Fractured Lives and Border Crossings

Abstract

This chapter features two kinds of ‘transition’: a geographical one that gave impetus to my cognizance of class transition and notions of belonging; and a significant conversation with an educator that highlighted the part that mental health may have played in my crossing from one side of the educational fence to the other. Tracing a path across a shifting geographic, linguistic and emotional landscape of hills and valleys, the chapter recounts my state of flux and unease as I moved through the class and education systems, dealt with my father’s suicide in my early twenties, and began to understand the impact that has had on my professional career as a further education lecturer in a seaside town with a low socio-economic profile. Through its telling, I not only re-claim my early promise as a ‘clever girl’ but challenge stereotypes of who can and who should ‘achieve’ educational success.