Failed Guinea Pig - Self-Propelled Learner.

In the Sixties as a young child the government of that time had children learning ITA this meant that certain words where spelt different to there sounds for example Booke and Ice-creame one can well imagine the difficulty it posed trying to relearn several years of spelling and sounding words differently.

With an added personal injury on top prior to starting Secondary School my education suffered and I was always going to play the game of catch up. This would mean leaving school with virtually no high qualifications and having to go on to college, which only helped slightly.

Fortunately a couple of well educated old ladies did a lot of hard work, privately, to boost my knowledge and put right what the schools had failed to do. In the eyes of some teachers I was lazy or too thick and they did not have time for slow coaches.

I quickly realised when starting employment I needed to work on getting qualifications and although I gained some it was not until I joined the Prison Service at HMP Albany I got my big break. Initially, the courses undertaken were only useful within the Prison Service.

I became more motivated when the POA Learning Centre at HMP Haverigg came on line and through the help of the centre manager, Pete France, I was given further opportunity to drive forward and enhance my learning, by doing so I have gained in both knowledge and confidence.

This was recently backed up in two separate incidents. Firstly I was told I needed to be more authoritative than authoritarian (surely the well educated person who said this would know that you can’t have one without the other). Secondly, to the person who remarked recently I was too thick to understand them - maybe it is they who need to look to themselves and their interpersonal people skills. If this comment had been made in relation to ones age or a disability then this person would be better warned he is committing an offence against the Discrimination  Act.

I wish to finish off by saying its never too late to learn and a well known phrase comes to mind IF ITS TO BE ITS UP TO ME.
Now that I recently joined the POA Committee I saw a need to become a Union Learning Rep and it’s my desire to see fellow colleagues, friends and family members make use of this most valuable asset of Skills for Life Courses and in doing so they to would increase a desire or thirst for knowledge within themselves.

COME ON FOLKS NO EXCUSES it’s enhanced my life it can only do the same for YOU?!!