Val and I are presenting a paper in Glasgow in April 2012; two parts of our central thinking will be that, firstly, from interviews and conversations with a range of practitioners both past, present and to-be, we see an expressed priority in practical and realistic pragmatism in negotiating careers. This is set against selected pathways which are determined by higher ideals and social forces, like gender oppression...
Secondly, listening to more seasoned respondents, there is some evidence of regret for times past notably in the way qualifications are sought and why; their status and relevance.
Thursday, 29 December 2011
Friday, 26 August 2011
Starting Points...Then and Now?
Career planning is something that is focussed upon in a whole range of early years courses at many levels. Often this is portrayed as and predicted to be a smooth pathway; aspiration being geared largely to qualifications. But, looking back, where did the initial drive come from?
Gemma, Rhanne and Francis all have considerable childcare experience now but came at the job for some different reasons and thinking.
Here we find Gemma’s starting point:
Here we can see that there is common bedrock feeling that being with children, your own/anybody’s children is a good place to be and one which appeals to what is felt to be worthwhile. You could say that there could be ’vocational’ elements? Heart then head, initial heart-felt decisions taken and rationally developed according to the emerging sector landscape? These could be said to be realistically negotiated positions, now, in the light of change…this might have something to say about these more seasoned and experienced workers ahving a measure of command and satisfaction over their current roles and likely progression?
Gemma, Rhanne and Francis all have considerable childcare experience now but came at the job for some different reasons and thinking.
Here we find Gemma’s starting point:
The way my mum and ad were with me kind of inspired me to carry on…itb sounds really weird but the neighbours next door at the time had three children…so it got to Saturday afternoon and I would go round an help look after the children. [I was] 14 at the time, quite young…and it wasn’t me wanting my own children, it was just I enjoyed looking after them and helping; that’s where I think, on reflection that’s where it came from…neighbours children.
According to Rhanne,
Looking at Francis, It was through my children, really through having my children and when my eldest…took her to mother and toddler group and got involved with it, came on the committee and then became Chair..it was a voluntary role really…then she progressed on to Playgroup and I became a volunteer at the playgroup and did fundraising…I just wanted to be involved in what she was doing and the experiences that she was having and be part of that…that involvement in her life really. Then we I became involved, it was something I’d like to do as a career really that I’d never thought about..from leaving school, I just enjoyed doing it
Here we can see that there is common bedrock feeling that being with children, your own/anybody’s children is a good place to be and one which appeals to what is felt to be worthwhile. You could say that there could be ’vocational’ elements? Heart then head, initial heart-felt decisions taken and rationally developed according to the emerging sector landscape? These could be said to be realistically negotiated positions, now, in the light of change…this might have something to say about these more seasoned and experienced workers ahving a measure of command and satisfaction over their current roles and likely progression?
...always wanted to be a Nursery Nurse from when I was at school, left school [Why?] I just loved being with children…and families, I always wanted to be Mary Poppins, sounds a bit corny. I was a young school leaver (August birthday) so I did a BTec First Diploma in Care, that was my first course, which was quite scary being exposed to the elderley at the age of 16 but that’s been very beneficial, gave me a really good overview…We need also to remember that these participants are recollecting; that is looking back some years on a domain that has changed radically (National Strategy, public/private responsibilities, professionalisation etc) over that period. It begs the question whether the ideas are the same now?
Sunday, 27 March 2011
A Rural Practitioner..
Following consent, this short interview was carried out in Spring 2010. After some background, it recalls some of the reasons for the respondent’s thinking now. This includes personal experiences and a specific rural context of her life and work (as a playgroup leader)
The method is one of simply listening to the recording, noting down some content (not verbatim) and selectively seeking points for extension.
There’s many important points here made in an ordered way; these include an outline (curriculum) philosophy about ‘going with’ the child’s desires, the playgroup’s future, some thoughts about what the future might look like for the respondent and the context of services in a rural farming environment and herself. It is this final part which warrants some further analysis.
We touch here one small but significant aspect of 21st century. The local agricultural community is basically one of a set of small increasingly hard-pressed rural land-based enterprises. Expansion in what is a National Park is accounted as being very constrained and planning permission appears to be a very long and (overly) complex process. This means, for the speaker, that the area reflects a trend in the farming industry to leave the vocation and move away. Also, a point about the cost of housing may be being made.
From a playgroup point-of-view, this means a decline in the number of young children in the community who may want to avail themselves of her (and a colleague’s) services on offer to children and their families.
This situation is spoken of, naturally, as a regret; in response to a question about the provision’s future
This may line up quite nicely with some thoughts by Mervyn Benford of the National Association of Small Schools (BBC 2011). The main point made is that authorities might not ‘understand’ what small rural schools do for their communities and that a plain cost per pupil is too simplistic a formula; the equation probably includes transport, the relative performance of the youngsters and the “real way that learning takes place in your life and my life, at home and in everyday work”
BBC (2011) Farming Today sourced at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zlhhd#synopsis accessed 22nd March
The method is one of simply listening to the recording, noting down some content (not verbatim) and selectively seeking points for extension.
