What colleges have you attended?
Clearly the person who decided on this prompt is American. It’s the only place, as far as I am aware, where university is referred to as college. In the UK, there are Sixth form colleges which are more relaxed versions of schools. In these colleges, students are often taking more practical subjects somewhat similar to the old technical colleges of the post war period. There are also some Public Schools in the UK which are referred to as colleges, most famously Eton. In another example of the divide between the UK and the US, Public Schools are the name we give to our private education institutions!
When it comes to Higher Education, we used to have very much a two tier system. When I studied for my Economics degree, I did so at Staffordshire Polytechnic. The Polytechnic system was a very good way to broaden access to Higher Education in the UK in the late 60s onwards. They took students with lower A Level results or mature students like myself (mature referring to those who had spent at least five years out of education, definitely not behaviour in my case!) who universities would not even look at. Nowadays, all the old polytechnics are referred to as universities, including Staffordshire University in Stoke on Trent. It has removed the official division between the two, but students, teachers and parents are aware of which universities are long standing and which changed their name in the 90s and 2000s. I think it’s perhaps gone too far in the UK with 50% or so of school leavers being accepted into higher education and a relaxation of standards shall we say! However, the way that the Polytechnic system democratised education was very important and my journey through life would have been utterly different without it. The degree was the reason I was able to become a teacher and go to Japan, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia and Australia and the reason my opportunities were expanded beyond working in an office.
What are your biggest challenges?
If you are a regular reader of my blog you will know that I stepped back from full time work last year. If you are interested you can find a few posts about it, but to cut a long story short it’s been quite difficult to decide how to still make progress and what that progress will look like.
In 2026, Happy New Year by the way, I have decided to develop certain aspects of myself and I have made a set of resolutions to focus on those aspects. My biggest challenge will be to ensure that I keep working towards that improvement. I shared those resolutions in my post yesterday in the hope that once I had announced it publicly, as it were, I would be more motivated to ensure that I do things to the best of my ability.
So, 2026 will be a year of challenges, both planned and no doubt unplanned, but I am really looking forward to meeting those challenges head on. Wish me luck.
As we stand on the threshold of 2026, and as many people wave a relieved goodbye to 2025, I wanted to look forward to my first full year after full time work and to share my goals. For once, I can focus just on myself and my wants and needs. It’s liberating and not as selfish as it sounds. By becoming a better version of myself I can be a more effective person for those who live with or learn from me. So, I have seven goals for 2026 and I will share them with you now to make sure that I feel more motivated to achieve them. I will keep you posted on how it goes.
Whether you are setting resolutions or not I sincerely hope that the year ahead will be better than the year we are leaving. Take care of yourself and those you love. Good luck for 2026!
What makes you feel nostalgic?
Music, TV, Films, photos, newspapers, magazines – you name it, it makes me feel nostalgic. You may have noticed that on my blog over the last few years! However, I work hard not to fall into the trap of pretending that everything was better in the past. It causes huge problems for both the individual and the society. We can’t go back to the 1970s and nor should we. They were great times in some ways but not in others. There was an awful lot of sexism and racism that was not just accepted but encouraged by society at large. Circuses with animals were considered to be fine and were the centre of afternoon TV on Christmas Day. I still love the music and I still love the TV and it takes me back to a childhood that for a couple of years at least was really enjoyable. Christmas started in November in the shops and the season was simpler and more focused on the Christmas story rather than the presents.
Christmas TV was not always great but we shared it as a family and a society. The atomisation of society since, has taken so much of that away, as Christmas Day can see us all on separate screens if we’re not careful. The viewing figures for Christmas Day programmes in the UK were truly awful in 2025, where the bottom of the Top 10 most watched programmes came in at under 3 million viewers!
So, I love looking back and enjoying the things that I watched or listened to all those years ago, but I am clear sighted enough to realise that things have improved in a multitude of ways. Take this approach to the past and it will keep giving you pleasure to look back on.
It’s New Year’s Eve 2025 as I write and for young people today these will be the good old days in 20 or 30 years time. Don’t forget to enjoy their reflections and to ask them what they remember from the time. They will surprise and delight you with their love for their own childhood and teenage years. That never changes.
