Back To School

@ecency-star released A Prompt, asking is to talk about our school hood, and tell some stories about it; which I thought would be a great opportunity to reminisce.

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School
I hated school, as far as I was concerned, it was the worst thing about being young, and had I been given half a chance I would have dropped out way sooner.

So, for the first two years of schooling when I was 5 and 6 years old - we call it junior and senior infants over here - I enjoyed it, and loved going to school to play in the yard and see my friends, my teacher was nice too which was a bonus.

I went to an all-Irish-speaking school, we spoke English, but all of our lessons were in Irish and while there I learned the lingo pretty well and would often come back with words and phrases, much to the amusement of my family.

When I was 6 I met my childhood best friend and I decided to leave the Irish school and go to the primary school he was in. It was an all-boys school, and I did 6 years there, from 1st class to 6th class.

It was there that I met a bunch of my mates who I've been friends with since then, up until now.

Primary School

Everything was fine until I got to 6th class. In that year I had a teacher who was the biggest dickhead imaginable, and who seemed to get a kick out of intimidating kids.

I became a target of his on the first day in his class; never got along with him and would regularly get lines, or just randomly picked out and humiliated.

It was soul-destroying in a way, and thinking back on it, it was here that I formed a hatred for school in general. I was a pretty happy child and enjoyed going before that final year there. I was made a mockery of, a lot. I had long hair which I started growing when I was 10 as soon as I started getting into music, so now at 12 it was pretty long; if my appearance wasn't mocked on a given day, my public reading skills and handwriting were targeted. I remember he would make me stand up while reading, much to the amusement of most of the class, as I stuttered my way through the pages.

On a Friday we had spelling tests, and my spelling was terrible. Every week I would get the worst score in the class and he would make sure to read out my mistakes and laugh and then get everyone to give me a bhabhta bualadh bos (Round of applause) - By the end of the year I started 'owning it' by bowing and laughing at the end, but it was really a defense mechanism to try and pretend it didn't bother me. I wouldn't find out I had Dyslexia until I was 16, so me being bad at school work and very basic stuff was called laziness throughout secondary school too, by the time I actually found out I was Dyslexic, it was too late to really do anything about it.

Now, I'm not saying I was the only one, there were five of us that he took a disliking to before the year was up; the longest year in my life.

Here's something that is also kind of sad, I made a comic book back then, I must have been 11 or so, it was before joining his class. My mum found it a couple of years ago, it was terrible, but not bad.

I remember getting into writing stories and stuff at that time, and while working on one in class it was picked up and read. I felt my blood run cold as everyone laughed at it. Literally, you know what, it was 100% the child in another brick in the wall, when the teacher reads out his poetry, that's exactly what happened to me.

The mean old bastard.

The teacher I had was exactly like the prick in this video ^ but worse.

It was then that I gave up on writing stories, and it wouldn't be until I was 23 that I got back into it while learning Scriptwriting in college.

I'm not saying I would have been an amazing author or anything, but I sometimes wonder what could have happened if I'd followed that passion since I was 11 or 12 till now. How many other kids out there are being ridiculed and discouraged from being the next big artist, writer, musician, or poet?

I'm glad I'm writing now, but I think if I'd been doing it since then I would be much better.

Secondary School
I went to an all-boys secondary school, and it was pretty rough, but I really enjoyed my time there.

I had a fair few teachers who didn't like me, and who tried to ridicule me, saying things like "Oh, why do you want to look like a girl?" one of them asked when I was in 1st year, and I just waited for the laughs to settle down and replied. "So you're saying Jesus looks like a girl then?" (It was a catholic school) They stumbled through their words and responded, "Well, that's different, blah blah blah."

My drop-the-mic moment was when I asked, "Why do you care about my appearance? Isn't that a bit weird that you're commenting on how I look?" Her face went red and the lads in the class had a right craic out of that.

The school itself was falling apart, and by the time I got to 5th year, we were being transferred to a new school and the current one was being closed down.

My parents couldn't afford a brand-new uniform, books, and all that stuff, for me to do one year, so I dropped out at 17, and that was the end of that.

I sometimes think about those secondary school days, it was so much fun. I was always in trouble because, by the time I got to 14, I started back chatting, mainly because I was sick of being ridiculed and mocked.

Not in every class, I had a math teacher who was nuts, but the good kind of crazy, and I got along with her really well. I remember I was working away and she noticed I could work stuff out in my head and she said, "You're like me, you can see the numbers!" As she excitedly started to test me haha, she was great.

I also loved TG, Technical Graphics, and had a great teacher for it, he was really laid back and easygoing, also when he left the class a T-Square fight would break out haha so it was good fun. I dropped out of that class in 3rd year though and moved to Art, another class I really liked.

History was one of my favourite subject though, and I would have some great chats with my teacher in that class since I learned about stuff outside of school that I would often chat with her about.

English was a pretty okay class, and the teacher was nice; the funny thing about this class, so, you have higher level English and the Normal level. We were in resource-level English. To put it in perspective, each year Spanish students would come to Ireland to learn and they would be in our class, in fact, there were some lads who actually got into higher English classes than us. Personally, I think we all had dyslexia there, but for some reason, the school didn't spot it.

School was fun, for the most part, but not for the learning, or the teachers; the main thing I liked about it was the messing in class and getting in trouble, by the end, that was the main reason I went there. Most of the teachers gave up on me, so I kind of gave up on myself, it was a vicious cycle.

Not succeeding in school hasn't stopped me from achieving things or going to college, I think a lot of stress and pressure is put on people while at school, when really, they should be focusing on making friends and having fun, and in general, forming a personality.

I think the school system here and in a lot of countries is outdated and only caters to one type of person. Really, it should be broken down and completely rebuilt, and restructured to accommodate all types of students.

I heard so many times in class, "I don't care, I'm still getting paid." Like, that's the attitude of teachers, when maybe instead of being stubborn, they should try to help people on an individual level and realise that not every person is the same. I get you can't focus your sole attention on students, classes just aren't long enough for that. But, leaving people behind isn't good either.