If six months ago you had been given the opportunity to revisit some of the maths and science you did at school and get a crash course in grammar would you have taken it? Personally, I think I would have, mainly because i’m geeky like that. However, I don’t think I appreciated the sheer amount of mental effort it has taken to teach myself and teach my child all at the same time. Marking grammar when i’ve only just begun to understand it myself has been really interesting and a very steep learning curve.
With all the learning the children have been doing, I’ve felt obliged to keep up some other learning as part of my CPD for my work from which i’m currently furloughed and also to ensure that I have enough skills to find work should I be made redundant. With this is mind I’ve been trying a little to diversify my interests and skills a little. I’ve been looking at courses advertised via the big recruitment agencies as there seems to be a variety available and quite a lot of good discounts on them, making them affordable. For example, I’ve just completed a Level 2 Food Safety and Hygiene course which is needed for working with food- for example in a Cafe. It was just £9 and I think adds another string to my bow if I need to try to find alternative work.
I’ve also been doing a Digital Arts Course which has been really fantastic, this was a really quite intensive course run over 5 mornings for 5 weeks with follow up work. However, I feel much more confident about manipulating images, using apps and have the skills to create my own gallery to show off my portfolio of work. This course will be incredibly handy for my museums career and has significantly increased my digital abilities. The course was free through our community learning group which was amazing. They offer lots of different creative courses which are now all online and i’m sure you’d have something similar in your area.
One thing which I’ve also been doing is keeping an eye out for conferences and seminars which I wouldn’t have been able to attend due to the cost or travel involved. Many of them are now being run online and i’m really looking forward to one this Friday run by the Animal History Group.
At the moment i’m looking for positives around this horrible situation we all find ourselves in and I think the opportunities for learning is one of them. Its important to stress that digital learning isn’t for everyone so i’d hate for anyone to feel pressured or stressed into doing anything, however, even just taking a few minutes a day to do something positive for yourself will help your mental health and you never know where it might take you!
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