This Isn't School | by Craig Brown
“This isn’t school.”
That was a comment on my Flying Start session. The comment was made by one of the coaches, skilled and knowledgeable and it was almost like he knew what was going on in my head. Almost like he knew what to say to settle my nerves. He knew what to say to stop me from feeling out of place. I mean, here I was, at 43 surrounded by all these amazing dynamic young people. I was feeling like a fish out of water and wondering if I'd made a good decision. I was wondering why I said yes to this apprenticeship. I was wondering if anyone would spot the panic I was in. Here I was with my poor educational journey so far in life.
Like many, school wasn't a happy experience for me. I was diagnosed with Dyslexia at Primary and struggled through Secondary school. Always towards the bottom sets in subjects and never really found a subject I enjoyed or feel an affinity towards. It was this experience that set me up for a life of disliking education. I always thought that I wasn't intelligent enough and that I was just a bit thick.
When I saw the Data Literacy/Data & Insights for Business Decisions apprenticeship advertised on the staff intranet at the Council, I thought that it sounded interesting. Developing data skills and being able to produce dashboards sounded like a valuable set of skills to possess. I sat and thought about this. The council had an information session to talk about the ambition to develop more of a data culture and use data more effectively. I sat there thinking that this all sounded very interesting, but I talked myself out of it. That nagging doubt was there. “It's education, you aren't good at education, so don't bother.” I listened to these negative thoughts until a colleague said, “You'd be amazing on this course, it would bring you on professionally and raise your profile in the council”.
Feeling more encouraged after that colleague’s remark, I applied, waited, and got accepted. I was filled with a mixture of excitement and fear. While I was looking forward to starting and seeing the emails popping into my inbox, those same emails had me thinking, “Can I do this?”
Five months in and guess what, I'm still here and I'm sticking with it. Yes, there are times during workshops when I feel out of my depth and question what I'm doing on this apprenticeship. But that comment, those three words that one coach said were just enough for me to realise that this isn't school. Alastair, my apprenticeship coach, later said to me "No one wants you to fail, I don't, your manager doesn't, and the assessor doesn't. We all want you to succeed." The weight lifted off my shoulders and I sat a little straighter when I heard Alastair say that, knowing that he was rooting for me and the assessor wasn’t some kind of black-robed villain from a Dickens novel but they too wanted me to succeed was a revelation.
To anyone who is reading this, maybe you are new to Multiverse or you have been here a while, maybe you feel that dark cloud of imposter syndrome lurking behind you that you've not been quite able to shift. You got this. I know what you are going through, I know what THAT feeling is like, that underlying sense of slight panic when sitting in a workshop or group coaching session...
Just remember one thing, cling to it and hold it tight, it will get you through: This isn't school.
Craig Brown is a Data Literacy/Data & Insights for Business Decisions apprentice at Multiverse based in Lancaster, UK. He’s writing for the Apprentice Lens as part of the Blogging Team. Here’s more about him:
"Craig is an Education Partnership Officer for Lancashire County Council and leads on Team around the School and Settings for one of the 5 localities & is undertaking the Data Literacy/Data & Insights for Business Decisions Apprenticeship. Craig hopes to develop his writing skills and talk about his apprentice journey as someone who did not enjoy school."