Welcome!
Welcome to my new website!
This has been an incredible journey - getting to the point when I am ready to publish! As some of you will remember, I have been planning this site since before I left the US, but due to personal circumstances, I am only now ready to go. But ready I am, and I’m so excited.
For those who do not know me, please let me tell you just a little bit about myself. My name is Caryl Gibbs and I moved to the UK from Oklahoma City in support of my British husband after a 14-year career teaching English Composition and other courses at a community college in Oklahoma (Shout out to all my former colleagues at Rose State!) When my father-in-law took a fall, my husband realized it was time to return to British shores, and I joined him in early 2017. Since that time, I have been working as a supply teacher and cover supervisor (British terms for a substitute teacher) in Oxford secondary schools - for the past four years at Cheney School in East Oxford/Headington.
Working in an educational setting that I’m not familiar with has been eye-opening! I had not been inside a high school since 1985 when I graduated (with one exception: the tour at the 10-year reunion); I had never taught high school students; I did not have a ‘teaching qualification;’ and I had been part of the tenured faculty at a community college - with quite a lot of responsibility and a voice in the department. I found myself voiceless in a place that was vaguely familiar but just different enough to throw me off at every turn. I was a member of support staff in a job that did not require any formal education. My experience and my master’s degree were useless here. I was not in a position to contribute ideas or resources to the teaching staff. I was at a low point professionally and began to suffer the mental anguish that comes from ‘bearing an untold story inside you’ (Maya Angelou) as a highly creative intellectual.
[Caveat: The staff at my current school have been amazing and have never looked down on me once they got to know me. An experienced teacher can recognize another quality teacher and many of them have expressed bewilderment at my predicament. I have been told many times what a shame it is that my skill and passion go unused. Many of them are aware of this project and have expressed support for me, and I appreciate them more than I can express. I do the job I do now to return that support and look after their students when they can’t be there. I hope they will find this project useful.]
So that brings me back to the current project. It is the story I have carried around untold. It is my passion and my pleasure to bring to the world an aspect of myself that has been unseen since 2016. My goal is simple: to revolutionize the way writing is taught in the UK. In simpler-still language, to provide time and resources in support of students and educators in the UK as they train the next generation of academic writers. Everything I am doing now is aimed directly at that goal, and I hope you find it useful and edifying.
