Effort

In the corner of that noisy year 8 bunch sits a girl with huge, blow-dried locks of red hair. It sweeps her forehead and cascades down her back, light and dark and pouffy. From the first lesson, Big-Hair had strops. At me, at the work, at her classmates - anywhere. Her first words to me were 'I can't do times tables'. With attitude.

Throughout the first week, things deteriorated into a massive stand off. She would shout and flick that hair and refuse to engage in anything at all. She ended up in an hours detention after school, for sheer refusal to cooperate. Eventually, I got her there on a Friday evening. The school was quiet as most other people had gone home, and both of us sat in resentful silence, me at the computer and her staring blankly at some work I'd handed her. The minutes ticked by and I couldn't concentrate. I tried to talk to her, but she was monosyllabic. Did she like school? No. Why? Dunno. Was there anything in school that she liked? No. What did she like outside school? Dunno. What did she want to be when she was older? Not telling you miss!

Well, at least it was a change. I looked at Big-Hair and said quietly 'I wonder if you might like to be a hairdresser?' She exploded. How did I know? How did I guess? I commented on how lovely her hair was, and how she clearly took very good care of it and spent a lot of time on it. Then she started talking. I heard all about her elaborate hair routine, her home life, about her older siblings whom she hates, her estranged dad and her mum who takes out her frustrations with the older kids on Big-Hair, her littlest. I heard about her pets, her dog who died, all the rabbits and where she ran away to when she was sad. She talked for half an hour, until well after the end of her detention. I offered to keep her exercise book at school for her, as she had trouble with organisation as she slept in so many different houses. She thanked me, and as she stood up to go, she looked at me and said 'Sorry, miss.'

No problem, I replied. Have a good weekend. You too, miss, see you Monday. Off we went. On Monday, she grinned at me and got to work. She did the same for the rest of that week, and the rest of the month. When she turned up on report I was surprised, and when she was suspended I was gobsmacked. She was behaving as badly as she had for me at the start in all her other lessons, but she never once caused trouble in maths after that week.

So often I'm too tired, too frustrated or think that my effort will make no difference. It's good to see Big Hair and be reminded that sometimes it's worth making the effort after school on a Friday afternoon, and that the smallest thing to me can make a big impact on a child.