In counselling with S, I sometimes feel as though we are sparring. She is highly intelligent, and has the ability to make specious reasoning sound logical. We stack our vocabularities up around the office, hers in sturdy mid-size piles and mine in wobbly teetering towers. I take big risks, and sometimes I lose. She is more careful, and hedges her bets.
Yesterday she admitted, for the first time since we began our sessions last school year, that she has intentionally cultivated some strange behaviours with the express intent of driving people away and garnering negative attention. This was interesting. Fascinating, because her first counsellor suspected she might have Aspergers. I felt as though she had finally exposed herself a little, making this admission, and I fought to keep my balance and fought the urge to push her while she was teetering with her own. I cannot say I look forward to counselling sessions with S, but I do enjoy them at times. She is a challenge.
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It's Alice in Wonderland this semester, and because I want the students to take ownership of their production --and because it is utter absurdism-- I did not stop them when this afternoon's rehearsal spiralled off into madness, the Mock Turtle rapping his song instead of singing it as a ballad. And the Lory, Dodo Bird, and Mouse danced around like M.C. Hammer. It was beyond ridiculous and I suspect we'll keep it that way. Something fresh and new, Lewis Carroll. If the audience is even half as amused as I was, it'll be a smashing success.
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Change keeps art alive. It sounds enchanting, and I love that you didn't rein them in and make them color inside the lines. Besides, whose lines? They will learn far more creating their own, so kudos to all of you.
Sometimes I wish I was capable of reining them in! But in this case, helpless laughter rendered me speechless throughout the entire bizarre scene, and now I've rather fallen in love with their strange creation.
I really enjoy glimpses of sturdy mid-size piles of adolescent vocabulary. I would find it very tempting to make up words that I could add to the wobble of your teetering tower.
Believe it or not, I've been called specious! Is it any wonder with a word verification like this: FORKETIO
I had a "challenging" 15 year old in my office today. Interesting, but I don't look forward to the sessions either.
Bridget, I laughed to think of making up words with this girl. I'm sure she would bust me if I tried that, as her vocabulary is highly impressive. She reads a lot more than she talks to humans, and as a result she has a huge mental dictionary of words she can use, but not pronounce, correctly. It's both endearing and infuriating.
C, I wish we could look forward to the challenging fifteen year olds more. But really, we're only human, right?
Have you used PENETRALIA with her yet? 'tis one of my favorites, and I'd imagine it could have some psychological application, lol.
Hah! I'm tucking that one away for future application.
It seems that when she is the focus of your attention she is now, haltingly, beginning to expose herself to you. I figure that if you continue to be you things will improve.
I like your plan for Alice in Wonderland. Consider having this production recorded.
I had a really strange reaction to this post. I cried. I was S for a moment. I was S and I overheard that I was challenging. It was the strangest thing.
I suppose we use language which we hope will compliment the particular company, regardless of whether we can use it or not. I am very guilty of this, only because I never feel worthy or intelligent enough to be in certain company. So I compensate. Badly. A battle which I quite often lose, but with an addiction to the times when I sometimes win. I wish I could just speak and not have to worry about it.
I feel I want to take S aside and tell her that until she feels worthy enough to be S, she will still be doing this 20 years on, and she will always be challenging. Because although it seems like an intended battle of intellect, it comes with the heaviest of hearts.
xxx P
You understand her perfectly. She means to be challenging, I imagine, because being easy is frightening. If she simply agrees and tries to change, she opens herself up to all kinds of failure and pain. If she argues in favour of staying the same, argues about the futility of trying, she remains safe.
And yet, yesterday she made another new disclosure. She had a boyfriend ~ and they broke up. This was astonishing new information because she has always told me she identifies herself as gender neutral, and has no interest in boys. But yesterday she confessed she had a boyfriend for an entire year and that no one knew. The only reason she wanted to discuss it now was that he had broken up with her, opening up a new kind of pain with which she was completely unfamiliar. Dear S, she has enormous potential and I see her progressing all the time in her increasing bravery to admit she has feelings, in her increased desire to learn how to cope better, in her willingness to accept her own frailties. Challenging really is a compliment because it means she is whole person with many layers. I hope she stays that way. xx
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