June has turned blissfully warm and all my GCSE and A level students are on the best side of their examinations, now all enjoying the possibility of a long hot summer! Each year I forget how hectic the focus on so many different texts and writing strategies becomes. But this year, perhaps more than ever before, I have realised the immense value of self-confidence in English Studies. After all, English more than any other subject is about being alive; being present to others and to oneself and no amount of sophisticated vocabulary can disguise the need for such presence in reading and writing about life. Remember David Copperfield’s immortal words to his highly reflective lonely self whilst hiding from his ghastly step-family, the Murdstones. ‘Reading as if for life.‘ This expression has always resonated for me and it underlines the salvation of reading and writing. Reading heals. It really can shift you from one place to another and thus completely reframe a situation or emotion so that a new response can be experienced or generated. And human beings are the archetypal regenerators of this planet.!!!
I am also reminded of a superb and most powerful avowal quoted at the front of the Spring 2009 The Reader which is a marvellous magazine issued out of Liverpool University:
‘People are dying- it is no metaphor- for lack of something real to carry home when day is done.’ ( Saul Bellow, Herzog)
Something is met when you encounter an image, a character, a phrase or even word which hits you. It is that AHA moment where we realise we are not alone on this lonely planet, that another has felt as we have and that words can save us. Words have power, they connect us to others and ourselves. Our world is made up of words.
In a month’ s time I should complete my NLP Master Practitioner Training with excellenceforall. Peter McNab and Lynn Byrom have been excellent tutors over the two years and I have found NLP a natural accompaniment to English Tuition. It encourages students to find greater resources within, it empowers students to think more confidently and creatively and it helps to shape and model behaviours which improve understanding. Defintely an added WOW factor in tuition! So many students have told me that they felt better for tuition and I KNOW that a very good part of this relates to the fusion of English with NLP a ‘marriage’ I will be developing once qualified in July. I also have to thank the wonderful Moira Eribenne deeply for her faith, care and encouragement at Ladybridge … the training I have delivered there has been invaluable and uplifting. ( For me!!) What a fabulous opportunity I have been lucky enough to enjoy. NLP and English are soulmates!!! Metaphors and anchoring are transformative and transportative(!)
Telling stories enables and empowers…!!!
Janet Lewison, Tusitala