Teenage Years

Not sure if I should really write about my teenage years - LOL!

I was fortunate that I loved school and I loved learning (and still do) so my education was no issue. The other thing which mostly kept me out of trouble was my horse. My parents theory was that if I had a horse, I would be less likely to want to stay at friend's places or to go out all the time as teenagers tend to do. Cinemas and fashion shopping were expensive pastimes which my parents could ill afford. Well, it worked! Although my horse was not a cheap option, it was more of a known quantity. It was also a huge responsibility for me as the riding side was only a small part of owning my horse. Feeding, grooming, watering and cleaning the tack, the stable and the paddocks were the most time consuming aspects. I was left with little spare time outside of school to do anything else and I loved it.

Don't think I was the perfect teenager though. I tried smoking without my mother finding out but she did. In fact her sense of smell was so acute that she picked it up a mile away...duuuh! I even caused my parents some grief when I wagged classes during 4th Form (now known as Year 10). One time, I absconded from school at lunchtime with another girl and we walked all the way home which took us the better part of 2 hours. I arrived home at the same time as normal and my mother had no idea until I did the same thing on another occasion and before I got home, she had received a phone call from the Deputy Principal informing her that I had disappeared from school in the afternoon. You could say that the welcome home from my mother that afternoon was not the most pleasant experience!!!

I had not wagged because I did not like school anymore. I wagged because at that time in the mid 70's, we had loads of teachers from overseas coming in on tax-free, one or two year teaching contracts to make up for the shortage of teachers. The particular American teacher I had for one of my subjects, simply did not care what we learnt, he was there on a holiday and I was bored in class. I was also frustrated as I wanted to finish High School and go on to University and I felt the school was letting me down and putting me at a disadvantage in terms of lack of adequate preparation for the final two years of my secondary schooling. And for some reason at that school, from the time I started in Form 1 (Year 7), I ended up in the worst class of each year level for the next four years which did not help. It just goes to show that if you put a good, hardworking student in with a bad class full of difficult students who do not want to be there, the bad behaviour will begin to influence the good student. That is what happened to me. I wanted to learn and it was extremely difficult with the constant disruptions by the 'naughty' kids which negatively affected the class atmosphere. How did I solve my problem? If you can't beat them, join them! There is a lot to be said for streaming in schools i.e. keep the outstanding students together in one class, the mediocre students in another class and the weak students separate again.

My major concern was getting teachers at that school who did not care and I did not want to fail in Form 5 (Year 11) and Form 6 (Year 12) because of this. My wagging convinced my parents to move me to another school so I could complete the final two years in a more positive environment. And that is exactly what I did and with my love of learning reignited, I got through my secondary education and into tertiary studies.