Some unnecessary background information

I was planning on writing a whole other story last week. The funny this is I can’t even remember what. Maybe one of those stories that I wrote a time back. By Sunday evening, I realized that I wouldn’t finish my story on time. It was taking me longer than expected. I had to split the story into two parts.

Occasionally I teach and supervise early childhood educators. They’re mostly adults, who haven’t obtained the minimum degree required by law to educate children in daycare and/ or after-school programs. However, this requirement is only applicable to the principal/ manager of the daycare. I find this odd because I think there should be a minimum education for people who deal (directly) with children.

A stressful, surreal blur

Last Tuesday, I had a long day. I had three conversations scheduled in the morning with students from the University of Aruba, who I’m guiding throughout their internship. The day before, I started feeling ill. My body was warning me, just like in December, to take it easy. I had to skip my aunt’s birthday, and I had to cancel a call that I had planned with one of the students that I’d been supervising. I lay for the rest of the night in bed. 

That Tuesday morning, when I was holding the conversations with the students, I prayed that the weird rumbling sound coming out of my gut would go unnoticed (and I think it did). I had brown lava coming out of me the whole morning (too much information, I know). It was agonizing, and I wish I were at home, but I couldn’t cancel on the interns, and there were other important things that I had to take care of that day. An hour after lunch, I started feeling better.

Vicarious

In the evening, I regained my strength. I checked with the student that I had an appointment that night to see if she was ready, and she was. I rang exactly at 8 O’clock. She picked up almost immediately. By the look on her face, she was happy to see me. She has a contagious smile, but she’s a little shy. She reminds me a bit of myself when I was a teenager, minus the contagious smile. I asked her if she had a case she wished to talk about. The week before, we already had a supervision session. This student was behind, so she had to catch up to complete the module. She stated that she had a case indeed, but was hesitant to tell me about it. Then I remembered that she had mentioned something a week before.

When someone says that they have something bad to tell me, I always think that they’re going to open up and disclose some childhood trauma. That’s a handicap that I developed at my current work. Being trauma-informed and hyperaware is exhausting. I asked her if she preferred to meet face-to-face to talk about it more comfortably. She said that she wanted to try to talk about it. And she did. I’m not going to tell you what she told me of course, because that would be unethical and unprofessional. However, I will explain what was happening to my body during the conversation.

I have to, but I don’t want to

At first, I was just listening. I had no trouble doing so. This student had a beautiful way of describing what was happening around her and the people involved. She mentioned school refusal a lot. This term, at least for Aruba, is new. It means when children don’t want to go to school. The reason for this refusal varies. Sometimes it has something to do with the learning environment at school. Sometimes it may be related to social problems or learning disabilities. Even the lack of proper mental health support may be why children refuse to go to school. 

If I were to find out that my students refuse to come to my class, I would feel like a failure. But sometimes school is not the only factor. We all know some children get pressured to perform at school, but why? 

Why do we put so much pressure on children to perform at school? Can you imagine we as adults being pressured all the time by our bosses to perform and to do our best, even when we are feeling under the weather, even when something is out of our control? So why do we do that to children who are still developing and don’t have the executive function to plan, focus, multitask, etc.?

Just keep breathing

Not only did my student’s case upset me, but it also triggered me a little. Looking back at it, I think I did a wonderful job. In the beginning, I got a little emotional. I even wanted to cry. It’s good that I got my strength back before the call because I had to use all of it to hold back the tears, but this was her moment. It’s about her. I feel that I compartmentalized well during the session. I supported her by giving small breaks in between and letting her have her moment, and I asked proper questions and assured her that it was okay if she didn’t wish to answer them. At the same time, I was supporting myself too. I was talking myself through the entire thing, telling myself to breathe, and repeating to myself that I was doing great.

I heard music in my ears when she said she felt relieved after talking to me, and she thanked me for my help. Still, I guess you can say that the social worker in me felt that we still had work to do. I don’t want to be that social worker who only listens, and doesn’t come up with concrete solutions. Next week we’ll continue working. My job is to make people “zelfredzaam” as we love to say in Dutch. We don’t want dependent adults anymore, sure it feels nice to be taken care of, but I don’t want any student of mine to be a case of learned helplessness. Not when she’s been through so much. And the feminist in me also felt the urge to not only empower a student, but a woman as well.

Have you ever refused to go to school? If you did, what were the reasons?

P.s. Read part 2 this Sunday to learn more about this story’s title.