allegedly an auditory learner, really, then why was she boring the pants off me? We were taught about the triune brain, the reptilian brain, the neo-cortex, the left and right hemispheres and even the limbic system. Are you still awake? I think I’ve made my point. 

I love my job and really want to progress to whatever level is possible, but really, do I need to know about the actual physical workings of a brain? Somebody somewhere else gets paid a hell of a lot more money than me to diagnose these young people with whatever they think it is that may be wrong with them, it’s my job to help them through school on a daily basis and make sure they can read and write. When the lovely Ryan asked me the other day in a technology lesson how old I am, I didn’t need to start wondering which side of his brain was he thinking with, I just had to think quickly of a number, which happened to be 12. Imran then piped up “You can’t be 12 Miss” “Why?” I asked. Quite correctly he said “Because you wouldn’t be allowed to teach us if you’re only 12, you must be older than that, about 25” he guessed. “Well done, you’re spot on I said” Nothing wrong with his brain, maybe his eyes need testing but that’s not for me to be the judge of.

So, I’ll keep going to college and hope that I pass the course, blimey, that would be embarrassing if I didn’t wouldn’t it? But most importantly I shall continue to use my real life experiences and what the students teach me to enable me to keep doing what I love most.