Aruna Gopakumar -TSTA journey
It takes a community to pass an exam!
The pre-dominant feeling that pervaded my TSTA preparation and the exam experience was that of gratitude. There aren’t enough synonyms for gratitude in the thesaurus, so pardon me for sounding like a stuck record. There are just too many involved in whole hearted support of me.
My primary supervisor Annie Rogers, who worked steadily with me for two years, enhanced my confidence with her gentle, authentic, & trusting presence. It was with her that I felt that I was ready to take the exam. Her trusting voice, “You are ready” allowed me to do the exam despite the unexpected demise of my mother just 11 days before it. She organized a New Zealand board for me and also set up practice sessions with other CTAs, PTSTAs from New Zealand. Yet another supervisor, Enid Welford, who so enthusiastically took me on as her ward, and wrote to all the people she knew, checking if they were willing to practice with me. I had regular practice with 4 people from the UK, who also went on to become friends. And I drew on many other supervisors – Sue Eusden, Graeme Summers, Giles Barrow – who so generously made time for me.
And my own community here – I have no words to express my appreciation. I am awestruck by Suriya’s enthusiastic, energetic availability to support endeavours. I reached out to him without thinking twice and consistently received astute insights and challenges. He was the one who suggested that I do a practice board early – six months before the exam to recognise gaps in myself. He helped me see the patterns in the kinds of issues that I was bringing for supervision and I learnt much about myself in that. Chitra, Susan and Suriya did a practice board early for me that I enjoyed immensely and also enhanced my confidence.
Susan would send me occasional messages giving me suggestions on how I could present myself in the exam – I am so appreciative that she had me in her thoughts even beyond supervision. And in the last leg of the exam, my Bangalore PTSTA colleagues, Joy, Prathitha and Deepak practiced supervision with me –which was further whetted by Chitra, Suriya and Susan. I enjoyed sharing this vulnerable space with my colleagues and felt their support. While I am unable to list here other CTAs and TA trainees who offered to sit in on my sessions or offered to be supervised by me for 20 min, I am grateful to each of them for having contributed to my learning.
To strengthen my own understanding of theory, I started making presentations of TAJ articles, and invited whoever was free to join. I would always have at least 10 people – who would discuss theory with me and think critically along with me, making the whole learning process such fun.
And the exam process itself was so empowering. Twelve examiners over three boards and perhaps an equal number of co-ordinators and volunteers! It was a challenging process. I enjoyed the TOE board the most – where we chatted – yes, the exam process is meant to be a collegial discussion – on the growth and relevance of TA and its theories and what ethical challenges other practitioners and I face. The feeling again was that of gratitude for so many people coming together internationally to make this process happen.
The celebration included firecrackers – which meant pictures of fire crackers on the screen with Sue and Jacqueline enthusiastically providing background sound effects. They played a song on the screen and we all danced in our own homes. It warmed my heart to see these efforts to celebrate as best as we could in an online context.
Having reached here, I feel I can now rightfully take my place as a leader in the TA community. I feel eager to make a difference and also support all my colleagues in the journey towards completing their TSTAs and CTAs as well. Onward and Upward!
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