Overwhelmed by PHD emotion

For context it’s 3am, I’m emotional and overwhelmed.

This week I’ve had a week of annual leave and immersed myself in my passion projects. 

On Friday I spent time with my former HOW college colleagues at their BLC conference and as ever was inspired by the FE community spirit, the sharing, the support and the amount of times I heard ‘this has been put out on Creative Commons so we can all benefit from the work’, with this ethos echoed throughout the day.

This week started with the post graduate research conference, presenting alongside my PHD peer students, all of us supporting each other in our various streams, offering each other tips and thoughts and insights, wanting nothing more to see each other shine. I came home after the second day inspired not only by the work of others but the love and support of a community that rarely sees each other, but the love and passion for research and subject specialisms exuded. I went home immeasurably proud to be part of the post graduate community and was fired up to make my fellow students and supervisors proud, wow what a feeling!!!

Wednesday to Friday to finish the week is the Power of Potential International UDL conference that has seen me come face to face with the giants of UDL and people whose work I’ve followed and admired for many years. Day 1, Wednesday I came home overwhelmed with emotion, what a passionate crowd with such determination to ensure teaching and learning is inclusive, my spiritual home. I met people whose passion for their subject (and mine) was almost fizzing out of them. This stepped up a notch in my fired belly from the amazing PG conference the days before. I’ve gone from being fired up to be the researcher I’d like to be, to meeting those doing it for real with the same passion and inner yearning…and that’s their job. These are the people who I want to be, and proof of the shared community passion I’d also seen at the BLC conference.

It’s Thursday (well technically Friday morning now) and so one more day to go on my indulgent week off. I’m overwhelmed tonight. I miss being part of these inspiring communities, I miss being allowed to be passionate, innovative and to have likeminded people to work with. The education community is vibrant, determined and full of putting learners first, with a strive to put learning at the heart of everything they do, to improve practice and make a difference to students now and learning for the future.

To finish the day on Thursday I went to a workshop that immediately brought back memories of my time in art and design where we workshopped the curriculum year on year due to funding cuts, something I look back on now as the days my passion was ignited and the reason my students nominated me at the time for a Pearson teaching award. I poured my heart and soul into that curriculum and it turns out driven by the principles of UDL. What they were demonstrating was what we had done back in those days sat in Barbourne and St Dunstans. This was when I was most alive, my job wasn’t just a job, it was an extension of me and everything I stood for.

These memories and the passion I’ve felt this week has come to a head tonight and I’m crying, this is what makes me tick and for the last few years in my current role I’ve felt nothing but persecuted for the passion I have. Comments like ‘although we admire your passion and enthusiasm, accessibility impacts such a minority of people, you really need to put it into perspective’ or ‘we need to focus on the majority, not the minority in the current financial climate’ are the very opposite of what I get from my educational professional counterparts, the person I am and the principles I have.

The FE and HE landscape, even with limited budgets, faced with cuts and reduced funding has a community that are still passionate and determined to improve and surpass in the name of inclusive learning. I’ve watched my supervisors passion exude as the conference has gone on, and alongside others in the community they are inspirational, motivational and a force of sheer passion to be reckoned with. This is who I also want to be… stepping in the footsteps of these giants.

Tomorrow is Friday and I’m gutted the week is coming to a close, this community of people cut to the core of who I am. I’ve had a taste of the type of people I aspire to be. I have tears in my eyes because my passion has an outlet and I know what the future can look like, and that is overwhelming.

I’m crying because this conference has shown me I’ve never been wrong for standing up for what I believe in and that a professional community of passionate likeminded people committed to inclusion does exist for me to input into. I have a sanctuary of fellow professionals and researchers I can turn to and the work I do isn’t ‘the Helen Wilson accessibility show’ and should never be criticised but I’m a singular person currently working in the wrong professional community.

Today I needed to write this blog, because to me it’s a significant moment of reflection, as per the workshop today that said sometimes we need to pause and reflect. 

This moment, this community and the motivating conversations I’ve had this week have been a powerful force to drive me through to get that PHD and know that I can make a difference, just like the giants whose footsteps I’d be honoured to follow.

For now, I will let go of those who don’t care, and strive to be part of those that do. I was lost, but I really have found my way home and my people. One tip to myself is to stop, reflect and take my time to respond. I have had so much I want to say, contribute to and get involved in I’m like an overexcited PHD puppy trying to squeeze it into 3 days because I don’t have any other vent to blow. What I’ve learned today is to take all of that energy, take time to reflect and use it all wisely, because in time I’ll have a community and vehicle to make that difference I’ve always been so striving to make.

The networking and contacts I’ve made should hold me firm as a source of support and signposting as this PHD puppy matures into the mould of those I’m with.