Good Enough

My parents instilled a sense of drive in me. It was passed down for each generation. They were so effective in their teachings that I was bored in every job I found myself in. Customer Service? I could talk down any aggravated customer. It was my favourite game to pass the time. Sales? I could sell a $100 door stopper to a sales savvy owner of a business. Auditing? I was a week ahead of our target. Overachieving, I soon realised, was a burden. Through the eyes of a teary student, I realised it is a trauma that is passed down to each generation.

At the beginning of the year I had seen her start at a Level 2M, in a Year 11 class. I was later told that was the lowest grade in that year. I watched as she made her way up to a 5M in just one term. The grade was significantly different, but the outcome was the same. I watched as those tears were forced back to no avail. I watched as she blamed me as her defense. I sat. I listened. She continued to go through a range of emotions before she painted a picture I was too busy to notice. She was late to almost every class and violin lessons were always scheduled during our English class. As I continued to watch her ever restless fingers, fidgeting anxiously in her seat, I realised something. The only safe space she had was that violin room. It was the only place where she could get away from the pressures of her parents, her ever looming grades, and her self-doubt of not being "good enough". I saw it all because I was once that fidgety and anxious girl. 

As flashbacks of my own 'never being good enough' prison rushed through me, I decided this needed to be a place where she was able to fail. A place where it was safe to learn from her falls but be able to get back up again. We spoke about the grand scheme of things and the school's specific grading system but most importantly, I told her that if her parents needed to speak to me, that I would have her back and give them some peace of mind. In that moment, I could see her eyes soften and the aggressive defenses fall. I wanted her to know that I was there to help her carry that overachieving burden, and support her in lightening the load.

Critical Reflection

I had met her parents at the beginning of the second Term. They were very concerned as most parents are. I remember relaying what had happened to a senior in the English department. 

"Parents haven't been to school in many years, they don't know what's going on." He said in his always cool, calm, and collected manner. "All they can go off, is their grades."

It stuck with me and has done with every interaction I have with students regarding their parents. I continue to take it on when I interact with other parents, both in and out of the school. Going back to what Albert Wendt said about the Vā as a space of betweeness, we can see that nurturing this Vā is important. I realised that through the spaces we share in and out of the classroom, we are able to create a space for our tauira to flourish. It has made me more aware of smaller things within the classroom that I was previously blind in seeing with this student. It has also made me more aware of taking the time to understand their upbringing in my future parent/teacher interviews to better understand what our tauira are bringing into the classroom.