When you think about all of the years that you spent in school, you probably recognize that there were good years and bad years. Some of the years went quite well and you likely were able to overcome some significant challenges along the way. At other times, however, you had to deal with a lot more than getting good grades and applying yourself. That is especially true when it comes to our time in middle school, a time in life that seems to be one of the most difficult as we are growing up. We face a lot of awkward pressures during that time, and most of us dreaded going to school.
We sometimes would find an outlet that would help us to deal with the pressure we were facing. That was the case with Olivia Vella, a student who was studying in Arizona at Queen Creek Middle School. She was given an assignment by her writing teacher to create a poem for the end of the year. Olivia decided she would use that opportunity to release some of the tension she had built up but then she had to take part in the second process, reading the assignment in front of the class. Olivia could have chosen an easy topic but she chose something that was on the minds of most seventh graders.
The poem that she wrote asks, ‘Why Am I Not Good Enough?’ It has to do with a lot of the issues that middle school students face in life and everyone who was listening on that day knew exactly what she was talking about.
She recites:
“Every part of your outfit is uncomfortable, but even though you spend hours trying to look pretty, you will never be as good as those other girls at school.”
“You look at other girls wishing you were them, but other girls are looking at you wishing they were you.”
She then ends with the powerful words:
“But society is wrong. You are loved, you are precious, you are beautiful, you are talented, you are capable, you are deserving of respect, you can eat that meal, you are one in seven billion. And most of all, you are good enough.”
You can watch her reciting the poem in the following video:
