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You CAN stand up for yourself
*It just takes practice
Never too young (or too old)
Yesterday I saw one of my former English students, let’s call him Adan.
He was part of an exam prep class of 13–15 year-olds. Adan wants to learn. The rest of the students want to gossip, giggle, shriek and scroll through Instagram. I could see Adan getting more and more frustrated, despite my best efforts to make up for the noise with extra one-to-one guidance.
Then, one day, he wasn’t in class. Nor the next. Nor the next.
It turns out this young teenager had gone to the head of the school, explained his frustrations, and transferred to a different (quieter) class.
The satisfaction of self-assertion
When I bumped into him, he looked different: smiling, animated, confident — in short, like someone who has just discovered the life-altering satisfaction of standing up for himself.
What he did was pretty awesome, when you think about it.
We are not routinely taught to assert ourselves. It should come naturally but the truth is, much of our socialization is focused on learning to follow instructions, fit in, change ourselves instead of the situation.
