Ferdinand Saussure, a key thinker in semiotics, made a distinction between the signifier and the signified. The signifier, Saussure suggested, could be thought of any object or word that we can experience through our senses. For example, we can see a dog, we can hear them bark, we may stroke their fur, we may smell their odor. The signified, is the connotations that we make from the experience of the signifier, the connections we make in our brain (1974). If we use the example of the dog again, we may think upon seeing the animal that they are cute and fluffy, they may then bark at us – giving us a fright and giving us the idea that they may be aggressive or dangerous. We may then go up to them to stroke them and say hello, and we can feel their fur underneath our hand, and the warmth coming from their skin, and this may have a calming and soothing affect. And finally, we may smell them, and link this to something that we have smelt before – perhaps the mustiness of a particular house we may have been in before.

The point that Saussure was making here, is that our interpretation of words, and different objects is shaped by our previous experiences, that we make connections to. Saussure also recognized the effect of society on our interpretations. That the interpretations made by people from the same society are likely to be similar, because of our collective experiences. So, what has this got to do with imposter syndrome? The feeling you get when you don’t think you belong in a place, career, occupation or group of friends. The feeling we get when we don’t feel qualified enough to be in a career.

Imposter syndrome, it would appear, has a lot to do with our own internal narrative of our sense of self-worth. That own internalized sense that we are fraudulent and don’t deserve the status or recognition that we are receiving. This narrative is the story we tell ourselves every time we feel out of our depth. To me, this is almost self-perpetuating. We find something that we are not that great at, tell ourselves that we are finding it challenging because we do not have the skills or attributes that we need to be successful. This is down to our own interpretation of the situation. We make a connection in our minds after a negative experience with a further negative thought pattern that stops us from seeing what is good or beneficial about the experience of failing at something. Once we realize that it is a mindset, we can start to do something about it. Small incremental shifts in our mindset can change our perspective and change the narrative that we tell ourselves. It’s not because we are not talented that we are failing, it’s because we think that we’re failing instead of seeing it as a challenge to overcome. I fear here, I may be being too auto biographical to make any sweeping assumptions about the rest of the population, but I think there is some merit to this argument.

The next time that I feel a lack of talent, resource or qualification, I am going to make a conscious effort to change the story that I am telling myself.

Problem solved.

Well… not really, because this is only half the story. There is another element of imposter syndrome that we have not yet considered. Maybe, in addition to the story we tell ourselves, it’s the story that others tell of us. A key part of imposter syndrome is that fear of what other people think of us. The fear of judgement and all of the inadequacies that are tied up within that.

The story we tell ourselves is only one side of it. But how can we change the story that people tell of us? I’d like to think that it is never as bad as we imagine. Nevertheless, impossible to control on an individual level. However, it seems that there is a need for the institutions around us to adapt to make people feel more comfortable in their career. Structural changes that enable us to be confident in what we do and how we do it.

In the further education (FE) sector, I am not sure this is something we get right. There is a confusion over the job roles of the people working in FE, and it is mainly in the title. Within a single college, there may be multiple job titles for what is effectively the same role. Tutor, lecturer, teacher, trainer, facilitator, instructor (insert your own title here). There is a lack of consistency with what we call ourselves, without any sense of formal hierarchy, yet there feels like a surreptitious, unwritten one. It may make sense if a tutor has a different job role to a teacher; in many cases, they are effectively doing the same thing. The cynic in me suggests this may have something to do with the amount people get paid; if we put that issue to one side for the purposes of this argument, we are still left with a workforce that are left not really feeling like the real thing. Imagine what it would feel like if we all felt like we had a clear sense of purpose, and of what we do. Not feeling like a real ‘teacher’ is something that I have grappled with in my own career. I wonder if a consistency of what we call ourselves in the FE sector may help toward a more positive and confident workforce, and external perceptions of exactly what working further education is.

References

Saussure, F., 1974. Course in General Lingustics.. In: M. Gottdiener, K. Boklund-Lagopoulou & A. P. Lagopoulos, eds. Semiotics. (2003) London: Sage Publications.