Lessons Beyond the Classroom: Overcoming Struggles and Finding a Path

“Suzanne, wait behind. I want to speak to you.”

That dread in my stomach—no doubt I was getting another lecture or telling off. I braced myself. She came to me and started to apologise. I was gobsmacked.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I thought that doing this would make you hate me and make you so mad at me that you’d want to prove me wrong, but I now see that it was wrong.”

I was confused… What was I hearing? I must be imagining this. I looked at her with confusion. She continued to tell me a story about her own son at school and how he had struggled. His teacher had made his life a misery, and he had used his anger at the teacher to show them that he could succeed. My teacher told me she had hoped this approach would have the same effect on me but now understood that she was wrong.

I don’t remember if I spoke or said anything—I just listened in disbelief. Was this adult actually coming to me, a child, and apologising? My memory after this is hazy. I remember feeling relief, like something magical was happening, but at the same time unsure if I could trust what I thought I was hearing.

When I left the class, Pamela and a few others were all waiting to hear what horror had befallen me. I don’t think they would have believed me when I told them she had said she was sorry. What I do remember is that I never, ever worked as hard for any teacher again as I did for Mrs Turnbull after that day.

Most of the teachers hated me. They hated my brother too, who was three years above me. I assume this came from their belief that we could try harder or achieve more. One teacher in particular, who had taught him years earlier, asked me on my first day in her class—in front of everyone—if he was my brother. When I proudly said yes, she replied, “Oh, well I won’t expect much from you either then.”

There were few exceptions. Back in the 1980s, things in schools were very different. Punishments, isolation, and shaming were commonly used tools. But this teacher regularly shamed me over my spelling. She would read out my work to the class as I had written it—with all the spelling errors and the Bs and Ds mixed up. She would keep reading, and the class would roar with laughter, everyone hysterical—except Pam. I don’t remember ever seeing her find it funny.

Tears would stream down my face, embarrassed and ashamed. I had worked hard on that piece, and not only was it not good enough, it was ridiculous enough to be comedy. My red face burned. My head bowed to hide my tears. The sound of laughter echoed in my ears with every sentence she read. It felt like it would never stop.

This happened often until, one day during wet playtime, she told me to wait behind. The apology was certainly not what I had been expecting. After that day, she engaged me in planting and growing seeds. I remember her praising me and telling me how well I was doing. I got the only good school report I ever had from that teacher.

Her name and face stay with me to this day, and that conversation after class had a huge impact on me. I use this story often when I talk in schools and workshops to highlight the power of owning our mistakes—even when those mistakes come from a place of good intention. I don’t focus on what she did wrong, I remember that she sanitation and owned it

It was quite groundbreaking in those days to have a teacher acknowledge that I couldn’t help it—that I wasn’t choosing to struggle. There was very little understanding of ADHD, dyslexia, or neurodiversity. The planting activity was so creative and different from putting a book in front of me that I couldn’t understand or had no interest in.

I mostly sat staring out of the window all day, dreaming. Every report card I ever received said I lacked motivation and could try harder. Was it really my responsibility as a child to motivate myself? I was told I talked too much. I was put out of many classrooms, sat alone in isolation, and still didn’t do any work. Nobody seemed to learn that their methods weren’t helping me.

I was sent to ‘remedial class’ for years, which was for children who needed extra support. I didn’t mind; they were fun and more engaging than the big class lessons. But I remember at one point, the remedial teacher stopped me while I was happily running back to class after break.

“There’s no point in you coming back if you’re not going to do the work. You’re not learning, so there’s just no point.”

I was taken aback. I didn’t expect this teacher’s anger and disappointment. I had liked her and was confused. I shrugged it off. I didn’t really understand why she’d said this. When I went home, I told my mum I didn’t need to go to remedial class anymore. She was delighted—until parents’ night, when the teacher told her why.

My mum came home and, in mock horror, joked about this with me. Luckily, my parents hadn’t been great achievers at school either, and they didn’t seem upset by my or my brother’s lack of academic ability. It seemed to be a given that we wouldn’t be high achievers in that way. This was a blessing for sure. I have been grateful in my life to not have had that pressure from family around exams and school.

I left school with a few O levels to my name: Art and Maths (just). It didn’t hold me back. I grew up watching my parents work hard and earn money. That work ethic I witnessed is deeply ingrained in my blueprints for life.

I became a hairdresser like so many others like me. But I loved it. I thrived. I learned how to talk to people and build relationships. I was having a wonderful time. Clients kept coming back to me. I wasn’t really that good a dresser, but I could build good connections. I loved to talk, I was interested in people, and they came and told me their stories—and they wanted to hear mine.

They gave me big tips. People would stuff money in my pocket every day. The wages were rubbish, but the tips made up for that. As the years passed, I worked my way up from Junior to Stylist, and at the age of 22, I was offered the Manager’s role.

Life was good. I met Steven at work. He worked next door in the Plumbers, and we got engaged around this time. I can remember loving life—out with friends every weekend, money in my pocket, and experiencing being part of a couple for the first time.

When I met people from school, and they asked me how I was doing, they were often shocked. They were still trying to figure it all out—studying, in and out of jobs they hated, many of them still hanging about the local shop as they had in school. It felt good to be the one to have it together for once. My confidence in myself was building.

My brother did a lot better after he left school too. He, like me, had struggled in school. He drew stormtroopers in his school books instead of writing. He was obsessed with Star Wars, and all his art centred around this. His teachers despaired.

My parents were so afraid for his future that they banned him from talking about Star Wars and removed all his Star Wars figures when he got caught smoking in high school. It didn’t deter him.

Years later, he became a graphic designer in London at Pinewood Film Studios, designing Star Wars sticker books and annuals, among other things. He would go on to visit Skywalker Ranch and meet Mark Hamill, living his childhood dream of trying on the stormtrooper mask that Han Solo wore in the film.

My parents would later laugh at this success and wonder how far he might have gone had they, in fact, encouraged him. Don’t get me wrong—they always encouraged his artistic talent, just not the focus of it.

But there’s a theme here. A daughter who talked too much, silenced and isolated, now talks for a living. A son’s passion, stifled, ended up being his career.

I don’t blame my parents. I understand only too well as a parent myself that fear grips us for our children’s future. They didn’t know. They couldn’t have imagined these careers for us. They were outside the realm of normal jobs. We couldn’t even have imagined them for ourselves.

My brother used to say to my mum in their heated arguments as he got older—she would beg him to draw something, anything else—“I’m going to do this one day, I just know I am.”

But how could she have known?

Even for myself, I used to talk and narrate my life. I used to talk in my room to imaginary audiences about my experiences. How could we have known that there would be a world where I could make a living talking about my journey for four hours at a time, and that anyone in their right mind would want to listen?