As the distance between present time and my school years stretch thinner and thinner, I begin to realize something I could not grasp before; namely why many adults say if they were presented with the chance, they'd redo school and really work to raise their grades.
Recently, for some inexplicable reason, churning in the darkest and most unvisited part of my mind is a raw lust to learn. When I left school, there was not a more sickening or repulsive thought in the world than continuing studying, but now, quite inexplicably, idle thoughts sneak into my head, absent-minded brooding about what I'd do if - yep, you guessed it - I could redo school. First this confused me, but as I thought about it, it slowly became clear to me. So here, in all its glory, is the reason why (or so I believe):
Everyone has a preferred subject in which perhaps good grades were achieved. This is natural, for what interests us is obviously something we pay more attention to. But school was never about what interested us (well, for most of us anyway). It was about what others thought we ought to learn. Sure, we had that grain of diamond dust that was our favourite subject, but it was hidden in a two tonne heap of sand. The sand, as you may understand, are the other subjects. We never got to fully enjoy that piece of learning we really liked, because there was this two tonne weight holding us down. We never got to choose what subjects we wanted to study, and then, also quite naturally, the subjects that were forced upon us we started to neglect. Therefore, the universal grades began to be affected.
What I believe is forgotten by those on the 'other side of school' is all the other irrelevant and almost vexing subjects that took up our time and drained our lust for learning. This we do not want to relive, even though we promptly say so. What we really want to do, is simply what we want to do. This we were never granted, because we had to do what others wanted us to do.
What if we had the choice to choose what we wanted to learn from the beginning? What would have happened, I wonder.
V.C.
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