“I can’t do it."
"I’m not very clever." "I’m not academic." "I’m useless, a complete failure.”
I spent over a decade beating myself up.
I convinced myself I was a failure. Does this sound familiar?
I actually was a failure. I didn’t do well at school. Actually, even that’s not true.
In elementary and primary school (I was schooled in the USA and UK), I was actually doing ok. At 7 years old, I was one of the top students in my class. I was the kid who got to help the weaker kids with their reading and writing.
At secondary school, I was in the top set for most things; not top of the top set, but somewhere near the middle for class work and homework. In all honesty, if I had been more focussed on school and less on having a laugh with my mates, I probably could have done much better. (But, in the I probably wouldn’t change any of that though, because those girls are now amazing women and still my best friends). You know who you are!
But, I was the class who were the last to study 'old-school' O Levels (don’t count backwards on your fingers…yes I’m that old), and there was no coursework, it was all exams. Which means, you could be absolutely nailing it in lessons, but if you didn't or couldn't revise well, you were screwed.
That was me. I didn’t do well at the examination stage, which was all that counted.
I did my re-takes. The bare minimum. I passed. Just.
And I gave up. I had the opportunity to start A levels with the year below – no thanks.
Years later, my husband started his own journey in further education whilst working full time and raising our children; I still had no desire to do it, because I had no confidence in my ability to succeed. I didn’t know what had happened at school and I had no desire to repeat it. My husband kept suggesting that I should do a degree, or take another course. I refused.
But he continued to encourage me (and still does, something for which I will always be grateful), and I decided to take a ‘little course’.
I started very small – because I expected to fail. Not very inspiring I know, but it's the truth.
I was childminding at the time, so I took a module in Child Development. In order to start, because I had no A levels, I had to take an Access course. This involved (among other things) writing a reflective essay about your experience in education to date. It was during this exercise that I realised what had happened during those fateful O Level years and it shed some light on what went wrong. It was one of the most vivid ‘lightbulb moments’ of my life.
And the main takeaway from that exercise? Forgiveness.
I forgave myself, my 15 year old self, for my failure. For my lack of self awareness. For my wretched self-loathing and for being so hard on myself. And I forgave myself for giving up on myself.
I did discover what went wrong, and it doesn't really matter what it was - the system wasn't great for differentiating between learning styles, learning difficulties, supporting students with difficult backgrounds, and the term 'neurodiversity' wasn't even invented until 1998. Back then, it was a 'one size fits all' situation. I'm not sure it's much better now, but in some ways it is a little bit better. Students and their advocates need to be on top of it in order to get support in time for their exam season, but it's better than it was 30+ years ago.
I finished that course, and over the next few years, I carried on studying. I took some more modules, swapped and changed, moved and lost credits for moving universities, but eventually was awarded a BA (Hons).
I discovered a love of creative writing, and a love of learning that I had all but forgotten.
I took another course. And another. Eventually I had a TEFL certificate, a PGCE, a Yoga Teaching certificate (200 hours), two Sports Massage Certificates and Qualified Teacher Status (QTS).
Turns out I LOVE learning, I enjoy lessons (both taking part and teaching), and ever since that character building reflective essay, education and training have become an integral part of my life.
Do you have an ‘aha’ story, an identifiable moment when you learned something new about yourself?
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