I wrote this piece for a zine I made just under two years ago. I didn’t want to share the zine until the students I worked with had left the college I wrote about. I also felt like my words reflect badly on me. But I had been taking part in weekly online chats with colleagues, and one of the things we talk about are goals. It has been a goal of mine for a long time to be an art teacher, but I wrote it off because my social anxiety is too severe and I doubt I’ll ever have the confidence. My colleagues were supportive of my goal and I didn’t have the heart to say that I had changed my goal to accommodate my mental health because that felt too negative for the conversation we were having at the time. I have been revisiting the idea of an EdD, as I’d really like to do research on writing for resilience.

Earlier this month Tom posted Consciousness in the Partners in Learning blog. Reading it brought back lots of memories of un/learning and made me think of creative education. At the moment I am feeling quite lost with my Masters as I haven’t been able to obtain a postgraduate loan for the remaining modules of my Masters (I am sure it’s some sort of technicality and I am currently challenging it) and I am unsure if the regular travelling to Brighton will be too much emotional upheaval (I hate early mornings, get nervous in crowds and start crying at the train station as I don’t want to leave Brighton at the end of the day!)

Art practice has been helping my mental health so much during this time. I am wondering if I should just immerse myself in it.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBu0is1FEu3/

I have a paid work experience placement in a local further education college. I work in the supported learning department, where I am a classroom assistant. I began the placement in October and I had hoped that I could move into teaching once I had built up my confidence – I am still waiting for that moment.

The students I work with are teenagers. The supported learning department aims to assist students onto other (sometimes mainstream) pathways within the college. I work with two cohorts of students; with one we take part in entrepreneurial projects and with the other we collaborate in tasks that reinforce life skills.

One of the things I struggle with, as an anarchist and as someone with a deep-rooted mistrust of the education system, is how to reconcile my conflicting feelings and still encourage others to pursue learning and create a space where people feel safe. I loved learning, I hated school – I acknowledge the problems within it but I want to be an ally to people who are struggling on the inside. The folk who, like me, equated their dislike of lessons to being stupid (it took me two decades to unlearn that).

I am going to compare and contrast my experiences as a child and my observations as an adult. The first thing I have noticed is there seems to be more awareness of wellbeing, and acknowledgements of students’ interpretations of their experiences. As a child, I saw the staff at my schools as important and always correct. As a classroom assistant now I can see that being challenged by the students (who regularly comment on the courses “not being real courses” and that they do not see how the projects they work on are helping them live independently).

The students tell me how they are feeling. They let me know when they do not want to do something or find something difficult. It saddens me when they call themselves “dumb” or “not clever enough”, but I have been in their position in my youth. I understand that a well-meaning adult giving them praise does not always make them feel better. I had a discussion about praise and criticism with one of the cohorts – I asked them how they would respond to people telling them their work is good. Half of the class said they would say “Thank you” but not believe what was said. But they’d believe critisism.

This is a sharp contrast to my school days, when it was not seen as “proper” to talk about my feelings with the adults at my school (albeit, it might be due to my Victorian-style family upbringing).

I think with the growth of the internet (and access to information) and the national campaigns that aim to address the importance of mental health, that the students I work with have a good vocabulary for describing how they are feeling. Also, I believe I have the knowledge to respond in an appropriate way. In my youth, I don’t think I would have the confidence to ask to step outside the classroom because I need time to compose myself. The students I work with do. And I am happy to agree because I trust in them; I don’t believe they’ll wander off or that they are just trying to avoid working. I trust in them and the decisions I make. I am not sure if my classroom assistants from my previous schools would have allowed me to step outside.

I understand that I am only seeing what the students allow me to see of them. If they appear confident, that doesn’t mean they feel confident. This realisation, although obvious, really coloured how I see education professionals. As I child my parents measured how I was doing at school based on what my teachers said (in school reports and at parents evenings). I don’t think it ever occured to myself or my parents that I was not the person my teachers described – after all, they are the ones with the knowledge. And I don’t think it occurred to anyone that I’m the one they should be asking about how I am doing.

This realisation has caused another internal struggle within me. And that’s when a distressed student says they want to be left alone. As someone who has experienced trauma, when I say “Leave me alone” it’s the end of the story. There is no debate in it. But what if the “Leave me alone” is an attempt at a brave face? What if the student really wants company, or to talk? What if they answer my attempts to communicate with silence? Most of the time, the need to be alone goes away during the course of the lesson. But sometimes a “What if?” sticks around in my head. What if I should’ve ignored the student’s request and talked to them? What if they need someone to talk to really badly? I realise I will sometimes make bad judgement calls.

In one of the groups I work with there is an inseparable couple. I consider them to be great workers; they are motivated and pay attention. However, they rarely interact with the rest of the class and sometimes display bullying type behaviours towards others. It’s more often mocking than malicious, but I don’t like it. From my perspective, on paper they are successful; they achieve, pass assessments, they are independent and communicate effectively (if not politely). They also express not needing my assistance, or rather monosyllabic replies to my questions (quite an achievement when I try to ask open-ended questions) and stay quiet until I walk away. Why do I worry about them? Because I used to be like that. And I know better than anyone that aloofness can mask a variety of fears. Of course I don’t use the “I used to be like you” attitude to measure the students – but rather I use it as a reminder that struggling folk wear good disguises.

Why do I reflect on this so much? Because I wonder if anyone thought of me like this. I wonder if anyone wondered “Is she really OK?” when I said I was OK. I wondered why the fact I was an adoptee, almost silent and regularly panicking didn’t flag up any concerns to anyone. Why I never had any discussions about my well-being. I wonder why I didn’t get assessed for any type of support. Was my school ignorant, or was my mask that convincing? Or have times just changed?

Some of the students I work with have social, emotional or behaviourial needs. During my time at school, this was a label that I don’t remember being used. I do remember terms like “broken home” and “troubled” being used. I wonder, again, if times have changed or whether my adult brain is more analytical than my child brain was (maybe a bit of both?). I understand that a lot goes on behind-the-scenes so maybe I am too hard on previous generations of schools.

My final concern is about failing. Failure is a common theme in my life/writing/reflection. Failure is the catalyst of my return to education. My desire to reframe it. What is failure, and why does it makes us feel a certain way? My goal, and the reason I returned to education, is to make people feel safe and valued. I didn’t feel safe and valued until twenty years after I left school – I understand it’s a process that happens over time. I failed multiple times during those decades. How do I build my students’ resilience and my own?