I cried

Dominican Republic Part 3

Saul, a teacher at The Hive School (To be said in a strong Dominican Republic Spanish accent, slowly and deliberately with sincerity and unwavering eye contact throughout):

“Adele, it’s making a difference, what you’re teaching us, it’s helping with the pupils’ behaviour.”

That moment;

it creeps up on you – you work on the mission every working day, every time you think about work it’s what’s driving you to do the boring bits, the hard bits, the seemingly-impossible bits and still carry on…

…and yet when the penny drops, when you realise that what you are doing is outside of your head, making a real impact, in the real world for real teachers and pupils…

Well, if you’re like me, you cry.

I was so stunned in the moment, that I was even questioning what Saul was saying to me – was there going to be a but? Was I losing something in translation? Was he talking to me?

Is this evidence that I’m actually doing what I want to be doing?

Is this how it feels?

The next part of the session another teacher Manuela was leading – studying in psychology alongside teaching, she is keen to step up and start taking on more, so I have, over the last couple of weeks, prepped and invited her to start leading parts of the session – so that the teacher training I am supporting here also becomes sustainable and self-directed. She went on to facilitate a check-in activity (that we affectionately term ‘The Big Shark’ – as in, what’s really going on beneath the surface for everyone). She did the whole thing in Spanish, I understood maybe 30% of it. It didn’t matter. I watched how she interacted with the others, I watched her group them and lead them through, I was then pleasantly surprised to see her add her own twist – at the end we were all invited to hold hands and take three breathes together.

I was the facilitator, I had become part of the team, I was being facilitated. Manuela had sensed that I was emotional, she offered the breathing exercise to support me.

Saul with one of our pupils, collecting bottle tops from the beach for her project on this term’s Sustainability Development Goal; Consumption & Production

My vision for education is one in which all differences are included and welcomed; an education which is flexible, relevant and leads towards positive social change.

My mission is to enable 10,000+ young people to access education, who wouldn’t otherwise – it’s why I work with young people with behaviour needs and support other educators to do that too.

In this school, The Hive, with it’s non-traditional set up (read my blog post on What is The Hive?) and 6-weekly optional term time, there are definitely a pupils who are here because they don’t fit anywhere else in their education systems back home – our square pegs.

And yet they are here.

Nope – it’s not always easy, they have SEMH and behaviour needs that are challenging for the adults.

Nope – the school is not always getting it right 100% of the time.

But what I am seeing, every single day that I’ve been in the school, is young people, who wouldn’t otherwise access education, having positive experiences with learning.

This is where we start.

Once a pupil has positive educational experiences, their amygdala can relax, their pre-frontal cortex can engage – which enables then to learn…

Through these pupils and teachers like Saul, Manuela, through educators like you, I can feel my mission gaining speed…

Pupils from The Hive doing their self-directed learning