I just found out that I have actually missed out a significant part of learning from the trainnig slides that I was given. The worst thing is, I have not even bothered to print it out. Honestly? I feel really, really bad and ashamed of myself.
This is something that should not have happened. I paid for the training, I attended it dutifully and I was really thinking during the training. Why is it, then, that I discarded or forgot important bits of it after the training? Worse, because of this, I have upsetted the progress of a child and things are really not going easy for me, neither for the child's progress.
If I had indeed taken this seriously, I should not have let this happen. Why, then, was I so negligent?
Thinking back on the days in PL, training was a weekly business and my then-colleagues and I sometimes bitched about it. It was really tiring to attend hours of training after a day's work with the pupils, and at the back of our minds was more work that needed to be done. We couldn't absorb and we sometimes, even dozed off despite the trainer's best intentions. Ironic now that I miss those days. I find I hardly have a span of a few hours to sit down, be quiet, clear my mind and be focused on just reading these days. Let alone learning. I know there are so many things to be done, prepare and revise. I just either lack the time or the discipline, or both, to do it. As a result, again, I find myself stuck in between - neither the better, nor the worse. I do not like that at all. A voice within is raising alarm. A struggle is within, and waiting to surface. Argh!!!
One thing is always after the other. One decision needed after another. One obligation after another. One responsibility after the other. The mind is always so cluttered, so relieved only because an item has been checked off just so that a new one can take its place.
What I really, really want now... is a period of time to clear my mind, clear my prep-work backlog and pick up some real reading materials to study, learn and think. Think a lot on how theory can be applied, how application can be grounded in theory.
What I really need now is thus, discipline. Something, that I realised, was more readily found a few years ago. Something that is more ominous when there is a group of like-minded people or colleagues around.
A few times, I feel like crying to just let it out. Even that... didn't turn out as easy as it used to be.