Como alguém sobrevive aos seus dias de escola?

H ow does anyone survive their schooldays? I mean, nearly everyone does, obviously, 🍐 but that doesn't mean it shouldn't count as one of life's great achievements. The happiest days of your life? For 🍐 some of us, maybe. For a few others, the worst of days. But for everyone, in their own way, they 🍐 are as challenging as anything adult life throws at you. I base this view on my own schooldays, my children's, 🍐 their friends', and the children of my friends. In nearly every case, the kids involved have been just fine, they've 🍐 done well, but I can't help feeling these successes are achieved against all odds.

O primeiro dia de escola

Day one is 🍐 monumental enough. My mummy dropped me off and left me with a bunch of children I didn't know, and a 🍐 nice lady called Mrs Timmins. Blimey, I thought, this is a big deal. I got through it, though. When my 🍐 mum picked me up to take me home for lunch, my little chest was puffed out with pride. I'd done 🍐 well, everyone said. But after lunch the bombshell was dropped that I'd be going back there for the afternoon. What? 🍐 And I'd be going back the following day, and the day after that, and every subsequent day for the foreseeable 🍐 future. This hadn't been made clear to me. I thought it was a one-time event to be brave about, like 🍐 a visit to the nurse for a jab, or a trip to a safari park. Nobody told me it was 🍐 a whole new way of life. I was outraged.

Encontrar-se um grupo de estranhos

Finding yourself in a group of strangers 🍐 is tough enough as an adult. How did we make our way through it when we were not long out 🍐 of nappies? It would be another decade before my schoolwork involved reading Lord of the Flies and by then, even 🍐 in the absence of fatalities, I knew what Golding was getting at.

A política do recreio pode ser selvagem

The politics of 🍐 the playground can be savage. You have a friend who's your best friend who decides someone else is their best 🍐 friend and doesn't want to play with you any more. Obviously, this kind of thing is standard, happens all the 🍐 time, but in that moment you can't know this – you're just a tiny kid feeling like it's the end 🍐 of the world. Somehow you dig deep into your young soul and find a way of coping. You have to. 🍐 And this is how we learn to be resilient. I get that. But that doesn't mean it's not hard.

Desafios massivos

And 🍐 over the next dozen years or more, these massive challenges come rolling in, day after day, week after week, term 🍐 after term. You don't understand what you're being taught. You keep getting bad marks. You struggle with homework. You want 🍐 to be cleverer than you are. You can't get in the school team for something. You're in a fight – 🍐 which is terrible, even if you win, and utterly shaming if you lose. Then there's all the nascent sexual politics 🍐 to navigate. You fancy someone. You get your friend to ask them out for you. Your friend returns with the 🍐 bad news. And soon everyone knows it. And these days, ye gods, whatever your bad news is, the whole world 🍐 might know it, thanks to social media. And all of the above stresses and strains will follow you home and 🍐 stick to you for ever.

Deixando a escola ou o colégio

Whenever I meet an 18-year-old leaving school or college, my first 🍐 thought isn't how their exams have gone or what they're doing next. I just want to know that they're OK, 🍐 that physically and mentally they're in one piece. If so, great, well done, onward. The rest of your life might, 🍐 comparatively, be less of a struggle than you've been led to believe.