Masters - at last!

While we were back in England, I was finally able to see my bound dissertation and MA certificate for the first time.  I know that I graduated over a month ago now but it hasn't really felt real.  After five years of studying, it's finally over!  Doesn't it look all official - especially the shiny golden print.  I'm officially in the library now!

Masters

As I mentioned at the weekend, last week I received confirmation of my dissertation marks meaning that I passed my MA!  It made me think about the whole process and what a long journey the last five years have been.

An MA was never really on my life plan.  It was while I was studying for my PGCE in Leeds that we were told that it was going to become compulsory to do an MA as part of the PGCE to bring England into line with the rest of Europe.  As the first two modules would be included in our PGCEs at no extra cost, it seemed the sensible thing to do.  Of course, it's turned out to be very handy given that I now live in Europe!  

Apart from that, the whole experience was a lot more rewarding than I expected on a professional level as it really made me think about different aspects of my teaching at different stages in my career.  I took modules in language learning, behaviour management and cooperative learning.  The dissertation was definitely the most challenging aspect and the part where I considered stopping and just taking the diploma in education, I'm glad I persevered though.

In fact, that wasn't the only stopping point for me.  The first module was taught through lectures at 9am on a Monday morning - I'll admit I slept through several of those - which would explain why I initially failed the exam.  I could have given up there and then but instead, I learnt the material again without lectures, while working full time and went back and took the exam a year later and passed.  I'm one of the first to give up on some things at the first sign of trouble but the MA really showed me that when I do persevere, I can do it.

I see the completion of the MA as the completion of my education in a way, there's certainly no way I'll be going to the next level of PHD.  On the other hand, it looks like I'll be doing a German course next year.  In a way, learning and education is going to be life long for me - it has to be in my line of work - and it's something I'm looking forward to - nothing can be more difficult than the Masters!

Cooperative Learning

Five and a half weeks of holidays flew by and in that time my brain did take a complete break.  I had completely forgotten everything that was said at school in the last few days, even down to the time we were supposed to be in yesterday (luckily I checked that with a colleague on Saturday).  This is why it was a really nice surprise to find out yesterday that not only did we have a later start of nine and an earlier finish of two but in between we were training on one of my favourite topics at the moment - Cooperative Learning.

I say my favourite, I first came into contact with this concept at my first school where it was a really big new idea that everyone was expected to adapt to.  We were given plenty of training and I really like many of the concepts but being a typical Aries, I don't like being made to do anything.  There have been times, up to and including last week when I have cursed the whole theme bitterly, it being the basis of my dissertation for my MA.  However, yesterday was really inspiring.  As well as a reminder about all that is good in Cooperative Learning, it gave me new ideas, lots of useful related German vocabulary and the inspiration to start afresh and really get cracking with my dissertation project so it's about to be a busy two and a half months!