Back to School!

[Andyvon]

Are there others out there who hate those three words as much as me? I hated school. I couldn't cope and school couldn't cope with me. I had too much energy to sit in a classroom environment and plod through homework. Teachers didn't like me pointing out when they were wrong, they didn't like me asking awkward questions they couldn't answer, and I had to stop answering questions to "give the others a chance". I just got bored and I stopped going completely when I was 14. I got beaten over the head by teachers and my parents but I realised teachers were only worried about their results and my parents about their status amongst family and friends. When I told them that I got the standard labels "disruptive", "uncooperative" etc.
It was with great joy that I read those words "Back to School" in 1978, knowing they no longer applied because I was 16. I'm 47 now and I still feel that joy.

Because I've never sat an exam and had no references I was forced into business. I was very successful and paid my house off when I was 29, sold my business when I was 36, and my wife and I now spend our lives travelling.

I'm now 47, but despite everything I've done I still savour not having to return to school when I see those words every summer. Is there anyone out there who feels the same and has had similar experiences? I'm sure there are those who wax lyrical about "the best days of my life", "I loved school" etc. I've always noticed those who "worked hard at school" are consequently condemned to a life of 9-5 employment, a 25-year mortgage and the hope of some sort of pension at the end of it all - provided they live that long! And it is they whose teachers and parents then laud "successful".

I would like to know there are others who feel the same as me about the words "Back to School?" I would also like to know there are others who have had as successful and pleasurable lives as mine as a result of not going to school.

[jake-the-peg]

Personally I've often noticed that those who have been sucessful in business always attribute it to their skill and industry whilst those who have not always seem to blame their misfortune or the government or the economy.

I always excelled at science, I spent hours with a telescope in the back garden, I still remember the thrill of seeing Jupiters moons and the rings of Saturn for the first time. Of manipulating the equations for myself and seeing laid out before me the forces keeping a satelite in orbit.

Of actually understanding relativity and quantum mechanics. I was fortunate enough to work as a scientist on huge nuclear fusion experiments.

I know it sounds condescending but I truely feel sorry for people who've not had the opportunity to feel that sort academic thrill.

To me judging your sucess by financial rewards alone is very sad - I'm sure travel broadens your minds but only when you get out and meet people - I hope you are.

I'm a couple of years younger and have a few years more mortgage left - but I wouldn't trade places for all the tea in China.

[Ankou]

i quite liked school but have to say i find some of the topics more interesting to me now than i ever did back then. i was pretty average in most subjects but excelled in maths and physics. i left school at 18 and spent 4 years doing day relase and travelling the world with work and then went to uni full time as a mature student (loved it), and achieved professional status at the ripe old age of 26 and worked my way up the career tree.

i am now a director within a large plc and earn a tidy some with some nice trimmings. i work more like 7 - 6 than 9-5 but i enjoy it and i like the people oi work with - i couldnt imagine just not doing it at this stage of my life, i still get a buzz out of a good deal, or seeing a member of my team pass exams, get married and have families etc. bascially experienceing the highs and lows with people i like and respect.

i am married with children live in a nice country house and we holiday about 3 times a year, with some short breaks in between. i have many friends from school, college and uni that all want to meet up, but i struggle to find the time.

if i hated anything about those words, it would be the fact that they appeared emblazened in the window of our local c&a about 3 weeks before we broke up for summer holidays.

i know that everyone is not cut out for academia, but i would urge and encourage anyone and everyone to experience the excitement, opportunity and social interaction that it can offer.

[New Judge]

�Back to School� means a brief respite (until half term) from the trains and buses being filled with children and their parents on a jolly day out. It means I stand half a chance of a seat on my journey to town for a beer with my mates..

It means the streets and shopping centres will no longer be filled with bored, rude and unruly children.

It means I can go for my daily swim again at a reasonable time instead of having to go at 6.30am to be sure of being out before the little darlings get themselves out of their pits and start bombing the life out of those just wanting a quiet swim.

I short, it means a return to some semblance of normality whilst the little treasure are banged up again for a few weeks.

But don�t start me off about the traffic. It seems that the youngsters� use of their lower limbs is lost as soon as term begins as their parents deem it necessary to ferry them over the shortest of distances (in a quasi-military vehicle or a van with seats, natch) to get them to school on time.

[jake-the-peg]

Bah Children!!

How dare they inconvenience me!!

Don't they know who I am!???!!!!!

[mccfluff]

thank god for that, i can go shopping without being surrounding by hordes of screaming things

that's what it means to me anyway!

[Sqad]

Andyvon....first thing that I noticed was that you haven't mentioned any children of your own.

I loved school, I was not very academic, but tried my hardest.

