What Teaching Has Taught Me

I have now been an English assistant in a primary school for 6 weeks in Malaga on the south coast of Spain. With a fairly heavy schedule that involves teaching a total of about 450 children in a working week, it’s safe to say that I have dived head first into the enigmatic world of Spanish education. 

As can be expected, Spanish schools reflect relaxed Spanish culture. There is a large list of differences between their education and the memories I have from childhood in the UK. This includes the fact that it doesn’t seem to matter if the teacher is 10 minutes late, that lunchtime doesn’t come around until 2pm and there doesn’t seem to be any strict system for homework (or any punishments if half the class decide not to do it). However, the lenient schooling works to my advantage; a laid-back syllabus in the English lessons means that I can teach what I want in the way that I want to teach it.

No time for nervousness or lack of confidence, on my first day I was handed a piece of chalk and told to take a class of 10 year olds for 45 minutes. With 20 seconds to rack my brain for any piece of knowledge that might be interesting to them, I decided to talk about London. Big Ben, the London Eye, Tower Bridge (which fascinates 10 year olds because it opens and closes for boats) were all on the menu, and the kids loved it. I even suggested they do some written work on the subject, and 2 days later I was handed 30 projects to mark and a red pen.

Some of the many projects!

Since my first week, my patriotism has only grown stronger. We have now covered English food (“it’s very unhealthy”, commented one 8 year old), English schools, English uniforms and the Royal Family (which amusingly gets translated into Spanish; our Queen is now called Isabel, and her son is Carlos). The kids think I’m incredibly exotic, and I have even persuaded the younger ones that Harry Styles is my best friend.    

In terms of teaching as a career enhancer, I would argue that standing up in front of 30 children is a fantastic experience for creativity, quick thinking, managing relationships and public speaking. The phrase, ‘transferable skills’ is thrown around university campuses regularly, but teaching foreign children for 6 weeks, having to constantly adapt to their level of enthusiasm and ability has taught me a huge amount.

Hand me that piece of chalk and put me in front of 30 men in suits any day- at least they won’t ask why the cars don’t fall off the bridge when it opens for the boats!

Teaching the Royal Family in Spanish!

Why PR Is Not The Job For Me

I have come to a conclusion: after a 6 month internship in a French PR firm that specialises in fine foods and magazines, 2 weeks in a chic London firm that represents top-end hotels and some post-GCSE work experience with my cousin in beauty PR- I have finally decided that Public Relations is not quite right for me.

The world of PR is heavily stereotyped; lots of champagne, a variety of freebies, plenty of glamourous events in high heels and constantly having the opportunity to showcase your creativity. Although some of this may be glitzy, and PRs certainly all have a story to tell of that time they organised an event with a zed-list celebrity in a swanky venue in Paris, the other 99% of their time is spent being frustrated at ignored emails, annoyed at incorrect journalism and having to be overly friendly to an unresponsive client.

The working world demands routine, repetition and admin, but I can’t help thinking that sending hundreds of blankets emails with text book press releases to interns at crumbling magazines is a little demoralising, especially when the majority of those emails end up unread. The rise of influential bloggers has certainly changed this dynamic, there are now a lot more junk mail folders to send your press releases to, but unless your incessant emailing is paired with a creative marketing scheme or an original, and always expensive, advertising campaign, I found it difficult to feel like any impact had been made.

The feeling of seeing one of your clients featured in the press is certainly a thrill. However, even when you are successful in your promotion pursuit, the problem with PR is that it is virtually impossible to measure. The experts suggest that PR value is 3 times the value of advertising (if a half page advert in the magazine costs £1000, a half page editorial piece would therefore be ‘worth’ £3000). Yet, what I find frustrating is that to know if the writing on those pages transfers into the all-important words on the lips of consumers, well that is almost impossible. 

The intangibility of PR certainly contributes in a large way to my decision, but the fundamental turning point is that PR has deteriorated my appreciation of magazines and made me rather cynical about journalism. Journalists can copy and paste a press release straight into their article within minutes without even a full comprehension of the product. This leads to the products represented by the pushiest PRs who happen to be that old-friend-from-school or the most generous PRs (who can offer free trips to the Bahamas) having the largest word count in the press. Even the most inconsistent cynic would point out that this means that there is very little substance behind the statements. 

Even though I am highly dubious about the Public Relations-Journalist partnership, I can admit that PR has taught me a lot about business, networking and events. Although I have decided that it's not the career path for me, certainly at this stage, I won't deny that my experiences have been more than worthwhile.  

Office Antics - Year Abroad #4

My next article for Inter:Mission about the fun of an inappropriate office... 

Upon embarking on a 6 month placement in a French marketing and PR agency in Bordeaux, I was fairly confident of what to expect; lots of coffee-making, plenty of scanning and many embarrassing language-barrier moments. Officially only an intern in the ‘Community Management’ department (my job description in French … really), my expectations of tedious and trivial tasks were quite wrong.

It goes without saying that the communication issues were incredibly prevalent at the beginning of my placement, often leading to hesitant nodding in the affirmative to tasks even if I didn’t have a clue of the instructions. However, the scanning and barista tasks were few and far between. Instead, I was treated like a fully capable employee, reflected in every part of my life at the agency, except rather unfortunately, by my salary (a big thank you to the European tax payers, the Erasmus grant is a wonderful thing when your salary just about covers your rent). This means that although I only earn about 2 euros an hour, doing ‘real’ work means that I am getting to know my colleagues quite well. Perhaps too well.

An eclectic group of personalities, made up of more interns than full-time staff (no, I’m actually not joking), by the end of the first week I realised that formality was not necessary in this office. The telling moments included being added on SnapChat by more than one colleague in week 1, over-hearing someone in the creative department ask someone on the PR team if she was pregnant in front of the boss and a client (she wasn’t) and being offered something quite strong at our first work soirée. Needless to say I am always on my best behaviour, much to their disappointment and often pretend to find understanding French a little harder than it is.

Although my first few weeks were made up of memorable and fantastically inappropriate moments, my most amusing occasion in the office so far has to be the day when I stumbled across the profile of one of my colleagues on an online dating website (I know you’re wondering what I was doing on there myself, well you can read all about my online dating experiencein France in my previous article). Thinking of this as the perfect way to contribute to lunchtime conversation and get a foot on the banter ladder, I prepared to bring it up over a baguette-induced silence the following day. I perfected my speech, ensuring I had the right vocabulary to hand…their response? “Oh, of course we know all about it, our previous intern found him on there too!”

I could not have asked for a better year abroad job, and I’m not just saying that through fear that my boss will read this article. My colleagues are patient with my language gaps and encouraging of initiative and responsibility. Usefully for me they don’t speak any English (except the mandatory Friends quotes) and they are rather keen to teach me both formal and informal French. Although I do make plenty of cups of tea every day, they are mostly for me and, as of yet I have never been asked to photocopy anything. 

A Tea-A-Day Keeps the Doctor Away

During my year abroad, I'm working for Com' by AVM and regularly contribute to their blog. Here's a short article I wrote about Tea-A-Day (find the original article here). 

Tea-A-Day

Ever needed a reminder of the date while enjoying a brew in the morning? Now you can with Tea-A-Day!

The family-run German firm, Hälssen & Lyon with creative agency, Kolle Rebbe have come up with an ingenious way of combining your morning tea with your daily calendar. Beautiful to look at, the idea is wonderfully simple; tear off the page for that day and place in your mug of steaming water. Watch with awe as the tea infuses into the water.

With a different infusion each day that is finely pressed into strips, the innovative idea looks stylish and elegant whilst being fantastically practical. The German company who started in 1879 certainly stick to their slogan, ‘The World of Tea under One Roof’. The 365 different strips are delicately flavoured to ensure that your morning infusion gets you ready for the day ahead.

Unfortunately for us, however, the charming calendar is unavailable for the mass market for the time being. Only created as a prototype for a limited special addiction, extensive development of the product will be undertaken before we can get our hands on it.

Watch the video here:

Is Free Content Ruining Journalism?

The internet is a haven for anyone and his dog to write down their inner most thoughts. Blogs have become a dime a dozen, with every teenage girl writing about her One Direction obsession and most middle-aged house-wives filling their afternoon hours blogging about cake making. Suddenly everyone has become a journalist and thus journalism has taken the same path as the word, ‘literally’, it has become meaningless.

