Before I begin, I feel the need to say I am very aware that cows will sing in tune before education and adolescents live together in harmony. I am a firm believer that we must get rid of all social institutions including education and the whole concept of 'adolescence' before we can even begin to create a happy, functioning society. But more to the point; the education system is shit. Don't get me wrong, this rather bold statement is justified, I'm not one to accuse an institution of being shit with no justification. I should probably justify my statement so I'll start off with a dubiously useful fact: I do not like ice cream.
At the time of writing, I am behaving very out of character and like a typical 'teenage girl'. Watching Netflix, in a giraffe onesie with a tub of Ben & Jerry's. I repeat: I do not like ice cream. I'm almost certain there are much better things I could be doing with my Thursday evening but I am suffering with a very severe case of 'no-motivation-itis' and really don't have the energy to do anything but mourn over my hopeless life goals and general lack of 'get up and go!' Alas, I did try, I spent the early evening researching universities (despite the fact I have no intention whatsoever of going to university), calculating various UCAS points combinations along with the likelihood of me passing any of my AS exams, let alone A Levels, and teaching myself what I'm sure should have been taught in my Sociology lesson today. But it got to a point where I was getting far too frustrated, by a number of things, to continue.
The first was undoubtedly my lack of interest in the given task. Being a Sixth Form Student is exceedingly dull, especially the university application part. Trawling through a supposedly 'easy to use' website attempting to find a course that might enthuse me in the slightest was proving to be an impossible task and one I did not wish to continue. Perhaps I might find it more interesting if the thought of £9000 debt from one year's tuition, alone, wasn't looming over my head. Perhaps not. Maybe it's just me, maybe I'm incapable of getting excited about spending three or so years studying a subject that I may or may not devote my life to. Anyway, I soon gave up on this hopeless escapade and decided to try my luck at entry requirements. I can inform you now that from my predicted grades I shall, sadly, not be studying Mathematics at Cambridge university. It hit me quite hard that no matter how much work I put into my A Levels, the main reason for taking them is just for a number of points at the end of it. What relation have points got to anything I've learnt? Why should I bother learning all these definitions and model answers if all I'm going to get at the end is a letter and a few points? Now, for me, three B's at A2 doesn't seem to far out but this leads me to question whether I would want to attend a university that doesn't require me to push myself intellectually to get the grades required. At this point I reminded myself that I shouldn't overthink any of it because my plan is to avoid university AT ALL COSTS and I am merely doing this to please my stereotypical, PhD owning, high achieving, pushy parents who won't accept the fact I want a career in theatre.
The second reason for my frustration arose due to having to teach myself Sociology. Let's take a minute to remember that all the wonderful tax payers in the UK pay up their hard-earned cash to allow the government to pay teachers. So please, somebody inform me why I currently have no Sociology teacher? Truth be told, I wouldn't be so bothered by this if a) the exact same thing hadn't happened in my final GCSE year b) I wasn't 16 weeks away from starting exams and finally c) if I had the time to teach myself the complete syllabus outside of Sixth Form hours. Back to the matter at hand...why should tax payers be handing over money to the government if they can't even manage to find a teacher to fill every classroom? "There isn't enough competent teachers for every classroom" I hear Nick Clegg say, and Cleggy I shall give you a perfectly reasonable answer to that statement which is: if taking a Masters degree at university wasn't so damn expensive then you might have a few more competent teachers to inspire the next generation of competent teachers!
I could effortlessly write a year's worth of blog posts on why I hated my school yearshowever it may get a tad boring for you so I'll try and summarise in a maximum of two paragraphs. Firstly, when I was in year 6 I was informed by a teacher that my life plan (I was 10 years old) would never work and I should get my head out of the clouds. What a way to break a 10 year old's heart. This however, didn't stop me pursuing my life-long dream although it did anger me and was, quite possibly, the original cause of my resent for education. The next factor was, easily, the fact that I was constantly being compared to my genius older brother who had chosen to go to the private boys school. I, on the other hand, foreseeing the fact I would not pass the entry exam, opted for the closest state school. I had no idea that for the next 5 years everything I did or said, remotely related to my school would be instantaneously compared to my brother.
During the first three years of high school I was set unachievable goals causing me to feel incredibly inadequate when I didn't achieve any of them. I was not challenged once in the areas that I excelled in and all the school seemed to care about was me being able to add up numbers. If ever I tried to voice my opinion I would be 'trying to cause a riot' or 'craving attention'. I think you'll find, I did not 'crave attention', I merely craved for you to give me a bit of extra work every now and then to further my understanding of my favourite subjects! This was of course, too much to ask so i accepted the fact I would be have to be mediocre, nothing special. One last thing I have to say is about my time as Head Girl. I did not apply to be HG because i had a passionate love for the school. No, quite the opposite. I had such a passionate hate for my school that I wanted to do the best I could to change it, make it better for future students like myself. So I put time and effort into coming up with ideas and improvements for the school. Some of which went ahead, none of which I got the credit for. By the end of my run as Head Girl I felt I had accomplished something, not quite the difference I'd intended to make but a few changes all the same. But did I feel appreciated by the school? Not one bit. I gave them a lot, and I got nothing in return other than low standard teaching and cardboard tasting pizza lunches.
