|
Please see Part A here and Part B here.
As I have said in sections prior, I have learnt a lot during the last two years of my Post-Graduate degree. I value what I have learnt highly and I hope to use it going forward in my career. As I am an Early Career Teacher, I am still learning about what it means to be a Classroom Teacher, so much of what I still need to learn as a Teacher-Librarian is tied up in that. I aim to complete some Professional Development around literacy and literature for children and young adults. I also intend to ask questions and speak to library staff at various schools while I undertake Temporary Relief Teaching work to gain an understanding of how different schools run their libraries and what resources they have on offer for staff and students alike. I also want to continue to work with internal and external committees and organisations to help me gain leadership skills. This includes year-level or subject area specific meetings or whole-school committees as well as the School Libraries Association of South Australia (SLASA), where I have been offered the opportunity to become a committee member. While I cannot name specific programs or Professional Development courses that I wish to or could potentially undertake in the coming school year, due to COVID-19 uncertainty, I intend to take advantage of anything can help me improve my professional practice. I have, over the course of my Professional Placement, started a resource bank for the Civics and Citizenship subject area (Mickan, 2020). I intend on getting that operational and start to highlight resources and curate a collection that can be used to assist in the teaching of the subject. I have found that Civics and Citizenship is an oft forgotten subject within the Australian Curriculum and as a SACE Stage 1 and 2 Legal Studies teacher, I have found that students can be under-prepared in terms of the basics of what they need to know. By using the knowledge I have gained in terms of collection curation and recommendation of resources, I wish to help push Civics and Citizenship within schools and highlight resources that can be utilised by staff of any level of experience. This helps to ensure that students are receiving their full education and access to the full curriculum that is their right to have access to. To conclude, I have been incredibly grateful for the opportunity to learn and to be able to become a fully-qualified Teacher-Librarian. This has enabled me to combine my two passions of teaching and librarianship in a way that when I was in Year 10, starting to look at future careers, didn't know was possible. I still have so much to learn and I fully intend to do so, not just for the betterment of myself but also for my students. References
0 Comments
Please see Part A here. I have valued all I have learnt during my Post-Graduate study. I have learnt a lot and will take this learning into my career as a Teacher Librarian and as a classroom teacher. I have selected three themes from my learning over the last two years to focus in-depth on and these are Information and Communications Technology (ICT), Digital Environments and Leadership. I feel that these areas have been vital over the last twelve months, especially with COVID-19 and having to rely on ICT and Digital Learning Environments and step up and show how the library and the staff can be the leaders in these fields.
Texts across all the sites I have worked in are "multiform" and this appears to be becoming more of the norm than the exception. Huang (2012) notes that this "multiform" way of accessing texts has had varying levels of success, in multiple settings. However, these digital texts are cheaper than their physical counterparts but what is not always considered is the resources required to store these texts, whether that be physical hard drive or digital cloud space. Our students are digital natives - something that is often forgotten - and therefore it is generally harder to entice them to be active participants in their learning and in the curriculum (Rowan, 2012). Many classroom teachers struggle to embed ICT into their classrooms and their teaching in a way that is more than just a "hook" and this is one area that they can look to their Teacher-Librarian for assistance in. Teacher-Librarians are the one who will have strategies, programs, and curriculum pedagogies that the classroom teacher will be able to utilise. They are also the ones who can confirm if resources are able to be accessed by the site or what they have in their database or collection that would be of benefit to the students. With apps for devices being so variable in terms of price and quality, it is important to be able to know which ones to use and what are appropriate (See blog post about the You Version Bible App + Audio (Mickan, 2019a)).Having this knowledge, going into the 21st century of digital education, is vital for all educators and especially for Teacher-Librarians. In terms of COVID-19, all schools and all Teacher-Librarians had to change how they operated and how they found texts and resources that could be used across the whole school both within the site and at home. It was also important to consider how the students would access their work and whether applications such as Microsoft Teams or Google Classroom would be of benefit and once a decision was made, the changes (if needed) had to be made quickly. Teacher-Librarians, during this time (an any time of major change in the ICT infrastructure) would have been part of spearheading it and ensuring that it was a smooth