So much to do, loved the esprit de corp, cricket ,rugby, athletics and above all the discipline and regimentation.

Holidays? "only wimps have lunch"

Andy, you seem to have done well without qualifications, but I am just wondering if the point of your question was...."Hey folks, look how well I have done"

[R1Geezer]

Well Andy, nice bit of grandstanding. You are fortunate enough to have intelligence. A lot of people with no qualifications have no imagination and are as thick as black lavi seat. Often have parents who's idea of sucess is getting council flat. Well done for making it with no bits of paper. Most have to have the qualifications to have at least a semi comfortable life. You are quite right though it is possible to make it on your own.

[Booldawg]

Hard work and intelligence isnt enough to be successful in the UK.

Most people who have done well in life in terms of employment have either been in the right place at the right time or employed the 'its not what you know its who you know' ethos.

The UK is far too over-populated and competitive to reward raw talent alone. How many uni grads with good degrees are working as shop assistants purely because they've been unable to secure decent employment no matter how hard they've tried?

[andy-hughes]

My children are now grown up, but my wife and I never liked the phrase 'Back To School' because it meant we couldn;t spend days with our children, taking them out abd just being with them - we would have to wait until the next holiday.

We never ever wanted the holidays to end, we loved having our children at home with us.

[Andyvon]

Thank you everyone for some very good answers.

Thanks especially for your answer jakethepeg. Please don't think I'm one of those who equate trappings of wealth and possessions with success. How often do we see people using their car, job, house etc to jockey for status. Despite now being in the position where I never again need worry about paying my bills, I have never been impressed with money. I could go out tomorrow and buy a new car with cash - but I still drive the 25-year old VW Golf I bought in 1987. The difference is that if it suddenly needs a new engine I can just get it done. I could have lots of expensive suits and other clothes but I've still only got one pair of decent shoes which have been resoled twice since 1986 when I bought them to get married. I still buy my jeans and shirts from my local charity shops.
I only mentioned my financial security because that seems to be the measure by which so many mark success - fancy car, expensive watch etc. It was by that measure that I was so often beaten and I wanted to convey that I could make it too.

With regard to education, I am an avid reader and I love science, history and the world around us. I too love astronomy and I also remember the thrill as quantum mechanics finally started to dawn. I loved to know what stars are and how they formed every atom in our bodies and our world except for the hydrogen. I especially remember when relativity finally started to click after reading Carl Sagan who explained it for amateurs like me. My especial love is history. Don't think I'm an ignorant oaf because I never sat an academic exam. It's just that I never understood why I should draw a graph to prove a quadratic equation. What was the point? Why teach children to draw such graphs when they don't understand why a star shines or why Rayleigh Scattering makes the sky blue?

[Andyvon]

With regards to children Sqad, I couldn't have them. We all miss out on some things and that's what I missed. I would have loved to have children but then my life would have been different. We wouldn't have done what we have and our travels go some way to make up for that (a little). I would change it in an instant to have had the chance to have a family. If you have children - count yourself lucky and give them an extra hug.

Thanks R1geezer. I hope I didn't appear to be grandstanding. I was just anxious to express the fact that I was able to survive and be a success despite being told from as far as I can remember that I would be a failure and have nothing if I didn't work at school. I soon realised that it was my teachers and my parents who were trying to use my academic achievements as a measure of their own status and success.

I quite agree with the points about the school traffic. I've never understood why school and college students have to travel at the same time as those going to work. Why can't schools start at 8am like in other countries?

You are quite right booldawg. There appears to be no attempt in schools or in society to steer children not suited to academia along other routes more suited to them. Why not teach children about business options? I don't mean Business Studies - that's just more academia. I mean teaching yougsters that they can go out and work for themselves, have a future, self-respect and make a real contribution to the country.

Thanks everyone.

[ruby27]

I hated school from nursery until I left at age 16. To this day I feel sorry for children who are at school and in my imagination having to endure the agonies that I did. I think I spent all of the holdiays dreading going back. Just thinking about my school days brings me out into a cold sweat type feeling.

However despite some of my teachers best efforts they still couldn't put me off from a love of learning and I am a bit of a serial student, whilst still working full time.

My work brings me into a lot of contact with teachers and I have to make sure my own prejudices do not set the agenda in my dealings with them. Fortunately most of the ones I meet seem to genuinely want to help children grow and learn, rather than viewing children as the downside to an otherwise good job.

[saxy_jag]

Hear, hear, Andyvon! Good for you, and down wiv skool!

Seriously, I bl00dy hated school! At least, I hated secondary/grammar school. I was one of the brightest and best at primary school (which was a very progressive state school for the 1960s and remains so even today) so I always knew I wasn't thick.

