#DailyWritingChallenge: Rebellion
When I saw the word ‘rebellion’ in the #Daily WritingChallenge I thought Hannah had gone wrong. How could rebellion be good? How could rebellion be a value? How could rebellion be anything that someone would hold as a positive?
So I decided not to write about it!
Following a Zoom chat with a few of the writers on the #DailyWritingChallenge, where I talked about how uncomfortable I was with this so-called ‘value’, I have agreed to put fingers to keys and write about it.
I learnt from a very young age, that it was easier to behave and do what was required than to rebel. If you have read my blogs before you’ll know that my dad was keen on ‘sayings’ and one of his favourites was
“Children should be seen and not heard”
He used to say this on a daily basis – until I was 18 I think! Possibly due to this and a plethora of other reasons, I didn’t rebel as a child, or a teenager. I didn’t enter a pub before my 18th birthday and I didn’t do anything that I was told not to. I tried incredibly hard not to ‘be heard’ at home or in school and was mortified if I ever did anything wrong (and was heard).
I was always envious of those who did rebel and had a bit of spirit about them. I wanted to be a rebel and loved characters like Sandy in Grease who finally did rebel. I didn’t – well not outwardly! I kept my controversial thoughts to myself as I was too worried about getting into trouble.
I did this when I started teaching too and found it surprising that more vocal people (those I would class as rebels) would get promotions and yet I (who crossed every t and dotted every i) wouldn’t. Weirdly, I discovered that as I began to speak my mind people began to listen in school and even more weirdly – they thought I was talking sense and the promotions began.
At #GlobalBrewEdIsolation I talked about ‘Finding Your Voice’. I think #TinyVoiceTuesday and #TinyVoiceTuesdayUnites have been my quiet act of rebellion on Twitter. I wanted everyone to know that they are important and that they matter, so I created hashtags so everyone could be heard. I have regularly rebelled against the rules of Twitter and have been in ‘Twitter jail’ more times than I wish to count.
So, getting to the end of this rather garbled, nonsensical post, I realise that I am a rebel (but in a non-rebels clothing). I shall finish on this quote as I think it sums rebels up perfectly:
