A Student

Something happened one day last week while I was sitting with this student - a 12 year old girl, bug enthusiast and talented artist who has been given certain labels and needs some support; who was groaning and cursing her way through long division problems. 

I decided to escort her out of her loud classroom where we had a sub for the morning - to a quieter, hopefully more serene room. And as we were sitting together and she - with her - raw, uninhibited pre-teen anxiety, with her 'I can't do this' and 'I mess up everything' and 'this sucks dude' verbalized again and again and again - I felt like maybe I have no idea what I'm doing with this child. I felt like maybe I should talk to someone about finding someone who might be better suited to whatever this child is dealing with. And then I took some deep breaths.

I allowed the moment to be what it was both for her and for myself. And then I found myself saying words that I needed to hear. I found myself saying words like 'I understand that you're having a hard moment but we can do this
one
step
at
a
time.

I found myself telling this young lady with her dyed yellow and brown hair, lanky and adorable with glasses that these things she is telling herself - are a story and we can tell a different story. And somehow she stayed with me and didn't run out of the room and I guess I said at least some of the right things because she did the work and I hoped I was making sense because it's been a few minutes since I've done long division after all. But somehow the work became done and during all of that she told me things like, "sometimes I have really bad anxiety and I can't do anything about it and so on." And then I said things like - I understand.

And then I realized that maybe I am the person that this child needs and that I understand her just exactly as much as I need to because in more ways than one - I was this child.

As a child in my private school in 7th grade I never quite fit in. Looking back I realize that I had 'multiple intelligences' as the theory says but alongside my peers who seemingly understood all of the things the 1st time in the exact way the information was taught - I felt less than and I continued to feel 'not good enough' for years until I entered more diverse environments where you didn't need to be just one thing to be smart. 

I still remember the day when my English teacher tore up my paper in front of the entire class because my paper had 'fringes' on the side. For years I told myself story after story about what that meant about my intelligence and writing abilities. Cut to years later and I am a teacher and published writer and whatever else.

So --- we made it through and we will continue to make it through and I think of her frequently when I found myself feeling similarly to the feelings she verbalized to me. And I have gratitude that she feels comfortable enough to share her feelings with me and I know that all of us - each of us - are enough.