But whilst I was 'bright', I found out too late that I wasn't terribly academic and languished for five years in a traditional grammar school, taught by stuck up teachers who had no time for me because I didn't happen to conform to their middle-class values. I slogged my guts out for them for a year and a half, only to be told I wasn't trying hard enough. They humiliated me and treated me like a baby in an effort to make me study, and that was the point at which I - metaphorically at least - told them to stuff it! Above all, I wasn't allowed to study music as an extra curricular because I needed to work harder in weak subjects (Maths and History) and catch up first. So I switched off and simply went through the motions until the day I left to work in a factory putting collars in sports shirts! I was told (by the deputy head) that I would always regret leaving at 16, but you know, I never have.

I moved on though, under my own steam. I studied what and when I wanted to study. I caught up with history - got a degree in the subject actually. I did my music too - I now play several instruments to a competent standard. My maths is still weak, but it's better than it was, doesn't embarrass me and certainly doesn't hinder my musical skills.

[saxy_jag]

I will admit there have been times when I've wished I could have been an 'academic' type and enjoyed school like so many other seemed to do, but these days I'm glad I'm wasn't (despite the degree, I'm not academic - I only just scraped it, although I did enjoy doing it). I actually feel sorry for those who can only ever achieve 'success' through conformity, for they will never experience the sheer joy and satisfaction of doing something because they want to do it, and not because it's something they are expected or supposed to want to do.

I am not a successful businesswoman, nor am I financially anywhere near comfortable. But I have a good and happy life being myself and not some 9-5 automaton, brainwashed from the age of eleven into thinking 'this is the right way to do things'.

[Buenchico]

I hope you won't mind a rather belated response, Andyvon.

I never minded seeing 'Back to School' signs when I was a pupil. It was when I was teaching that they started getting annoying! Especially when they appeared several weeks before the end of the summer term ;-)

Chris

[Andyvon]

Thank you Chris and sorry for my belated reply.

It's interesting you are a teacher and I'm pleased you haven't taken offence as none has been intended. However, I had very real problems at school and like saxy_jag they've affected me for the rest of my life. My parents were told that one problem was that I would complete several days' work in one lesson. I would then have to spend the next few lessons gazing at the wall or out the window to "let the others catch up". When my father suggested giving me extra work the school said that wouldn't be fair on the others and they might get complaints from parents. When I kept answering questions I was told to stop to give the others a chance. I often worked maths answers out in my head but I would be marked wrong as I didn't show the working out! When I questioned that, I was 'making trouble'.

If the truth be known I think I cracked when I was 14. I stopped going to school but I wasn't out stealing or breaking windows. I withdrew into myself. I lost two stone and I didn't speak for several months. I was then labelled by the school and my parents as lazy and uncooperative!

Surely someone should have recognised a problem and tried to help. The school sent me to a child psychologist who told them I was too bright for the school. There must be so many other children in the same position. In that case they should be guided towqards other options in which they can succeed and make a contribution. I think it appalling to use academia to write a child off when they are 13 when they could have another 80 years of life ahead of them. And all because the established system doesn't work for them. What was I supposed to do? Continue gazing at the wall for another 2 years?

Sorry to ramble Chris but it all had such an affect on me. I was only a kid for God's sake! I can't blame myself at that age - I really think the school and the system should have done better.

[Andyvon]

I've also been most concerned about this latest idea of hauling parents of 'traunts' in front of the courts and threatening them with prison. OK, there are some scumbags out there who don't give a damn about themselves or their kids but there are so many parents whose children are also having problems at school and those are being ignored. We heard recently about a mother who was fined and threatened with jail, yet she was at her wits end trying to get her son to school. I know the courts threatening my mother would never have solved my problems! Do the government or education system really think it will? Do they really expect those children to sit and gaze at the wall too?

Thanks for your answer too Saxy_jag. I spent an hour writing you a reply - but when I clicked to post it my "webpage had expired"! I'm sorry but I'm also pleased you had similar experiences and perhaps you understand me as I think I might you. Don't worry too much about the financial thing. I found the secret to happiness is not having heaps of money - it's just having enough to be able to pay your bills and treat yourself to the occasional luxury whenever you fancy. If you have a family, your happiness will surely be more for having them near. I'm so pleased you were able to overcome those obstacles put in your way at school and that you are now able to pursue your chosen musical career. I'm sure your career will continue to go as well as you deserve.

Thanks again everyone. I'm too stressed out to write any more posts for a while.

[Ankou]

i dont really understand why you are looking back with such hatred when you seemed to have done so well from it. and i thought you were happily retired and relaxed with your holidays.

sometimes you gotta let these things go, move and and enjoy life.