Who's to say never?

Last Saturday, I had the first tuition session with a good friend's niece. I've only tutored sporadically in my university days, but I had no hesitation tutoring this young lady, because what I was to do was not purely to teach English, I was to coach.

If you find this odd, you are not alone in feeling so.

I've seen this young lady in social and family settings. She is very generous to share, she defers to her siblings, she is obedient but rather slow, very kind and giving. What is sadly the missing part to this otherwise wonderful girl is that she has no interest in anything, not her herself, not her future, no ambition, no likes and dislikes.

How curious, I thought.

The purpose of my weekly lessons with her, was to comment on her weekly jounals, run through essays she writes, and assess her work in a creative writing workbook.

I quickly realise that she writes relatively well, albeit with colloquial interjections and careless tenses. She write 'badly' because that is what she believed. As such, she never checks what she writes, trusting instead that it's bad anyway.

Our conversation goes:

Me: What did you learn completing the workbook?
Her: There are many things that can be used in a compo(sition).
Me: Good, So how would that change your writing habit?
Her: Maybe prepare more and think of more things
Me: How do you remind yourself of that?

Me: How you do see your writing on a scale of 1 - 10?
Her: maybe 7 - 8? (with a scared sheepish look)
Me: That's good. Let's talk about what need to be done to get to 10, and what is a 10.

Does this sound familiar already?

Do I think she will pass her PSLE? Let's just say that we'll do our best, both of us, and the neuroscience research says that each week, as she builds more neural maps on English, writing, being expressive, adding more details to her essays, being more confident, being more interested in her work, as a side effect, she will pass her exams.

Well, that's my theory anyway.

As an aside, when I started learning to coach, there were two groups of people I believed I couldn't coach. 1) teens and children, and 2) people much older than myself. In 8 months, I've done both, so what's to say what can or cannot be done at the end of the day?

So learning point:this year, I shall try breaking some old beliefs and patterns. Chief of all would be:

1) that I can't write a book
2) that work that is meaningful can't pay the bills

I believe in a having a healthy dose of confidence, but still, I think my Ego is in for some shock and resistence!

And never say never.