Oftentimes, it is the extremely successful stars who look back on adolescence and remember being told by teachers and parents that they weren’t good enough. For example, a video recently went viral of actress Kate Winslet, saying that when she was 14, she “was told by a drama teacher that I might do okay, if I was happy to settle for the fat girl parts. Look at me now.”
The disparity between an extremely successful star and their past self who was shut down by teachers, parents, or other authority figures isn’t always so large. You don’t have to be an actress as successful, well-known, and wealthy as Kate Winslet in order to have experienced a similar experience in childhood, adolescence, or even later in life, where you were told by someone superior to you that you just weren’t good enough.
The first time I was told by a teacher that I wasn’t good enough was in elementary school, when we were learning to read in class. I was a fast learner and my mother had been teaching me how to read at home, so I had already developed into a very fast reader. So when my class was assigned to read a short story, I read it as instructed, and then closed the book. I was then approached by my teacher and accused of not actually reading the story, because I had “read” it so quickly. I was forced to reread the story as punishment.
I had a similar experience a few years ago, in an English class. I have always wanted to be a writer, for as long as I can remember. That’s why I chose to study communication and journalism in college, that’s why I write for my college newspaper, and that’s why I decided to write and edit for Odyssey. My ambition to write comes across in everything I do in every class, whether it’s a specified term paper, or otherwise. In this case, it was a term paper disguised as a book report.
I read the book I was assigned, and put my heart and soul into what turned out to be a 10 page paper deeply analyzing the novel. After turning it in, I was pulled out into the hallway by my teacher and was told that the writing I had submitted was way too good to be produced by someone at my level. In other words, I was incapable of writing the way that I had, and there was no way that I was that good of a writer.
But that’s where my teacher went wrong. I am a good writer, and a good reader, and despite what I was told by two different teachers, I am good enough. In fact, I’m good enough at writing that not only am I editing others’ writing through Odyssey, I’ve been hired to be a TA for a writing course at my college, where I will be editing the students’ essays and helping them write.
And if you have had a similar experience, where an authority figure told you that you weren’t good enough, I’m telling you: you are good enough.
