From the Letterbox to the Parkrun
Stroke survivor Carol Ngata rebuilt her fitness from a walk to the letterbox to a full five kilometre parkrun over two years. She shares the stages and the setbacks.
Half Days and Honest Emails
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Show notes
Half Days and Honest Emails
Hamish opens the series with his own return to teaching after lymphoma treatment. He went back on half days, which sounded easy and was not. This episode is about the first term: what he told his colleagues, what he got wrong, and the schedule that eventually worked.
- The email to staff that he rewrote nine times
- Why half days are not half the effort
- Telling students the truth in two sentences
- The 3pm nap as a non-negotiable
Hamish ends with the three questions he wishes his school had asked him before he came back, which listeners can pass to their own employers.
Transcript
Hello, I am Hamish Thorne and this is The Slow Lane Back, a show about the long stretch of recovery after the doctors are done with you. For the first episode I am going to tell you about my own return to teaching, 14 months after treatment for lymphoma. I went back on half days, which sounded gentle and turned out to be the hardest term of my career. We will go through the email I sent to the staff, which I rewrote nine times, the two sentences I used with my students, the lessons I could not get to the end of, and the 3pm nap that I eventually stopped apologising for. At the end I will give you three questions I wish my school had asked me before I walked back in. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.
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