transition for both staff and students. Students that we teach and interact with are reliant on the ICT infrastructure (i.e., mobiles and private laptops) that they have outside of the classroom as well, especially for social media. It is our duty, as Teacher-Librarians and as classroom teachers to ensure that the students have the skills to use these devices, remain safe online and to use them appropriately. Digital Learning Environments and Digital Citizenship One cannot discuss Digital Learning Environments without mentioning digital citizenship. They are vital and without each other, both would suffer. In a school site, many established teachers are still learning the intricacies of a Digital Learning Environment and to a greater degree, the Internet. This lack knowledge regarding the intricacies of the Internet and Digital Learning Environments can lead to Teacher Librarians and therefore, classroom teachers, not teaching students how to be digitally aware and have the appropriate digital citizenship skills. As Teacher-Librarians (and even as teachers) we need to consider that many of our students are using Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter as places in which they can get information from (Full thoughts at ETL523 – Module 1 (Mickan, 2020d)). Many students do this without a regard for the validity and the reliability of these social media platforms. These are the sites that we must compete with when trying to help our students learn and become self-efficient learners. Therefore, we need to be able to utilise Digital Learning Environments and the wider Internet in a way that increases student interaction with the content while teaching them how to be excellent digital citizens. We are going to start by looking at Digital Learning Environments then discuss digital citizenship.  "Digital Learning Environment" by Dan Zen is licensed under CC BY 2.0 DIGITAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS When looking at Digital Learning Environments, I have discovered for myself how hard it is to be able to be an active participant in the Digital Learning Environment as a person does not have the reliability of a face-to-face conversation with their teacher. However, Digital Learning Environments are vital to the development of our learners. This is due to the post-secondary school training organisations that are taking their learning digital. TAFE's, Universities, and training organisations are taking their learning and their content online (See ETL523 – Module 3 blog post (Mickan, 2020f)). Digital Learning Environments are tricky to get used to and to navigate - for both staff and students - especially during any form of transition periods. We need to ensure that staff and students can access these Environments adequately - and this is where the Teacher-Librarian can step in. Learning how to balance a school-approved Digital Learning Environment and other sources where students gain information from (i.e., social media sites) is vital for all teachers - not just for a certain few. This is something that a Teacher-Librarian can step up and lead information sessions or Professional Development on. A struggle with Digital Learning Environments is that there is a need to keep the content updated and to keep all links relevant. With the current fast pace of the Internet, it is vital that we keep up-to-date with the continual changes. Having long-term staff members that are stuck in their ways can prove a challenge when implementing a Digital Learning Environment as they are not wanting to change how they teach and their professional practice (Elaborated upon in ETL523 - Module 5 blog post (Mickan, 2020g)).  "Exercising the Franchise of Digital Citizenship" by technovore is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP Our students need to have the ability to be Creative Communicators, Computational Thinkers and Digital Citizens (among others) ("ISTE Standards for Students | ISTE", 2020) and how we teach and guide them plays an important part in developing these abilities of our students. It is one thing to have high aims and standards for our students to be able to meet, however, unless they have the fundamental knowledge of how to be safe online and show proper referencing skills across all subject areas. This links directly to teaching them about creative commons for images, video, and audio files as well as in-text and bibliographic referencing. Ensuring that these skills are taught correctly, and students can utilise these accurately is vital. Starting this from a young age is a brilliant mechanism for setting our students for success in their secondary school years and beyond. I have noticed that many of the secondary students struggle with creative commons and in-text and bibliographic referencing, so I was really pleased to see that during my Professional Experience Placement the basics of these skills are being taught to students as young as Year Two's. Each site has a different policy and the one I was at during my time studying ETL523 has a three-strike policy (See ETL523 – Module 2 Blog Post (Mickan, 2020)) and this is (in part) to accommodate the lack of skills that the students have. Rather than penalising them right away in at the start of Year Eight, giving them a chance to learn these skills and means that they are not put off learning and form the belief that they will be penalised for simply handing up an assignment. It may seem that much of this discussion of Digital Learning Environments and Digital Citizenship doesn't speak much to how a Teacher-Librarian would balance their responsibilities, but it highlights some of the challenges that they face when working with staff members in their respective schools. Teacher-Librarians - stereotypically - are part of implementing programs or procedures that affect the whole school and therefore are having to face additional challenges that other school leadership may not face.  "Leadership and Learning" by gcouros is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Leadership Leadership is vital in any school site and Teacher-Librarians play an important leadership role. They take to the forefront of advocacy within the school and the wider community but also play an important role within the site, in regards for the direction that they take regarding policies and ICT. Teacher-Librarians have a vital breadth of knowledge about what the school library and collection as whole require and what can be implemented going forward. This leadership is particularly important, as I saw in my Professional Placement at Aberfoyle Park Primary School Campus Library (See ETL507 - Assignment 5: Professional Placement Report (Section 2 - Theory into Practice) blog post (Mickan, 2020) or ETL507 - Assignment 5: Professional Placement Report (Section 3 - Critical Reflection) blog post (Mickan, 2020). While I was there, plans were being made for a smooth transition to a new (and still unknown as of the writing of this Professional Reflective Portfolio) Teacher-Librarian for the 2021 school year. Plans were being made to finalise what had been started during the 2020 school year and to highlight what could be potential priorities for 2021. This also included ensuring that the budget proposal was written in a way that would be easy to understand for the incoming Teacher-Librarian. One aspect of leadership that is important to remember is the context that you are in. A stand-alone primary school is completely different to a Birth-Year 12 school and completely different again to a school such as Aberfoyle Park Primary School Campus. As I noted in my ETL504 - Module 2 Blog Post (Mickan, 2020e) the context is important as the leadership structure is completely different in each context. During my Professional Placement I saw a mix of Situational Leadership and Transformational Leadership styles. This was because staff within the library relied on each other to stay up to date with what was occurring within the three schools (each had a unique perspective) and to ensure that the library was running smoothly and efficiently. This worked well as workloads and expectations held by the schools were considered (Osburne, 1989) and it was able to be managed and arranged that at least one person who had intimate knowledge of the running of the library and the collection was always in the library. Transformational Leadership was also a featured Leadership style because all library staff were working towards their future goals and how they can make the library more successful through refurbishment, dual language books and improving the parent collection (Molloy, 2019).  "What a Teacher Librarian Does" by Carol (vanhookc) is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Overall, these three facets have been what I have kept returning to during my study. I have kept returning to these because they are what shapes how successful a school library is. A school library needs to have a strong ICT set up, especially since going forward much of the teaching and the learning is going to be directed online or administered in a multi-modal format. Digital texts are also becoming more common, especially when it comes to non-fiction texts and texts that accommodate different learning disabilities such as dyslexia, ADHD, or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). With this in mind, we need to ensure that our fellow teachers and students are digitally literate in how to use the Digital Learning Environments as well as ensuring that staff are competent in teaching digital citizenship to their students. Lastly, ensuring that the leadership is set up in a way to ensure the longevity of the Library and that all needs can be met, is of vital importance. Ensuring that the Teacher-Librarian in charge of the Library is a capable leader and proficient in the use of ICT, Digital Learning Environments and teaching Digital Citizenship is important going forward in the technological world that we now live in. COVID-19 has shown the education industry that we need to change how we teach our students and that we need to utilise different tools than ever before. Teacher-Librarians play a vital role in how schools move forward, adapt, and take on what we have learnt during 2020. References
An effective Teacher-Librarian is someone who works for the betterment of their school, staff, and students. They are a person who is skilled in the use of Information and Communications Technology and Digital Learning Environments. Teacher-Librarians need to be able to competently teach staff and students how to be digitally aware and be competent digital citizens. Teacher-Librarians need to know the demographic of the students that they interact with and what are the skills that they are lacking and create ways in which to help them during their schooling. They also need to be willing to assist staff members who may struggle with some of the more advanced Information and Communications Technology skills that they may not be confident with. An effective Teacher-Librarian is a person who is willing to wear many hats and juggle multiple requirements and duties and can do this job well.
