Raven was struggling. It was a common theme for them. English class fucking sucked, and too often, they found themselves staring at the pages of a book or the words on the worksheet, struggling to make sense of anything. Everyone always said the same thing, too. That they just weren't trying or they were being lazy. It wasn't good enough, their parents would say. It wasn't enough effort, the teachers would insist. If they didn't buck up and buckle down, they'd be pulled out of clubs and forced into study groups that wouldn't work because they still wouldn't be able to make sense of the stupid work.
Today's English class was right before lunch. Miss Temple had just passed out the warm up exercise, a small sheet of poetry stuff to analyse, and Raven was staring at it, trying to concentrate even as the words made less and less sense. Being hungry didn't help their concentration either. It was hard, and they were making no progress with it. They'd written maybe one thing on the page when the teacher came round and stopped in front of them.
"Do your work, Raven."
They startled and looked up. "I am."
"No, you're not. You're daydreaming again."
"No, I -"
"Don't talk back to me!" God, they hated when adults said that. Sure, you don't want a conversation, you just want to yell. "You haven't written a thing on here. Everyone else has already done half the poem."
They looked back down at the sheet. It still made no sense to them.
"Well?"
Miss Temple was still hanging over them. They tugged at their hair anxiously, stress setting in. "I'm thinking!"
"Don't 'think', just do."
What?
"How am I supposed to do the work without thinking?"
"Don't make excuses, Raven, we both know you're just stalling so you don't have to do the work. I want to see you write something down. And don't pull that face."
They weren't even aware they were pulling a face. They spared a glance at Chesney's work, next to them. Annotations everywhere in neat script that made no sense to them. They looked back at their work. Poetry made no sense. If Miss Temple wasn't hovering over them, they could have at least asked Chesney for help, he was usually nice about it, unlike the teacher herself. Though they were both bottom group, so he probably didn't understand either.
They couldn't think at all now. Not about the work, anyway. All they could think about was all the eyes on them, the teacher looming into their space, the pressure of being watched as they fail and how it all still made no sense. They started tapping their pen on the paper, their knee started bouncing in a nervous twitch and they started feeling sick. This was stupid. All this stress and anxiety over a fucking warm up exercise.
"Hurry. Up."
"I can't!"
"You can, you just don't want to."
That's not true. That was never true. Fuck, they could feel themselves about to cry.
"Raven, you are at the very bottom of this set. The only person doing worse than you is Maximus." And the only reason Maximus was doing worse was that he never showed up. "I'm sure if you put the effort in for once in your life, you could actually do well. Do you understand your education is important? Do you understand the impact this has on the rest of your life?"
"I'm trying..."
"No, you're not. You never put in any effort. All of your work is the bare minimum and done. I want to see some effort."
Raven hated that, teachers always telling them they hadn't put in the effort when what they actually meant was that it was bad. But instead of saying it was bad or even giving some advice on how to make it better, they insisted anyone struggling just wasn't trying. It didn't matter that Raven was trying so fucking hard, it didn't matter that they put so much effort into their ever shitty schoolwork that they were completely exhausted by the time they got home, it didn't matter that they were obviously struggling with the material. It was just easier for the adults to write them off as lazy and unmotivated and be done with it. Then, they didn't have to figure out how to teach the stupid kids, and at this point, Raven was certain they were stupid. Their best work was completely worthless, after all. If this was what trying their hardest and burning themselves out got them, why bother?
Raven put down the pen.
"Right." Miss Temple huffed. "If it's going to be like that, you can make up the work in detention, and we can have a word with your parents about your refusal to do your work."
Yeah, their parents were going to kill them. There was no way to salvage this, though. The message was clear. Their best would never be enough. Not for the teachers, not for their parents, not for anyone.
"I always get given the problem children." They heard her mutter under her breath as she walked back to her computer. They decided to mutter something back.
"Bitch."
It didn't help them feel any better as they crumpled up the page. What was the point of doing it now?
No matter what, nothing they did would ever, ever be enough.
((Welcome to the author's experience of secondary school with a learning disability used to fuel a vent piece, enjoy my continued anger at the school system. The big difference between me and Raven is that I was diagnosed by this time and Raven isn't. A diagnosed learning disability did not stop the teachers telling me all my struggles were just me not trying or not putting in effort or whatever. And fun fact, don't think just do the work is an actual quote from my GCSE English teacher.))
