Challenging Yourself

I caught myself today doing something that I am always telling my pupils off for – giving an immediate negative response to something being asked of me.

The task? To talk to my peers in a whole staff meeting. To many who know me, or should I say, don’t really know me, the idea of me shrinking at talking is laughable. I do it all the time – to groups of pupils, my own Departmental staff, groups of parents, anyone who will listen really… However, when you know it is a hot Friday afternoon, towards the end of term and regarding a subject that may or may not be something your colleagues are interested in hearing – well, that’s a whole different ball game.

The topic? A curriculum for Excellence. Now there’s a whole post in itself. The whole point was my initial reaction to the question of doing this shocked me. By the time I had climbed the stairs (and there are many) into my Department, I had started to challenge this decision. I would be nervous. Of course I would be – it’s not something I usually have to do. I would forget to say the things I wanted to say or end up waffling. Nothing new there. I would end up looking like an idiot in front of my peers who might liken what I was saying to ‘trying to teach their granny to suck eggs’. All this contemplation for a talk of a couple of minutes. I thought of my pupils and the confidence I try to instil in them. Some role model, I thought.

So, I turned around and went back down the stairs to change that decision. I did the talk, over-ran my time (nothing new there then) and hopefully enthused at least one person on the way.

A sense of achievement I think.

~ by zoewalker on June 6, 2008.