ETL507 - Assignment 5: Professional Placement Report (Section 4 - Placement Review Meeting Record)8/12/2020 This post is part of one of final assignments broken posted and broken down into their respective sections. I have decided to post this assignment as I feel that it is important to document what I undertook during my Professional Placement. This is verbatim for what I submitted for this assignment, however some sections have had to be changed in terms of formatting due to the restraints of Weebly. See Section 1 here and Section 2 here and Section 3 here.
This document is a record of the end-of-placement meeting held between the placement student from the School of Information Studies, CSU and the primary workplace supervisor. We request that both sign this as a true record of that meeting. This record must be submitted as an attachment to the Placement Report assessment. Student name: Nikita Mickan Student Number: 11685611 Placement host: Thiele Primary School (Aberfoyle Park Primary School Campus) Supervisor’s name: Hajnalka Molloy 1. Outline the professional tasks that the student participated in during the placement (program to be attached). – see Section 3, NM. Library design and layout (setting up a new library after renovations), cataloguing (downloading from SCIS), stocktake, SCIS webinar, assisting with lessons, covering books, circulation desk, reshelving, selecting resources for a class taking into consideration text complexity for a junior class. 2. Please comment on the student’s strengths as demonstrated throughout the professional placement. Nikita demonstrated strong communication skills. Nikita understood the importance of ensuring all cataloguing is kept consistent, accurate and appropriate to the needs of the context and clients. Nikita worked well with students, teachers and other members of staff, taking on feedback as necessary. 3. Please identify any concerns or issues related to satisfactory completion of the placement. If Nikita wished to worked in a primary context she would benefit from more time in primary level classes to adapt the content and level of difficulty, she would benefit from more time explicitly teaching information literacy lessons. 4. Please discuss the progression towards achievement of the student’s professional goals outlined prior to the comment of placement. Nikita has met her placement goals, including catalogue development, how we work with stakeholders, selection and collection policy and inclusion of student voice. 5. Any other comments or feedback for the student. Nikita shows initiative, confidence and asks clarifying questions when needed. We are looking forward to welcoming her to the profession and the SLASA committee. Student signature: Nikita Dawn Mickan Supervisor signature: Hajnalka Timea Molloy Note: This Supervisor Meeting Record is for educational purposes only and is not intended for use as reference material in seeking employment. This post is part of one of final assignments broken posted and broken down into their respective sections. I have decided to post this assignment as I feel that it is important to document what I undertook during my Professional Placement. This is verbatim for what I submitted for this assignment, however, the Program subheading is formatted differently due to the restraints of the Weebly editor. See Section 1 here and Section 2 here.
PROGRAM: Monday - 12/10/2020
Tuesday - 13/10/2020
Wednesday - 14/10/2020
Thursday - 15/10/2020
Tuesday - 20/10/2020
Wednesday - 21/10/2020
Thursday - 22/10/2020
Friday - 23/10/2020
Monday - 26/10/2020
Tuesday - 27/10/2020
Notes: Monday 12 October 2020 – Friday 16 October 2020 the Campus Library was closed to finalise the stocktake as much as possible and to keep the students safe from shelving that was still being built. As seen above, I participated in a wide variety of tasks during my Placement – all of which I feel was to my advantage. Being in a primary school setting, let alone a campus that is not solely a Department for Education site, was a new experience. Looking at my experiences, they fell into three distinct categories: Library design and layout, working with students and “background” library work. LIBRARY DESIGN AND LAYOUT This was the overarching task of the first week – ensuring that the library was in place to be able to be re-opened during the second week of my Placement. This involved the layout of couches, shelving units and establishing how to display signage without damaging the newly painted walls. Assisting in the library design and layout was valuable, as it opened my eyes to what needs to be taken into consideration when designing a space that is going to be multi-use; and also provides the staff with a means to be able to monitor students. While many Teacher-Librarians (especially those new to the profession) don’t have a chance to design or set up a library from scratch, this provided me with knowledge that I can use if I were rearranging a school library in the future. I learnt well during this through discussions with Hajnalka and other library staff (including volunteers) and by, in some instances, moving furniture to see what it would look like in different configurations. WORKING WITH STUDENTS AND RESOURCE SELECTION This was a challenge for me. While I am a teacher, I am not primary trained; and outside of casual employment in an Out of School Hours Care, I have minimal experience working with primary aged children. This proved challenging when teaching a class as I struggled adapting the content and the level of difficulty. I also struggled with selecting digital resources that were appropriate for an early childhood and junior primary classroom setting. I was more confident with the primary and upper primary age groups as they are more like the Year Eight students that I teach and select resources for on a near-daily basis. Working with the classes and playing a part in the resource selection process was valuable as it shows an area that I need to improve on as it shows a deficit in my skills. I learnt through discussion and talking through the resources that I found with Hajnalka. Even if the resources I located were appropriate, she made me explain why I had selected them which enabled me to think and consider deeply why I had selected them. It is a future goal of mine to continue to work towards becoming more proficient in resource selection for younger year levels, which will be seen in a Civics and Citizenship resource bank[2] that I am currently working on. "BACKGROUND" LIBRARY WORK While I was aware of the amount of “background” work that is required to be undertaken for the library to be able to operate properly, the sheer level of what was there to be completed surprised – and at times – overwhelmed me. The book orders were continually coming in resulting in a lot of cataloguing to happen. I catalogued everything from non-fiction to fiction (general and senior) to picture books and graphic novels. There was copious amount of covering to complete as a result – both for hardbacks and paperbacks across all categories of books. There was much to be completed in terms of the stocktake of the library as well with a discovery that the recently catalogued books coming up as “un-shelved” which meant that as we were cataloguing books, we were having to stocktake them as well. I learnt a lot when doing this work by watching Hajnalka and library staff in the first instance, then undertaking the task myself and asking clarifying questions as I went. I find that I work well after watching an example then undertaking the task myself directly after. FINAL THOUGHTS I have valued evert second of learning during this Placement. I have valued being able to be a part of a complex environment that is outside of my ideal comfort zone. As a high school teacher, I have valued the opportunity to be able to learn how to select resources for a younger age group and for those who need a lower level of complexity text. I have learnt the value of having lower level complexity texts available for anyone who may need them. I am incredibly grateful that I have been able to learn how to balance the requirements within a Department of Education school, Catholic school and a Uniting Church school. That has been a massive learning curve and I have learnt a lot. While department schools are typically secular, staff and students can have a religious background; therefore, necessitating a balance of texts within the library to accommodate all parties. I will be eternally grateful to have been able to learn from Hajnalka and the Aberfoyle Park Primary School Campus Library staff and I am looking forward to joining the South Australian School Library Association (SASLA) Committee in 2021. [2] See https://governmentandfederation.weebly.com/ for the Civics and Citizenship resource bank This post is part of one of final assignments broken posted and broken down into their respective sections. I have decided to post this assignment as I feel that it is important to document what I undertook during my Professional Placement. This is verbatim for what I submitted for this assignment. See Section 1 here.
