“Not all Women Want the Same Thing” – Why I’m Teaching AND Studying for my MA
With a summer between schools freeing up her schedule, Adeola Ogundele decided it was now or never to become a student again
As the first term in my new school starts to draw to a close, I started to think back to this summer, and my last official day being employed by my previous school. Although, it didn’t really feel like that much of a big day given I left in July.
At that moment, I felt like I was in limbo.
On GCSE results day, I checked my school email, to see if we had been sent the grades for English Language and English Literature.
There was no email, but I still has access to my inbox, so that at least felt like a small sense of accomplishment.
When I checked again just before I arrived at school, I was greeted with ‘This portal is now closed’, and I’m pretty sure I felt my soul crawl into my stomach.
I was awash with a sadness that cannot be described.
Why did they decide to close my portal in the middle of the day? At least let me sleep and then wake up to that information.
As Subject Leader of Media Studies, however, I did fortunately have access to my Media Studies results on the exam board website.
When I first rested my eyes upon the grades I was quite disheartened. But once I’d put it into perspective, I realised that the boys and I had done reasonably well.
I was pleased that all the hard work, long drives and no sleep had paid off.
When I arrived into school, I was met with, “Miss, if it wasn’t for all your help with the coursework, I wouldn’t have got this grade,” which I think is teenage boy speak for ‘Thank you’. That gratitude made up for the demise of my email portal.
A few days later, I was asked for my work email from somebody who wanted me to write a reference for them. I had to say, “I don’t have a work email address at the moment, you’ll have to wait until September.” I felt so powerless!
But what followed was a wonderful and carefree holiday, being in that limbo place. Not having to prepare for the next academic year…because I didn’t know anything about the next academic year.
For six weeks I did nothing! Apart from the two weeks I spent watching 13 seasons and 3 summer seasons of Made in Chelsea that is.
I’m so much more aware of popular culture. MIC taught me a lot (I even know the abbreviation).
But otherwise, the plan was to do nothing, and I did nothing. It’s the first time I have fully accomplished my goal with minimal effort.
OK, so this might be a slight embellishment. I didn’t do nothing exactly. I applied for a Masters degree; so that required some thinking.
For that I needed to write a personal statement, which surprisingly took me no more than an hour.
And late I would receive an unconditional offer onto the course, so I was pleased about that.
I’ve always wanted to do a Masters, but always felt that with all the responsibility, the number of teaching hours etc, it just wouldn’t be feasible.
However, moving to a school – not an academy – with a lot fewer teaching hours, I knew that if I didn’t do it now, I’d never do it.
So there I was, gearing up for the (repetitive) newbie teacher questions I’d no doubt receive (and have to politely answer) in my new school, and at the same time I was preparing to become a student again…after 11 years.
While I attended my graduation ceremony for my PGCE, that was really only to make my mum happy. I didn’t attend it for the BA/BSc because I didn’t want to travel to Northampton.
But I suppose I’ll attend this one because I’m not married, and I don’t have children, so I “need” a reason to celebrate. Because society tells us that when you’re a 35-year-old lady, you don’t really have a reason to celebrate.
(I’ve even been told that if I were to get married, there’d be no need to have a big wedding – as it’s pointless having a huge ceremony when you’re that age.)
Which brings me onto my next thought – I’ve never had a party.
I’ve never had a party to celebrate anything. I said to my mates that if I don’t find a husband by the time I’m 37, I’ll marry myself…like Carrie Bradshaw did in the Sex and the City episode ‘A Woman’s Right to Shoes’.
If you’re wondering, Carrie’s is patronisingly berated for caring too much about material things when her shoes were stolen from her house, after she’d demanded everybody take off their shoes because shoes bring in dirty things and the children would eat the dirty things. Anyway, I’m rambling.
But yeah, now I can marry my MA. If anybody asks, “Why don’t you have a man?” “Why don’t you have any children?” I’ll say, “I have an English in Education MA.”
It’s not fair that society makes ‘women of age’ feel like their lives are worthless because they haven’t achieved certain things. Not all women want the same thing.
You can read her blog at msohgee.wordpress.com and follow her on Twitter at @AdeolaO_.
