If you are on Facebook you are probably aware that I have been awarded first class honours in my MA in Education. Apparently I may start to use all my letters….now here is a silly question, ‘how do I fit them all after my name?

Mairead Holohan, Diploma Visual Communication ANCD; H. Dip Community Arts and Education (Honours); MA Education ( First Class Honours)…….takes up a lot of space, doesn’t it?

I left college the first time not feeling very good about myself, my results or my abilities. This coloured my thinking about myself for a very long time. That period of time is another story altogether. Then In 2006 I went back to college to do an HDip in Community Arts and education mainly to work out what it was that I did, how I did it and to improve it, I was terrified and did way better than my first time.

As an adult I felt that I was in charge of my learning and a lot of what I learnt was about adults and how and why they learn. I agreed with most of it, e.g. self directed, making our own meaning and all that. I told myself that I knew what I had learnt and that the marks did not matter, however when I got my marks I was happy enough but there was a niggling feeling of ‘could I have done better?’. This taught me that we all like our efforts to be acknowledged and recognised at some level.

What dawned on me was that apart from being the oldest there I had not understood the game. One particular girl who already had an MA and missed many of the tutorials got a distinction, I wondered how that was. I do not claim to be the quickest thinker sometimes, so I pondered it and the conclusion I came to was apart from her obvious intelligence and ideas, she had an approach that enabled her to work out what was wanted. It was not that she went that extra mile, she obviously gave them what was required to tick their boxes.

When I decided to do this MA In Education in WIT last year I thought perhaps a plan of some sort was in order, a very fluid, vague plan, as I will always be me! The plan was simple; do the work in time, review it again and again; really look at the brief and mirror it in the assignments; be open to ideas and ask for help; don’t talk too much…..this will never happen!

That is my big story today.

My workshops started back this week and I will post the work done this week later on today.