And so dear reader, the Christmas holiday season is almost upon us and this may well be my last post of the year.
I have had on overwhelming sense that this year that I have really struggled to keep writing regular posts on this blog. It has been cathartic and reassuring this morning to look back and see that I actually haven’t done that badly – certainly up until around summer. However there was a change about half way through the year . Weekly posts (my sort of self imposed writing schedule) became a rarity, and I really struggled with what to write.
There are a number of reasons for the downturn in posts, not least the current completely mad political situation in the UK. But also a lot of my time has been taken up with writing a book with co-authors Bill and Keith. Looks like we have missed the Christmas list for this year, but hopefully it will be published in January.
Writing the book has allowed me to engage more critically with my own praxis and begin to really understand the importance of critical pedagogy. So whilst it was extremely cathartic to have a rant about the dangers neoliberal forces attacking our education systems, it is also quite depressing. I swing from feeling totally empowered and energised particularly from my peer group at events such as this year’s ALT conference (which was a real highlight of the year for me) to feeling utterly dismayed at the the current UK governments ominshambles over Brexit.
My last post from 2017 was based on one of those sort of annoying, but sometimes fun Facebook round robin things
Leave a positive word I can carry through 2018 that starts with the 1st letter of your name – it can only be one word
This is the word cloud I made from the responses. Looking back at it this morning, it did make me smile that mayhem and hope were so prominent. I hope that the latter can help alleviate the former in 2019.
