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Creating Safe Space: Vulnerabilty and Paradox in Teaching

 
"Vulnerability is the soil of every safe space. Teaching asks us to hold that delicately - knowing we may cause harm, and still choosing to stay present, because healing and growth live in that very same ground".

There isn't a single lesson where I don't observe vulnerability in my students. Voice work is vulnerable work - deeply exposing. It often unearths memory, doubt, fear and identity.

Creating a safe space for this work is my intention - but to do that with integrity, I first have to ask: what does a safe space truly mean? What does it look like, feel like, and require?

I once had a mature female student - a former professional singer - who had returned to lessons after many years away from performing. Mid-lesson, she broke down. Her voice trembled as she admitted to me how hard it had been to reckon with her changing voice, her confidence, her sense of self.

My job was not to cheerlead or rescue her in that moment. It was to hold her admission with compassionate neutrality. I simply heard the hard thing. I stayed with her in it.

I believe trust was born in that moment - a mutual trust. She trusted me enough to bring the truth to the room. I trusted myself enough to stay with it, without trying to fix. And in this simple act, she learned she could trust me to listen.

A safe space was established.

The Paradox of Safety and Discomfort

It’s easy to imagine that a safe space should feel soft, supportive - even comforting. But the truth is more complex. Safe spaces aren’t designed to keep discomfort out - they’re meant to hold it well.

Teaching often asks us to live in the paradox: the both/and. To correct a student may cause harm. But to avoid correction - to sidestep what’s needed for growth - can be a harm of its own.

There’s always a weighing up: Which direction should I offer without losing their essence? Which exercise might serve them best? It happens swiftly, sometimes instinctively - but it’s hardly ever neutral. Every suggestion, every adjustment, every silence carries the potential to heal or to hurt.

The challenge lies in how we offer guidance without collapsing into control, or retreating into silence. And that’s not something we get right all the time. But it is something we can return to — again and again — with care and humility.

"Safety doesn't mean the absence of discomfort. It means the presence of care, respect and permission to be fully human"

Safe Space Is a Relationship, Not a Rule

I’ve come to understand that safe space isn’t a checklist - it’s a way of being in relationship. It’s shaped by how we show up in the moment, how we listen, how we respond.

There is no specific formula, but the qualities that I return to are presence over performance - attunement over agenda - listening over fixing.

Sometimes, the most generous thing I can offer a student is space. Not more tools. Not more praise. Just space to be, to feel, to make sound without having to make sense of it straight away.

An Ongoing Practice

A safe space isn’t something we set up once. It’s not a perfectly crafted studio or a flawless set of teaching tools. It’s a relationship — a way of being — shaped moment by moment by how we choose to meet one another.

It asks something of us: to notice our habits, to stay present through discomfort, and to keep returning with humility when we get it wrong.

Sometimes, safety is stillness. Sometimes, it’s restraint. Other times, it’s the quiet courage to invite change. But always, it asks us to see the human being in front of us — not just the voice.

So I return to this question often, and I offer it to you now:

What does it mean for you to teach in a way that honours vulnerability — not by avoiding harm entirely, but by holding it with care?


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