However, the teenage ‘Directioner’ isn’t planning on making a living from her ramblings, her blog is the 21^st century equivalent of the diary that we hid under our pillow, if you don’t Google One Direction, which I personally don’t plan to do, then you’ll be blissfully unaware of her waffling. The difference is that people like Arianna Huffington do make their living from free content. Unfortunately, her rising bank balance is fairly unequal to those who write for her. The Huffington Post, essentially a glorified blog in itself, is the torch-bearer at our much-loved journalism’s funeral. The 3000 contributors to the site are unpaid, unreliable and unmonitored. Fact-checking seems to have become irrelevant and proof-reading has become a thing of the past. I’m not a stranger to Huff Post myself, but the US site reaches 85million unique users per month and it is quickly becoming one of the most visited websites on the internet. 

To step away from nattering on about the depreciation of journalistic integrity, (I can spend a while criticising The Daily Mail for their typos and false information), free content is a disaster for the published press as well. It is over-written that newspapers are on the decline with The Guardian estimating that they’re in their last decade and cut backs across magazines. Newspapers can no longer afford to support their writers, why is it that we no longer feel journalists (or writers at least) deserve to make a living from their skill? And what does it mean for print journalism?  

The fundamental destruction of journalism is not the fact that we now read from a lit-up electronic device rather than paper, but that the young generation who write for the lit-up devices use it as an excuse to boycott established and important journalistic practice. It is all too easy to publish a made-up statistic or a false statement therefore filling the minds of others with gibberish and grot. By all means create your corner of the internet to write about that banana and apple muffin you made last week, but do it for you. For the public, bring back the editors and slow the process down, or our children won’t know the difference between their, ‘there’ and their, ‘they’re’.   

'20 Things 20-Year-Olds Don't Get' - A Response

I recently read the most fantastic article by Jason Nazar on Forbes about young people and their attitude to business. The no-nonsense style of the article was a change from the molly-coddled, spoon-fed and watered-down approach of treating young people in the 21^st century, especially by career professionals (Huffington Post recently argued, rather mockingly, that always being told we are special is ultimately making us unhappy). While I wouldn’t personally like to work under Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, Nazar’s example of the most valuable boss, being told off for my future mistakes before I make them could be useful. Business is not about Miss Honey telling us what to do and giving us a big cuddle if we don’t succeed, it’s about pro-activity and initiative. I imagine it’s also about having a thick skin too.

Nazar talks about the emergence of social media in the business world and its longevity, or lack thereof. Although many would be offended at his suggestion that ‘social media is not a career’, his point is clear. Social Media is unreliable and may disappear as quickly as it arrived. Reports suggest that Twitter has already reached the top of its graph and is now on the decline and even Instagram feels the need to introduce advertising to prevent social media mortality being a reality. As Nazar states, Social Media is a tool for marketing that should be adapted to other business, rather than be the business itself. Social Media is simple, it is isolated and above all, it is unreliable. Business may not be reliable either, but it involves interaction with people and the formation of business relationships that can’t be acquired from posting on a Facebook page a few times a day.

Would we ask to go home if this happened?
Image: WeBlogCartoons

His comment, ‘Stop hiding behind your computer. Business gets done on the phone and in person.  It should be your first instinct’ is of particular relevance to my generation. We don’t pick up the phone anymore and many don’t even bother with email. In order to contact the Graduate Recruiters for the Big 4, it seems as though my comrades simply head to the Facebook page and add a comment to the long list of obvious and unnecessary questions before them. The way I see it, hiding behind our computers is making us anonymous, uninteresting and ridding us of all initiative. Asking questions has its time and place, but working something out for yourself is invaluable.

While I don’t agree with everything Nazar says, such as his rejection of tweet reading, the overall essence of his article appears to be a comment on laziness. Lack of networking, hiding behind social media and sending blanket emails; it is all easy. Picking up the phone, meeting business professionals and taking responsibility for our own mistakes may be tough, but it is rewarding. The Co-Founder of Docstoc has certainly persuaded me of one thing, there’s a lot more to business than sitting in front of a computer.

