[February] Struggles

Am I?

Rough month.

Had a debriefing session with one of the senior pracitioners at the placement after sitting in one of his sessions. He stumbled me several times with a series of questions relating to my learning as a systemic practitioner. Having been halfway through the programme, I suddenly had this moment of incompetence arising in me. I realised that I was unable to respond to his questions and he had to prompt me in several manners to help me understand what he was asking. Yet, I came up blank.

I felt bad at that moment. I questioned the progression I had made thus far. I realised that despite being a social worker for several years and having been given the role of a supervisor back in Singapore, I have little to boost about in terms of my clinical skills and knowledge.

It did not helped that I had received the results of my assignment. I managed to get a merit for it. While I understand from the feedback that I had done reasonably well and we were told at the start of the programme that a distinction is not as common, I did have expectations of myself to perform. I suppose this is largely owing to the association of the grades to what was perceived as reasonably well at home. Distinction is awarded here to papers receiving a score of 70 and above. In Singapore, we are more or less expecting ourselves to score at least that in order to think that we do ok in the subject. Throughout the years, I had also used that to ensure that I continue to perform within the acceptable range I set for myself. This situation is further complicated that I am here on a scholarship and the funder will have access to my results. I felt an additional pressure to ensure that I do well in the programme; not just ok. I reckon that much of these have to do with my cultural influences (and my personal script) that a key indicator to measure performance is to do it quantitatively through a scoring system.

For the reasons above, I struggled with the decision to put in an application for the master programme. I knew if I do get into the programme, I will probably do well enough to clear the programme. But I questioned if I will be good enough to go back to Singapore and say that these two years are not wasted on me and I am ready to come back to share the learning and influence the rest of the peers in this area of work.

Wondering.