Reflecting upon the subjects I have studied over the course of the last two years; primary two that I have been coming back to is ETL505 (Describing and Analysing Education Resources) and ETL503 (Resourcing the Curriculum). This is due to the amount of cataloguing, weeding, and stocktaking that I undertook during my time there. Speaking to ETL505 first, the importance of clear, consistent cataloguing was emphasised from my first day on site. The Campus Library gets their cataloguing data from the Schools Cataloguing Information Service (SCIS) and alters their downloaded copy to suit their individual needs. Some of the catalogue metadata within the downloaded copy was altered to include more broad subject headings (i.e. 'humour' in addition to the already included 'humorous stories') and Lexile Numbers. The broader subject headings suit the primary school setting as the students are more likely to look for 'humour' rather than 'humorous stories'. The Lexile Numbers allow students, staff and the Teacher Librarian to locate appropriate books that suit the students reading level and also allow for a small amount of challenge. Three forms of classification systems are used at The Campus Library: alphabetical by authors surname, Dewey Decimal Classification and Genre. The first, alphabetical by authors surname, is used within the early childhood picture book section. This allows for ease of location for the kindergarten and early childhood students as they can go straight to the letter of the alphabet they require. Their Christmas and Easter collections are classified in the same manner. The Dewey Decimal Classification is used exclusively for their non-fiction collections and this is because The Campus Library believes that the Dewey Decimal Classification offers the best and easiest, in terms of location of items, system. It is also a system that continues into secondary and tertiary education, so it allows for students to familiarise themselves with it early on. The general fiction and the senior fiction are organised via genre and within that by authors’ surname. This is to allow the students to develop their own sense of what they prefer to read and identify what are similar authors or series that may interest them. Organising the books via authors surname within the genre sections means that they can be easily located or re-shelved. All three forms of classification suit the purpose for which they are being used for. With reference to ETL503, The Campus Library was flooded in early-to-mid Term Two and therefore an extensive stocktake and weeding process was undertaken as well as purchasing many new items. This resulted in discussions surrounding their collection and selection policy. The Department for Education (2020) outlines a collection and selection policy as providing guidance about the selection, development, use and review of resources to achieve intended learning outcomes. This document is still in draft form as the three schools cannot all agree on the document. The document outlines that the individual schools will be responsible for their own teacher resources and student readers and the Campus Library is responsible for the remainder of the collection (hence no mention of a teacher resource collection previously) as well as the digital collection and various ICT and STEM tools. Due to the flooding, the funding process was different as donations were received as well as allocation of further funds from the Department for Education to replace damaged items. This document highlights the importance of student voice by identifying the means that they are using to encourage students to recommend items. These include book fairs, surveys and a request book that is always available. Hajnalka Molloy, the Campus Library Teacher Librarian is responsible for ensuring that the required processes are followed and for ensuring that their collection and selection policy is still updated (though it is in draft form). She is also responsible to continue to negotiations with all schools to attempt to finalise the policy. Finally, Hajnalka is also responsible for assisting in the teaching of vital information literacy skills across all three schools. I participated as much as I could within the tasks that Hajnalka was undertaking and if I were unavailable to, I assisted in the planning and we had discussions regarding any aspects of her role. References South Australian Department for Education. (2020). Selecting and using resources for educational purposes guideline. Adelaide: South Australian Department for Education. This post is part of one of final assignments broken posted and broken down into their respective sections. I have decided to post this assignment as I feel that it is important to document what I undertook during my Professional Placement. This is verbatim for what I submitted for this assignment.
