My High School Expierence

A lot of people look back and think of their high school experience with a smile from the warm feeling of a fond memory. Most of us would agree that high school is a time we would probably rather forget. We had weird crushes, super bad acne and were emotional over EVERYTHING. Like most people, I experienced all those things. 

My mum and two of my brothers. 

Like many of you, I had good friends: I was in year seven when I made a first decent group of friends, by year 8, we dwindled down to a group of three, for transparency, I will call them Jade and Leigh. Though I am not in contact with either of them ladies anymore, I am grateful for the things they helped me through, the lessons we learned and the good times we shared. 

Jade, Leigh, and I were inseparable, we loved music, writing and being dramatic. At time
s, that is all I thought that mattered. Sure, it has been something like 19 years since I started high school. Yeah, high school is something I would rather forget, but for some reason, I cannot help but feel bitter about it. In this post, I am going to tell you why. 

(During my formative years I went through major childhood trauma. I might talk on this later in another post, but I just wanted to mention it here as it affects a lot of the events from this time period.)

In year 7, I was a bright kid. Like I mentioned, I had some things going on at home, my choice at this time was to dive into my schoolwork. Stories of typical high school laughs and betrayal and memories of o-so-fun teen drama fill my mind when I think about how much of that year played out. Isn’t puberty fun? 

By year 8, our trio’s personal struggles were starting to take hold, it is not my place to talk on what the other two were going through. I personally was really starting to struggle, inwardly and outwardly. At the mid-year parent-teacher interviews, my mum was impressed. Jade and I were constantly first and second in science class. Leigh and I were almost always high up in our maths class. Teachers had respect for me, it was looking like I was going to be moved up into the intermediate level of our year, mum was so proud. 

Then it all went downhill, fast. 

I do not know the exact date or time of year that it was, I felt as low as I ever had at that point in my life. I attempted to self-harm at school. It is not something I am proud of. The look on my mum's faces when she arrived to take me home is something that I have experienced twice, it is something I will never forget. To this day, roughly 18 years later, I still get tears in my eyes if I think about that look for too long. After this, I had a couple of days at home to get my head sorted a little and went back to school. Things went back to ‘normal’ fast before we knew it, we were levelling up into year 9. 

During the first week or two of year 9, Jade and I were called up to see one of the headteachers of the school. We were given a letter to take home to our parents. The letter was offering us a place in a “life skills” class. This class was explained to us as something amazing. We were told… no our parents were promised that we would have all of the same learning experiences as all of the other kids in our grade. The trade> We would not have to sit our school certificate tests; we would get an ‘average’ mark instead. We would also get help in certain ‘life skill’s’ that we were struggling with. 

It sounded amazing to Jade and me. We were being able to be in all classes with our best friend, all day every day, who could ask for more? Of course, we talked our parents into letting us do it. At some point over the next two years, we had even talked the school, Leigh, and her parents into letting her in the class with us. Oh, what a massive mistake that was, on my behalf at the very least. 

Other than our electives we were never given any worthwhile work. I specifically, remember that the sheets we were given to work through matched up perfectly to the work my brother was being given in the second grade. 

I gave up. 

The home was hard, the school was pointless (other than literally socializing) what was the point? 

My mum and I on my 14th Birthday

My personality changed a lot.  I became an aggressive, argumentative, disruptive kid, these things were extremely hard to grow out of as an adult, some-days, I still struggle holding these things in. So much for life skills, huh?

Our days consisted of a couple of things… wagging… sitting in the corner of the room (because we were bullied if we left it) and writing. Oh, and talking to random (probably creepy) strangers, as well as working off detentions by covering textbooks. Oh, and arguing with whoever would argue. 

We were in a class of kids who were constantly in trouble or causing a ruckus, misfits. I used to think that the three of us were better than that, but I realize now that I personally fitted into the misfit label with a shiny badge. 

I do not feel proud of being so bitter toward something that was a part of my life that ended 16 or so years ago. I honestly think back and believe that the promises that my high school broke are a big part of the reason that I struggle with a lot of the things that I struggle with today.

 They should have taught me how to write an essay, so I did not need to spend endless hours researching them taking away from actually doing my assessments. They should have taught me how to structure a paragraph or a sentence, so I did not have to lose marks on things like that. I never understood the ‘there, they’re and their’s’ or the ‘your, you’re’ until I was 21. Sure, they are something that I should have learned in primary school, they should have been picked up in high school. 

There are so many things that they should have helped me learn so I would be able to grow. Things that would help me today, especially in my writing career.  

Even with all the actions, I did show, they should have certainly picked up that I was ADHD before I was diagnosed at 31. 

My Little Brother and I

I am not saying that I am completely faultless after I gave up and learned how to argue, I was an asshole of a person to deal with and I enjoyed it... mostly. I am also not trying to say it was completely negative. I got my passion for music because I was put in that class. I started writing in year 7 but it really became ‘my thing’ in year 8. It became my lifeline and how I coped, it could have been nurtured a lot more by them, but it was not. 

  Whether it was because of the home issues or the situations we were put in at school, I grew up fast in high school. Is that a positive or a negative? I am not sure. 

 After conversations with my mum, Jade (and probably Leigh, but I do not recall) we…I believe that it was the actions I attempted against myself, as well as the struggles I was having at home that flagged us to be in that class. I believe that they wanted to watch us

make sure we were kept in line. Instead, they put us in the corner of the school and forgot about us. We did not even get a notification/letter whatever about when our formal was on, we found out the next day at school, and that was unfair. (my mom was heartbroken) 

Honestly, I’m not sitting here wishing warts on anybody’s grandchildren or anything, but I feel like as a place of education, they really let us down. They made the mountain of life harder than it needed to be.