Coping with School

  This is what this part of the Jamboree is about.  If you have any personal stories or any advice to other children and young people then they would be very welcome!  Please send them to me, Wendy, here.


Ways to Cope with School

Here is some advice on how to get through school.
It is mainly based on my experience in a French school when I was nine years old, after having been taught at home for the previous four years. I only stayed there for a term because fortunately I left after that, but when I was there I put the points below into practice and was never bullied, hurt, insulted, or laughed at, (which is more than the other children could say).  I do have to add, though, that it was still very boring and a waste of time.

    ~    Blend In:   School is all about conforming.  Originality is squashed and differences are hated.  If someone is too rich or too poor, too fat or too thin, too pale or too dark, too fast or too slow, too smart or too shabby, or, in short, too anything, they are often disliked.  Obviously, then, it is a good idea to blend in as far as one is able.
School is really best when no one takes much notice of you and therefore, to blend in well, one should do what one is told, not be late, or noisy, or annoy the teachers - basically be 'good'.  After all, if one is going to spend a lot of time somewhere it is best to obey the rules, even if one doesn't agree with them, otherwise one ends up making life much harder for oneself. 

     ~    Stand up for yourself:   However, there are some differences which can't be helped and some ways of behaving which you don't want to change.  Also, there are teachers or other children who just seem to pick on you; if this is the case, then you have to stand up for yourself.
This may be easier for some people than for others, but it is essential if you want to get through school, or life, unharmed.
If you decide to stand up for yourself you may never need to actually do it.  Somehow, people can tell a strong person by the way they walk, or from merely the look in their eyes, it is a known fact that a confident person is much less likely to be attacked in the street than someone who is scared.

I have included here two stories from history.  The first is a couple of incidents from Cato's life, which Samuel has written.  They are perfect examples of how a brave man will always stay true to what he believes in no matter how many people are against him.  And the second is the true story of how Frederick Douglass, a slave in North America, stood up for himself, when the situation was even more dire than something school can concoct.

     ~    Do as You Would be Done By:    If you never behave like a bully yourself then it is quite likely people won't touch you.
It may sound too easy, and yet I believe it to be true -  it has certainly been so for me.   At the school I was at, I must have been the only child in the playground who didn't get kicked that term, and I was also the only child who didn't kick others.
In a system where everyone older bullies everyone younger, it is hard not to imitate, but if you start to play the game yourself, you can only expect it from others.

     ~    Try to Remain Untouched:     No matter how hard we fight against it, school influences us hugely, all we can do is try to remain untouched.  The manners, language, skills and habits that we pick up from school are of no use to us in later life, and the next task after school is over, is the strange one of trying to undo and normalize ourselves after the effect that school has had.  When one is caught up in the system one is generally unaware of this effect, or at least I was, but it is clear to everyone that honesty, modesty, truthfulness, calmness, and virtue are qualities that are rarely found within the school walls.  In fact, the opposite seems to be more true.  One only has to spend a short amount of time at school, before one learns such things as cheating, lying, bad language, insults, etc., and the habits of eating sweets and junk food and doing things without one's parents' knowledge, which can stay with one for the rest of one's life.
It helps if you just see school as something to be got through and try to have a different life outside of it.

Conclusion 
A balance between these four points, will, I hope, help someone to get through school more easily.  
  
But, to be honest, modern schools are often so unpleasant, it is hard to offer any hope to those who are in them but don't enjoy them.  Even to talk or write about them is depressing, let alone spend time in them.  Nobody is really aware of the terrible things that go on there and even the people that are aware of them seem to somehow accept or ignore them.  And yet so long as you remember that there is life beyond school, and that you don't have to behave like the other children there, who knows what a difference you can make.  Great men and women, who have pursued what they believed in, stand out like bright stars in the dim night of history.  Truthfulness and determination are like swords that are stronger than any weapon, and it is amazing how, when armed with these, no one wants to fight with you.

Maybe the best way to look at it is as a challenge, or like a great labour of Hercules which you can try to overcome.  People who have persevered through difficulties in the past have won themselves places in our history books, and maybe in the future the names will be remembered of the children who had to endure and then overcame that strange system which locked children up in buildings where they were known to suffer and be unhappy, yet no one thought to change.

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