Educating Essex 2

On Monday morning I was invited to speak to a group of media students at Harlow College. I was the first guest speaker to use the new lecture theatre and I was a bit nervous. I had prepared a powerpoint presentation and used a piece of music by Des'ree, 'You Gotta Be', as an introduction. There were about eighty students present as well as a couple of lecturers. I spoke about my life but more importantly about the way education can empower people. I had a good response and the students asked a lot of interesting questions. I spoke to quite a few students afterwards and they seemed to think it had been a positive experience so it was well worth taking the time to do.

Next it was off to Harlow Leisurezone for a photocall arranged by Harlow Council. It was to accompany the news that Harlow has been chosen for the London 2012 Olympic Torch Relay Route. This is great news for everyone in the town and will give people the opportunity to feel closer to the Games and be a part of history. I'll be there on July 7th to see the torch passing through. I'm really looking forward to it!

In the evening it was back to the track in the cold drizzly weather but as usual Ken soon had me sweating, sniffling, and working hard. By the end of an hour and forty five minutes I felt so proud because the session had been completed. Then it was home to cook dinner.

Educating Essex.

Training has been going on well, despite the cold and gloomy weather. I'm really grateful to my coach, Ken Day, for turning out to help me 6 days a week. He is so dedicated and I appreciate him. In these increasingly cold evenings I have been finding that my toes and fingertips have been freezing during training. However, I have discovered some excellent inner gloves made by Karrimor so I have solved the fingertip problem. Working on the toe problem.

Yesterday I went to Harlow Leisurezone to do my strength and conditioning work and it was great to work with John Campbell again. John is one of those instructors who pushes you to your limits, which is exactly what I need. Put it this way, after a session with John you know you have worked!

I have been watching 'Educating Essex' on Channel 4 with great interest because Passmores School is literally just around the corner from my house. A few years ago I was invited to the school to present awards to the children and I found everyone involved really friendly. There was a real family atmosphere to the school that I liked and the Head, Mr Goddard, went out of his way to support me. As a trained teacher myself, albeit one who has only ever taught in Kenya, I found the behaviour of the staff and students very interesting to observe. In Kenya there was nothing like detentions and counselling when a student makes a mistake, it was just a matter of how many strokes of the cane were dished out! In Kenya everyone believes in; 'Spare the rod, spoil the child'. If you were thrashed at school you would be thrashed again at home by your parents for disrespecting the teacher. How different things are here. I really admired the way Mr Drew dealt with the students. To me he is an excellent teacher who really cares about the students he teaches and there didn't seem to be any problem he couldn't deal with. He was just so calm and never seemed to lose his temper even when provoked. Mr Goddard, the Head, was equally impressive in the way he went about his work and who could imagine seeing such a powerful man crying on national television. I really admired that because he showed a very positive side of his character in that incident and he should be seen as a role model by other professional people. The students who featured in the series, in spite of all their problems, will look back at themselves and it will make them better people.