I urge you to read the original article, ’20 Things20-Year-Olds Don’t Get’ on Forbes.

The Things the French Got Wrong

Image: Waldo

My self-prescribed mission was to embrace French culture as far as is possible while in Bordeaux. My assignment thus far has been fairly successful; I buy bread most days from the Boulangerie, I spend 5 minutes kissing all my colleagues every morning and I’ve completely forgotten how to drive smoothly. However, as much as I am enjoying temporarily denying my true nationality, there are some things that I miss about Blighty…

QWERTY Keyboards. I fully accept that other countries should use other keyboards to fit with their languages. Accents are common in French, so therefore putting an é on the keyboard makes sense. However, banishing a full stop from its place causing it to be impossible to find is frustrating and being rid of a £ sign when constantly needing to write prices in English is infuriating. Needless to say, within a week, Amazon.fr was my new friend and the AZERTY keyboard was exiled to the shelving unit.  

Strikes. I know that we’re not entirely innocent of this at home, but the French take it to the extreme. The news must be checked daily to ensure that public transport is all running smoothly and an extra 20 minutes must always be left just in case. I found it particularly amusing when I was in Paris 2 years ago and there were large strikes over raising the retirement age from 60 to 62. In England, it’s currently 65. I kept my mouth shut…

Sundays. It may be unfair to say that the French get Sundays wrong, perhaps it is fairer to suggest that they simply haven’t updated their Sunday system along with the rest of us yet. If you wake up on a Sunday morning without anything in the fridge, you have two choices; no food or restaurant food. Shops still believe in a full day off in the south west, however, it may be interesting to note that the wineries are all open…

The Internet. The only one of my list that has actually been less of a nuisance and more of an annoyance. Our internet provider was genuinely proud of the fact that they take less than two weeks (10 days specifically) to deliver the box after we purchased the internet. When I, and the Austrian girl I was with, explained that our internet at home is installed immediately, I think they got a little bit offended…

As much as I have now become a regular user of the phrase, ‘this would never happen in England’, I imagine that the moment I step off the plane and step into a long queue back home, I shall utter the words, ‘this would never happen in France…’ 

Creative CVs

With the necessity of work experience, top grades and extra-curricular activities required in abundance on your CV, we are constantly being told what we need in order to stand out. However, what if we don’t have all those extra bits and bobs that the careers advisors go on about? I stumbled across Charlotte Olsen, from Norway, and her inspiring CV and I think she might have just struck gold. 

Image: Behance/Charlotte Olsen

Although only a self-promotion task at university, I don’t think many employers would throw this CV straight in the bin. If it’s a creative job you’re looking for, then why not offer something more original to employers? A hedge fund manager or a high court judge might not appreciate such a wacky idea, but in an ever-modernising world, showing your ability to think outside the box will definitely get you noticed.

Want to work in fashion? Maybe try this one...

Image: Bored Panda

A bit of a tech genius? Try this one... 

Although sending a chocolate bar, t shirt or QR code/video might be a little far-fetched in reality, the idea of spicing up your CV to make it more attractive does sound like a good idea, provided you are sure you have the right audience. 

Why I Love the BBC

From a lonely drive made more interesting by the dulcet tones of Jeremy Vine to a desire to find out the headlines in English while abroad, the BBC seem to have all areas covered. After a recent conversation with a friend, I discovered that I am rather a fan of the BBC and the extent to which it surfaces in my daily life. Beyond praising (rather patriotically- there were mentions of how America just cannot do the same) this wonderful corporation, we managed to completely justify to ourselves the £145 annual TV licence. I thought I’d share a few of those reasons with you…

The Choice of Radio. They do it all. Want to hear some calm Sunday morning chit chat? Fancy a gentle introduction into the history of the blues? Read a bestseller book recently? Radio 2. Fancy putting on your pretentious hat and forming strong opinions on Cameron’s Europe speech? Want to hear what records Nick Clegg will take to his desert island with him? Need your Archers fix? Radio 4. Too young/cool for the above? Radio 1.

News. I don’t want anyone to burst my bubble. The BBC news website provides us with unbiased, up-to-date, well written journalism. Forget the typos of the Daily Mail Online and the ridiculous stories dug up by The Sun, the BBC gets to the point and you feel like an educated person wrote the words that you are reading. 

Sport? Not something, if I’m honest, that I pay attention to on a daily basis, but people tell me that they’re the website to seek. 

David Attenborough. Now this one is important. We came to the conclusion that without the BBC, there would be no David Attenborough. From Life on Earth in the 70s, the more recent Frozen Planet to the current Africa, many Britons would argue that the nature and wildlife genre on TV will cease to exist when Attenborough retires. Which, considering he is still going at 84, he never will.  

Remember this?!

5 Ways to Avoid Procrastination

Image: A Writer's Journey

It is that time of year when university students have spent all their Christmas money, gained a few pounds having enjoyed home cooked food far too much and are starting to fear the looming January exams. Procrastination is at an all-time high, visibly demonstrated by the sheer numbers of people on Facebook chat and the abuse of the Facebook status. As a fellow sufferer, I have tried to discover a few simple steps in order to battle this terrible affliction. 

Tea Breaks. One of my most successful ways of avoiding the random need to get up and wander around is to decide when I am going to take my tea breaks (or booze breaks for those in desperate need) before I start working. Knowing that I have an end-point certainly helps me concentrate. 15 minutes to go…10 minutes to go… 5 minutes to go… break… 1 hour 30 to go… and so on. NB if you decide you need abnormally common tea breaks, you might need to factor in loo breaks as well…

Website Blockers. I have recently had my attention drawn to these God-given gifts that have the power to disarm you from Facebook/Twitter/YouTube for a certain period of time of your choice. LeechBlock for Firefox or WebsiteBlocker for Chrome are good examples of programmes that can block the websites that your procrastination habits abuse. If extra precautions are to be taken, ask a friend to set the password. NB unless you don’t mind a fairly severe frape, I suggest you carefully consider which friend to ask…

To Do Lists. This one may sound obvious, but rather than face a mountain of notes in one go, it may be easier to set yourself lots of little tasks. Particularly satisfying if you write a list of tasks at the beginning of the session and then get to tick them off as you go. Learn 2 equations: tick. Read 10 pages: tick. Repeat 2 equations: tick. NB abuse of this rule may lead to time wasting… 

Rewards. Working is hard, revising is really hard and exams are horrible. Encourage yourself to work harder by treating yourself if you are productive. Learnt 20 pages of notes? Watch a movie. Finished that essay? Have an ice cream. Didn’t go on Facebook for an entire day? Celebrate. NB Try to avoid rewards that involve alcohol, working is already hard enough.   

Do Not Start A Blog. But if your body needs its procrastination fix, I suppose you could read this one.

Time for Tea or to Bust out the Booze?

Image: Olhar-43

After a surprisingly popular post about different levels of drunkenness (to be found here), I had a thought about the differences between when you need a cup of tea or when all that will suffice is something much stronger. The difference between the desire for a warm cuppa to calm you down compared to the desperate times of the dangerously fleeting statement, ‘hand me the vodka’. Whether your tea comes in the form of classy chamomile or bog-standard breakfast, we often feel the need for a brew. Just occasionally, things fall so out of hand that a bottle of whatever has been sitting on the kitchen counter for far too long is the only thing that you are craving… 

Tea:    You know that test/essay/dissertation that you worked super hard on and completely freaked out about to all your friends? Pass the brew, you got a 2:2.

Booze: Yup, you failed- time for the voddy.

Tea:    You know that friend who has been worrying you lately with all the things that seem to be going wrong and you want to help but you just don’t know how? A calming cup of delicious tea will get your cogs turning to help you give the best advice.

Booze: You know that friend who has been driving you nuts with their drama and you just don’t care? Wine could help, but dependant on the amount of commotion- you might need something stronger.

Tea:    You know that person you quite fancy and they’ve starting going out with someone else? A nice infusion with a friend might take your mind off things.

Booze: You know that person you quite fancy who hooked up with your flatmate/someone ridiculously hot/your sibling? Bring out the booze, get your buzz on and show them who’s fabulous. N.B. This one is always a mistake. 

Or you could solve all these dilemmas the way the Irish do, mix the booze with the brew.