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The Indescribable Bouquet


It looks like an ordinary bouquet of flowers, but it is anything but.

"M" was a student for whom I had high hopes. She came to the school in the middle of Year 10 and had a lot of work to catch up with. She toiled away solidly and pretty soon, demonstrated an ability to produce work of high quality, the type that stood out from the rest of the pack.

Fast forward a year and she was slacking somewhat. With deadlines approaching, she wasn't making the mark and I was concerned, as were others in the school that she wouldn't make it (it should however be noted that she told me she had spent the last week battling the flu, so I can't be too harsh in my judgement of her). With the final external moderation imminent (it took place yesterday), I spent the better part of the last week bombarding her with emails, voice messages and suchlike, cajoling her into her getting herself into school to finish off the work ASAP.

To my immense relief, she manged to fight off the bug and soon after, complete her work.

Today, she turned up with the bouquet you see above coupled with a lovely card, thanking me for my efforts. I won't reveal the contents of the card, but I can say that I am extremely touched (and not a little relieved that she has finished!).

We work damn hard with the kids to get them their results and sometimes, any positive outcomes seem so remote, they might as well be hallucinatory . If it takes one student to come in and say thank you, with or without flowers, the whole effort we expended serves to remind us why we joined this extraordinary profession in the first place.

The title of this post is "The indescribable bouquet".

I hope you now understand why.
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