Twelve years, I've spent there, feeling trapped and suppressed, yet strangely free. School- the bane of a child's existence; the word bringing back memories of falling mathematics grades and whispered secrets about who likes who and did you hear about when Jessica did over the weekend?
And we have those courses. Mathematics (which always enjoyed torturing me, eliciting oh-I-get-it's and this-is-easy's before springing up and challenging me when it mattered most), English (which never failed to be my favorite class, regardless of how terrible the teacher may be), Science (which only captured my attention when focused on important matters- like space), and Social Studies (also known as the let's-go-read-about-dead-peoples'-mistakes class). And those classes make up what school's really supposed to be about. Discipline. Hard work. Studying. But none of that really matters come ten, twenty, thirty years.
School teaches you much more than whatever it is you needed in order to get the hell out of there.
School taught me how to laugh, even when it seems like you can't. Because these people aren't just your classmates- and they certainly aren't family (unless they are). These are people who will (to some extent) care and, probably to your displeasure, remember. So you laugh. You laugh it away and smile and grin and do your very best to not be sad because sadness is a vulnerability. And the worst thing to be whilst in school is vulnerable.
School introduced me to the world outside of the box, taking my out of my comfort zone and into new experiences. It taught me not fear but to, instead, live. So it hands us this experience of, say, failing a test or losing a friend or having to go serve detention and it builds us, brick by brick, until we are no longer who we were.
I learned to let go. To let go of whatever it is that happened in fifth grade because today? Today is a new day, filled with who knows what (and probably some math too). I learned to dream big. Because school doesn't last forever and, when those final, fleeting minutes of care-free living is up, chances are that no one's going to care that you can count up to a thousand or that you can recite the periodic table of elements. They're going to care about what the hell you're going to do with your life now that you don't have a textbook to hide behind, claiming that you're 'too busy studying' to go out and live life.
And then nostalgia. Of all the feelings I have ever managed to feel, nostalgia is probably one of my least favorites, simply because it leaves this terrible feeling that something is gone. Truly gone. We have school ten (give or take) months a year and for
And we have those courses. Mathematics (which always enjoyed torturing me, eliciting oh-I-get-it's and this-is-easy's before springing up and challenging me when it mattered most), English (which never failed to be my favorite class, regardless of how terrible the teacher may be), Science (which only captured my attention when focused on important matters- like space), and Social Studies (also known as the let's-go-read-about-dead-peoples'-mistakes class). And those classes make up what school's really supposed to be about. Discipline. Hard work. Studying. But none of that really matters come ten, twenty, thirty years.
School teaches you much more than whatever it is you needed in order to get the hell out of there.
School taught me how to laugh, even when it seems like you can't. Because these people aren't just your classmates- and they certainly aren't family (unless they are). These are people who will (to some extent) care and, probably to your displeasure, remember. So you laugh. You laugh it away and smile and grin and do your very best to not be sad because sadness is a vulnerability. And the worst thing to be whilst in school is vulnerable.
School introduced me to the world outside of the box, taking my out of my comfort zone and into new experiences. It taught me not fear but to, instead, live. So it hands us this experience of, say, failing a test or losing a friend or having to go serve detention and it builds us, brick by brick, until we are no longer who we were.
I learned to let go. To let go of whatever it is that happened in fifth grade because today? Today is a new day, filled with who knows what (and probably some math too). I learned to dream big. Because school doesn't last forever and, when those final, fleeting minutes of care-free living is up, chances are that no one's going to care that you can count up to a thousand or that you can recite the periodic table of elements. They're going to care about what the hell you're going to do with your life now that you don't have a textbook to hide behind, claiming that you're 'too busy studying' to go out and live life.
And then nostalgia. Of all the feelings I have ever managed to feel, nostalgia is probably one of my least favorites, simply because it leaves this terrible feeling that something is gone. Truly gone. We have school ten (give or take) months a year and for
