May, 2011. It is 3am on a very dark Friday morning. I've been awake for 15 minutes, and am now clutching a large flask of coffee and sitting up in bed with my laptop open, frantically typing the last chapter and conclusion of my 10,000 word dissertation. Why? The deadline is at 2pm that day.
May, 2013. It's 9am on a sunny Thursday morning. I have been awake for an hour, showered, driven to campus, and am about to knock on the door of my tutor's office and hand in the final assignment of my PGCE. It's been ready to hand in since the previous day (and already electronically submitted to Turnitin) and I managed to get a good night's sleep.
So how did I get from one situation to the other? This blog will focus on what was perhaps one of the biggest personal lessons I learned during my PGCE year - that hard work really does pay off.
I used to be the self-appointed 'queen of the last minute'. At school and during my undergraduate degree, I was 'lucky' enough not to have to revise for more than a day beforehand, or spend more than roughly thirty-six hours writing and referencing an essay, to get top grades. I was mistakenly proud of this ability - believing it meant I was more naturally gifted than my peers - and it did afford me amazing opportunities to multi-task during my time at university in particular (for instance, being able to perform as the lead in a musical during a week-long open exam in my second year, or - memorably - going out to a club in the middle of a thirty-six hour long open exam...) It meant I didn't have to sacrifice my social life, or my extra-curricular interests, which I thought could only be a good thing. I didn't realise, however, that I was sacrificing something else - the satisfying process of doing history, and the time-management, research, and organisational skills that come with it.
Why had I ended up like this? As an ex-grammar school pupil, I strongly believe that the nature of selection by exam at age 11 had a large part to play. By instilling in me at that early age that I was naturally more gifted than others (and therefore given the opportunity to go to my secondary school), the pattern was set. The school did nothing to dispel this myth. As a teacher myself now, I always encourage my pupils to work hard, work on feedback, and constantly push themselves. At my own secondary school, I cannot remember ever being treated formatively in that way. As long as you were getting top grades, by whatever means necessary, the school would not intervene. Praise was sparse, because everybody in the school was a 'high achiever'. I was not taught the value of hard work in increasing self-esteem and self-confidence, and did not know the pleasure of working hard to achieve something. In short, the school created 'entity theorists' - those who believe in fixed intelligence - (Dweck, 1999) out of all its pupils, including me. I then took this belief to university with me, believing that as long as I got a First in every module, the satisfaction would appear. Unsurprisingly, it did not. Sitting at my graduation, I felt absolutely nothing.
Naturally, when I started my PGCE at Masters-level, I assumed I could play the old tricks and get top grades in all my assignments. Of course, I had matured, and knew I couldn't risk the 'last-minute' approach when planning or doing any work for my placements - and so I definitely put in the hours, managed my time well, and ensured that all of my actual teaching practice and work in a school setting was top-notch. That was crucial to my development away from the 'entity theory'. I was beginning to realise that nobody is 'born' a teacher - they are made, through determination, hard work, and constant reflection and evaluation on your practice.
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| I was getting there in my classroom, but still stuck in the same old mindset with assignments. |
However, when it came to the assignment part of the course (three 4000 word essays on educational theory and practice), I am now ashamed to admit that I maintained the approach I had always taken to my academic work. In Term One, I took the lead role in a musical at the university, and assumed I would be able to balance that commitment with completing an assignment to Distinction standard (the top grade). In practice, what actually happened was that I found myself frantically printing and electronically submitting the assignment at 5am the morning before it was due. A similar story for the second assignment in Term Two - although the 5am electronic submission backfired as I was so tired that I incorrectly submitted my essay, meaning that my tutor had to appeal to the Board of Examiners on my behalf so that I wasn't penalised for late submission (something I am eternally grateful for). Unsurprisingly, for both these assignments, I did not get my desired Distinction grade - and even did worse in the second essay than the first!
Something had to change. The game was up, and to make matters worse, the third assignment was a 'special study' on a topic of my choosing. I wanted to do justice to my chosen topic (a cost/benefit analysis of learning outside the classroom), but more importantly, the time had come for me to practice what I was preaching on a daily basis to the pupils I taught - that hard work is the key to success. After consultation with both my tutors, I came up with a simple plan. Start the assignment well in advance, work on it steadily every week, and leave myself two clear days for proof-reading at the end. This was all novel to me, but I knew I had to start working hard if I was going to teach children to do so.
Unusually, this sort of determination is not a common trait of the sort of 'entity-theory' learner I had characterised myself as previously. The desire to master challenges, instead of giving up when faced with perceived failure, is more characteristic of Dweck's 'incremental view' - the belief that effort will actually increase attainment (Dweck, 1999). I had already adapted this view in terms of my 'on-the-job' teaching during the course - now it was time to test it out on the academic side.
To cut a long story short, it worked. Of course - my tutors are truly two of the wisest women I know! I achieved a comfortable Distinction, which anyone present at the time when the mark was put up online will know was one of the happiest moments of my life. However, it was not purely the grade itself which delighted me. It was the satisfaction - that feeling people had told me about, but I hadn't experienced - of working incredibly hard, for a sustained period of time, on a project you intrinsically care about, and that effort being recognised. In addition, the feeling I wrote about at the start of this post - the calm, collected way I handed the assignment in - came a close second to the fulfilment I have just described. I felt satisfied after handing it in, without knowing what grade I would be given. This is a testament to the change in me. My priorities had shifted from only caring about the extrinsic reward of a top grade, to caring about the intrinsic feeling I experienced as a result of really trying.
The PGCE gave me so much - it helped me start a career I will love, gave me confidence and independence, and helped me really grow up. However, it also shook off a thought pattern and set of beliefs about education and academia that I had held since the age of 11 - for more than half my life. It replaced my self-denigrating, negative and somewhat empty attitude with a positive, energetic and truly fulfilling one. I cannot wait to continue with my Masters with this new mindset - but more than that, I cannot wait to have real conviction in the words I speak to my pupils in the future - when I tell them that hard work really does pay off - academically and personally.
References
Dweck, C.S. (1999). Self-Theories: Their role in motivation, personality, and development. Philadelphia: The Psychology Press.
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