There’s many important points here made in an ordered way; these include an outline (curriculum) philosophy about ‘going with’ the child’s desires, the playgroup’s future, some thoughts about what the future might look like for the respondent and the context of services in a rural farming environment and herself. It is this final part which warrants some further analysis.
We touch here one small but significant aspect of 21st century. The local agricultural community is basically one of a set of small increasingly hard-pressed rural land-based enterprises. Expansion in what is a National Park is accounted as being very constrained and planning permission appears to be a very long and (overly) complex process. This means, for the speaker, that the area reflects a trend in the farming industry to leave the vocation and move away. Also, a point about the cost of housing may be being made.
From a playgroup point-of-view, this means a decline in the number of young children in the community who may want to avail themselves of her (and a colleague’s) services on offer to children and their families.
This situation is spoken of, naturally, as a regret; in response to a question about the provision’s future
We’ll struggle..sad as it is, the playgroup will die away… Young families cannot afford to live [here]…you’re not allowed to extend because of the Peak Park [regulations]…no young children coming inA prognosis made even more uncertain by the pending general election.
This may line up quite nicely with some thoughts by Mervyn Benford of the National Association of Small Schools (BBC 2011). The main point made is that authorities might not ‘understand’ what small rural schools do for their communities and that a plain cost per pupil is too simplistic a formula; the equation probably includes transport, the relative performance of the youngsters and the “real way that learning takes place in your life and my life, at home and in everyday work”
BBC (2011) Farming Today sourced at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zlhhd#synopsis accessed 22nd March
More News..
This site has been around a bit now (three years, almost to the day) and to be honest it's taking some time to get off the ground! This has been mainly about difficult it has been to find time to seriously address our vision together but I think we may well have solved that one and Val is, as we speak, preparing a planning/scoping document...the process moves on :-).
Sunday, 28 March 2010
A Further Update...
Things are beginning to move here; Val and I discussed a viable way forward and this primarily includes enabling some students to talk about their working lives in an acceptable and ethical manner.
One point here is that is often collected by digitally taping the comments which leaves us with a transcription challenge. Taping is, of course, a very useful way of collecting 'voice'; once the thing is set-up, it can be a natural way. A further point is that this, once made available in this form, is open for comment by any viewer, anonymously.
One point here is that is often collected by digitally taping the comments which leaves us with a transcription challenge. Taping is, of course, a very useful way of collecting 'voice'; once the thing is set-up, it can be a natural way. A further point is that this, once made available in this form, is open for comment by any viewer, anonymously.
Saturday, 28 November 2009
StoryCorps
A developing entry...
Discovered a couple of days ago, this is a longer-term US oral history project.
StoryCorps (SC) is a general site - one thing Val and I have been discussing is whether 100V is too specific but then we don't have the infrastructure to support a vehicle like SC - this is an ongoing debate.
SC have a 'National Day of Listening' which falls immediately after Thanksgiving and 'black Friday' (lots of shopping on this annual public holiday)
One thing that is interesting, mentioned on the radio, is that there's some ideas that americans are more likely to have a say in public than we, somewhat more reserved, UK citizens? I don't necessarily agree with such generalisations but they might have a point?
Discovered a couple of days ago, this is a longer-term US oral history project.
StoryCorps (SC) is a general site - one thing Val and I have been discussing is whether 100V is too specific but then we don't have the infrastructure to support a vehicle like SC - this is an ongoing debate.
SC have a 'National Day of Listening' which falls immediately after Thanksgiving and 'black Friday' (lots of shopping on this annual public holiday)
One thing that is interesting, mentioned on the radio, is that there's some ideas that americans are more likely to have a say in public than we, somewhat more reserved, UK citizens? I don't necessarily agree with such generalisations but they might have a point?
Friday, 10 July 2009
News
Just a little update: Val and I are progressing this area now. Some events and thoughts are:
We presented a paper at the UoD's LTA Conference on 9th July 2009. This included our card which is now printed and some further thoughts behind the reason why we're doing what we're doing.
We also talked about (briefly) the advantages and disadvantages of blogs and wikis. Blogs are 'upsidedown' in that the latest items are at the top when you read them and they're linear. Perhaps more challenging is that contributions can only be freely made by using the Comments facility attached to each entry; this can be restricting as the only way to add an entry is to go through the address and this can be affected (wrongly so, I think) by perceptions about moderation and netiquette. The big advantage to blogs are that they are simple to access and use and we believe this outweighs some of the downsides.
Val has also collected some voices which we need to explore ways of putting this on the blog; these are audio files of practitioners talking about their experiences. Whilst Val and I were discussing this, we started to address the important issue of editing - more on both these and others, we suspect, later!
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