My host organisation was the Aberfoyle Park Primary School Campus Library (The Campus Library). The Campus Library services three primary schools who share the one campus and some facilities. Thiele Primary School[1] is attached to the South Australian Department for Education, whereas The School of Nativity is attached to the South Australian Commission for Catholic Education, and Pilgrim School is an Independent school attached to the Uniting Church. All three schools are co-educational. The Campus Library has an important role in ensuring that all three schools (staff, students and wider community) needs are met with the resources that they require to competently run their classes. There is also an onsite preschool (Aberfoyle Park Campus Preschool) however, they appear to have minimal input into the running or organisation of the Campus Library. Thus, the bulk of this report will refer to the primary schools (“three schools” or similar). The Campus Library has a parent collection that is available to parents to loan out under their own account (not attached to their child's). This parent collection is primarily made up of Christian orientated texts as they originally came from Pilgrim School. They have an attached classroom that can be used as a MakerSpace as well as a computer lab with laptops available for class bookings. The senior fiction is kept in a separate area that allows for the Year 5-7 students to gradually become more independent. The general fiction collection is sorted by genre (adventure, mystery, sport etc) and is available to all year levels. The graphic novel section is a smaller one and is also available to all year levels (with select items housed in the senior fiction). The non-fiction collection is organised in Dewey Decimal Classification and is available to all students. The picture fiction is also available to all students but is mainly aimed at the early childhood and junior primary age groups. There are quick reads available within both the general and senior fiction. Two smaller collections - Christmas and Easter - are also available to all students and are bought out when it is the appropriate time of the year. All texts - fiction and non-fiction - are labelled with their Lexile number and Premiers Reading Challenge label where appropriate. The Campus Library has to balance the requirements of two religious schools with strong core values and a government school that is more liberal with their values. The School of Nativity and Pilgrim School do not want LGBTQI+ related texts featured in the Campus Library, however, it is a department regulation that all persons are represented in the collection, including LGBTIQ+. How the Campus Library mitigates this is by marking the texts with a orange dot on the spine of the book and notifying all schools about what the texts are and leaving it up to the individual schools as to whether they wish to advertise the texts or steer students away from them (Molloy, 2019). When special event displays are being planned (i.e Asia Week, Book Week etc), events promoting LGBTIQ+ are avoided due to the ethos of two of the three schools on Campus. If The Campus Library ceased to exist, the collection would more than likely be divided between the three schools and they would then be responsible for the funding of their own Libraries, rather than jointly funding the existing one. References Molloy, Hajnalka. (2019). Campus Library Collection and Selection Policy: Draft 1. Adelaide: Aberfoyle Park Primary School Campus. [1] Due to Hajnalka Molloy’s employment, I was primarily associated with Thiele Primary School for logistical reasons. July 2020, I made the decision to leave Big W Tea Tree Plaza. This was not a decision that I made lightly and not one I made without considerable thought. My considerations included whether I could balance full time teaching with part time retail work. I also considered whether I had room to move within the business while I was still searching for full time teaching work. My thoughts also factored in the amount of time I had planned to have off over the following few months and how much more time I could potentially be off due to contracts and being unwilling to only give 50% of myself to each job. I also considered how much I was enjoying my retail work. I was disillusioned, not wanting to go to my shifts and felt undervalued towards the end of my retail career. It was this that was the main tipping point that was the final decision for me to resign.
With nearly 4 months having passed since I resigned, my stress levels have gone down and I have a greater work-life balance than what I would have if I kept my retail job and continued to seek and work in education. I miss the people I worked with, but I do not miss the job. I took a leap of faith and it has paid off. I may not have a consistent weekly paycheque, but I have a greater quality of life and for that, I am incredibly grateful. Everyone has a goal or two. Or three. In my case, I have a few. Many of these are ones that I have been considering and wanting to work towards anyway, but I am seriously starting to make moves in my own life to start to achieve them. All of these are long term goals. Goals I will achieve slowly and over time. However, I am looking at them within a 5-year time frame. I am 24 so by the time these are achieved (or close to!) I will be 29 years old (for a bit of context). These goals are in no particular order.
I want to be able to have reached a level of personal stability within my life and my career and be able to move forward independently. I hope that by having these goals, I can achieve a lot going forward. |
Note:The posts dated from 2019-2020 are direct from my Charles Sturt University blog; hosted on their servers. For my own record, I have chosen to re-post them here. Due to this, there may be some formatting problems and for that I apologise. Archives
May 2025
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed