“The greatest underachiever I know”

“Marlen, you are the greatest underachiever I know.” 

The words came from my Norwegian teacher, Hogne. They hit hard. And they have stayed with me ever since. 

That is why, this week, I found myself writing him a letter. 

The backdrop is a learning journey with school leaders from Germany. We have visited schools, sat in classrooms, and listened to researchers and practitioners working on what is perhaps the most important and, at the same time, most complex question in education: What is good teaching, really? 

We have talked about inclusion. About how schools must be places where no one is pushed out. About learning environments and relationships, and how students develop through interaction with others. About professional development, not only for individual teachers but for entire professional communities. And about quality, and how we can build systems that actually sustain good practice over time. 

Important conversations. Thoughtful perspectives. 

Yet, in the middle of all this, one voice became clearer than the rest. 

Hogne. 

For those who do not know him, he was my Norwegian teacher in lower and upper secondary school. The kind of teacher most people would immediately describe as funny, precise, sharp, often ironic. He set high expectations. And he stood firmly in them. 

That sentence he gave me back then has stayed with me for a reason. It was not an insult. It was a diagnosis. He saw something I had not fully faced myself. A potential I was not using. And he chose to say it, without softening it. 

There is something important in that. 

We often talk about the importance of seeing students. And it is important. But being seen is not only about affirmation. It is also about being challenged. About being met with expectations that require something of you. 

Hogne did exactly that. 

He demanded that we think. Not simply that we produced correct answers, but that we understood. That we took a position. That we dared to have a voice, and that we could stand in it. He listened, but he did not let us stay where we were. He asked follow-up questions, pushed us further, deeper. 

It was demanding. 

But it was also what made it meaningful. 

This week, we have heard about how schools must work systematically to build inclusive communities. How learning happens in relationships, and how both support and clear expectations are necessary. We have talked about how teachers need to develop over time, close to their own practice, and how quality in teaching does not happen by chance. 

And I recognise so much of that in what Hogne did. 

Not as theory, but as practice. 

He worked with us as a collective. He created a space where we could think together, challenge each other, and grow. He held us within high expectations, while at the same time giving us the stability to meet them. 

That balance is not easy. 

Today, I have the privilege of working in education. I sit in rooms with leaders, teachers, and researchers trying to make this happen across schools, municipalities, and countries. Conversations about how we can build schools that both include and challenge, that both support and expect. 

It feels meaningful. 

But also demanding. 

Because it is easy to talk about good teaching. It is much harder to be the teacher who actually does it, every day, in classrooms where students bring different needs, different experiences, and different starting points. 

That is what Hogne did. 

And perhaps that is why those words still stay with me. 

Not only because they were true back then, but because they still challenge me now. 

I notice it in the small moments. When I am tempted to stay with what I already master. When it is easier to remain in my comfort zone and continue doing what feels safe. Those are the moments when his voice returns. 

Not loudly. But clearly. 

And it asks whether I am really using what I have. 

It reminds me that development requires doing something different from yesterday. That I need to think differently, learn something new, open up to possibilities I cannot yet fully see. That it is in the unfinished, the slightly uncomfortable, that something new can begin. 

In that sense, being an “underachiever” has never really disappeared. 

Not as a label, but as a reminder. 

A reminder that there is always more to grow into. That I can stretch a little further. That I am not done. 

And perhaps this is also where good teaching begins. 

Not only in what we do for our students, but in what we demand of ourselves. 

That we do not stand still. 

That we keep learning. 

That we are willing to move forward, even when it is uncomfortable. 

That was the gift in what Hogne said. 

And it is a gift that is still at work.