What are your regrets about your time at school?

[Nigglenaggle]

I was just reading another thread about opinions on home schooling and was struck by how many people said that the children would miss out. So probably it's just me and most people had a much more positive school experience. But I thought I'd tackle it from the other end. I will start and say how much I hated being with the other children. And waiting to walk home so I wouldn't be spat on. Not eating because there was nowhere safe to have lunch. Being pushed and shoved. Having someone steal my craft project. As an adult, I socialise fine, but I choose to avoid twats. I wish I'd had that option as a child, as I really did enjoy learning. I await a flood of answers from people who loved school I will add that at the time I was at school, home ed wouldn't have been practical for us, and that I feel that the school I went to was excellent and couldn't have done better - fab teaching.

I went to a school that was truly excellent by most measures I can think of - and hated every second of it.

I was just overly exposed to people. I am an introvert, I need some privacy and some peace and quiet, as well as a decent amount of 'alone' time.

When I was at school I was surrounded by people 10+ hours a day, and it overwhelmed me utterly. Made the whole thing not work for me.

Regrets?

Moments of total injustice (being told off for things I hadn't done etc)

The pressure to be a particular kind of person at particular ages (even needing to invent crushes on people in order not to be socially excluded by other girls - crazy!).

Boredom. That moment when the sun was beaming in through the window, and eyelids drooping and knowing that any minute now I would drop off to sleep and there was nothing at all I could do about it.

Not being able to be friends with a boy without it being a source of ridicule "is he your boyfriend???" from age 12 to age 18.

Not being able to study the subjects I wanted, because of timetable clashes, or because they simply weren't available at that school.

And actually, I'm one of the success stories - I thrived academically right through, and socially always had a gang of friends (except for two very bad years, which the result of a combination of circumstances and not because the institution of School was something I couldn't successfully navigate socially in the abstract).

HE wasn't an option for me as a child (just unheard of in those days, unless you were royal), but we Home Educate our children and they seem pretty happy with their lives. :)

All that wasted time. Time when we were "learning" something that I already knew, or which was new to me but which could have been covered in half an hour instead of an hour. Time listening to administrative stuff that didn't concern me directly. The effort of sitting and doing nothing.

The noise, and being with too many people for too many hours.

When I was small, the fear. I was a timid child and not ready to be in a big busy place where one might get lost or be told off. At school there was no adult I trusted enough to confide that I'd forgotten my lunch or lost my pencil, that I felt sick to my stomach, or that I didn't understand what we'd been asked to do.

When I was older, the pressure to conform, and the toll on my self-esteem when I didn't conform. I thought I was socially inept because I hadn't mastered the art of teen cliques, of laughing at certain people and sucking up to others. I only realised there was nothing wrong with me when I left school and suddenly found I had now become popular simply by being nice to people.

The conviction that I was better than other people because I happened to be good at demonstrating exactly those skills valued in the school system. (But there were no winners in this: you could be popular with the other kids or with the teachers, but not with both.)

The rarity of learning something purely for pleasure, without seeking anybody's approval. I was a model pupil, and I knew just what to say and do in order to please the teachers. (I even knew which teachers favoured "independent thinkers", so I challenged those teachers even when I agreed with them... just to impress them.) I can't seem to break that habit. To this day when I learn I very often look over my shoulder to make sure someone is watching. I hate that.

Being told I just had to get on with it, that teenage girls were 'like that'/should be ignored... With my undiagnosed Aspergers I took that to mean I should blank them, exactly what they'd been doing to me. It didn't help the situation.

I was told to fuck off because nobody liked me - literally those exact words. We were 17 when I was told that & I'd lived through 9 years of being blanked one minute & best-friend-ed the next by another group of girls & thought I'd finally managed to break free of them & make new friends.

My school was supposed to be the best in the area. I once got up the courage to ask for help from the deputy head - she told me she could make people be friends. This was 5 minutes after she led an anti-bullying assembly.

I couldn't bare to draw attention to myself. I was constantly being told how clever I was & how I could do so much better if only I "tried". No idea what that meant. I talked like an adult right from when I was about 8 so gave the impression of being clever. I was terrible at taking tests & my memory recall is atrocious. I know the knowledge is in there but ask me a direct question & I can barely remember my own name! I wanted so much to learn though. I found so many subjects fascinating but they were taught in a very "this is what you need to know to get through the exam" which utterly bored me & was rarely the aspects of the subject I was interested in. There was never any discussion around the topic, only what was needed for the exams.

Teachers told me off for not understanding things & said I should've asked for it to be explained again. I finally got up the courage to ask, in an A-level class, for a bit more detail about the topic - a fairly insightful, interesting question, I thought. I was proud to finally not only 'get' something but to be able to be curious about it & ask deeper questions. I was told very shortly that if I wanted to know the answer I would have to do a degree because she didn't have time to explain. Exactly the reason I'd never dared ask a question before - no-one would've made time to help.

As an adult, I spend time with people who have similar interests to me. People who treat me with respect. I also spend my time researching things that are interesting to me & have a much deeper knowledge of all sorts of subjects & a better understanding of my own strengths.

I will probably never be able to hold down a proper job because of how much school messed me up. I can't handle being around anyone who isn't very similar to me because I automatically assume they're going to hate me & exclude me so I become increasingly introverted, appear unfriendly & it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

DS1 is only 3.5y but I'm picking up on a lot of subtle Asperger symptoms. I fully intend to home ed my children. I'm in touch with the busy local groups although I'm terrified of actually getting involved because they're all really close & I have no idea how to insert myself into an established group & plan to make sure my children are introduced to people of as many races/social classes/etc. as possible so they have much broader social spheres than I had growing up. We were perceived as being part of the 'posh' part of town lower middle class & so it was expected that I'd socialise with the other 'posh' people - these being the ones who blanked me. I was looked at as if I had 2 head or told to F off if I dared try to socialise with anyone else.

I'll stop now... Needless to say, I'm not a fan of education institutions - the one size fits all concept really doesn't 'fit all'!

Also, pretty much everything everyone's already said! I'm 28 & still have to share my new-found knowledge with DH, including calling him throughout the day while he's supposed to be working, because I feel like I need it validated - as if I need someone to pat me on the head & confirm that I do understand!

I read the first page or so of the other HE thread but stopped after that because I couldn't handle the number of people talking about school as if it was the best thing ever. They just refuse to understand what it's like for some of us & often seem to victim-blame & I always end up feeling like my school experience was my fault for not standing up for myself or trying harder - there's that ridiculous phrase again: "must try harder". The really daft thing is that I was often accused of being a "try-hard" for just being me! Can't win!

I really will stop now... I tend to get a little over-emotional when I start thinking about it. I'm already seeing my 3yo dealing with the same friendship issues. He's had a couple of friends but they're always closer to other children because their mothers prefer to socialise with each other. It breaks my heart to see him standing there staring at his friend playing with someone else & I can see him trying to decide if he should try to join in or not. When he does try to join in they barely notice he's there & he ends up following them round like a puppy until he accepts that they're not going to invite him into their game & goes off to play by himself. It's so depressing seeing your struggles reflected back at you in your child & not be able to do anything!

Ok, I'm over-tired... Definitely need sleep! This is why I usually avoid threads comparing school & HE, I always end up upset!

gnu very sorry for dredging things up for you xx. I have found home ed groups a very laid back lot so far, I am sure that you and your DC will find lots of people you get on with, and that he will have a much better 'school' experience than you did. I don't think it's a case of a few introverts not having a good experience, I think few people really remember those days with glee. So I struggle to understand really, as someone who went to school, exactly what home educated kids are missing out on. As Saracen says, as an adult, I don't allow myself to get into situations as unpleasant as those I experienced at school. It's not that I'm not grateful for the teachers who tried their best and did help me, but there's only so much that you can do when you have responsibility for so many children, and of course school can be very stressful for teachers too, so you don't always see people at their best. I expect shortly someone will be along to tell us how it was the best time of their lives and they wish they were still there....

Of my friends children who are old enough to talk to about it, one will tell you that she enjoys school. The others think that she is crazy...

Great thread!

The very early starts. I am a night owl - getting up so I could leave the house at 7.30 did not suit me. I don't think it helped me in my day as I just wasn't in the right frame of mind. I learn better later in the day.

Lack of freedom. So much structure. I understand why - what else can they do with a class of 30, but argh, it was so restricting.

Wanting to do certain topics/subjects, but they didn't fit in with the timetable, so I'd miss out. Or there weren't enough typewriters or whatever for all of us to learn how to type, so some of us just didn't! (Until we escaped school. I am very fast now, but I remember starting uni wishing I was much more proficient than I was on that score.)

So much wasted time - filling an hour with something we could cover in 20 minutes.
Waiting for other people to catch up.

Having to concentrate for a full hour, because if you dared let yourself daydream for a moment, you were lost, and missed out on some important detail that messed up the rest of the lesson.

The whole learn-to-pass-exams thing, rather than instilling in me a lifelong passion for learning just for the joy of it.

The intense pressure of exams.

My mother did actually want to home ed us (in the 80s), but my father was against it. I didn't know this until recently, when I told her we were going to home ed our DC, and she said she wishes she had done so with us.

I loved my first school and learned a lot and found my old report the other day I was A/B student at that school.

But I hated secondary for the following reasons;
That I wasn't encouraged enough (understatement).
The vile bitchy girls although I wasn't particularly on their radar.
Seeing bullies get away with pure nastiness towards nice kids.
Copying from the board and learning nothing.
On Sunday nights I used to dread the thought of school the next day.
All that sitting - I'm a natural doer and have never had a job that involves sitting down for most of the day.
P.E. I was actually good at some sports, but just overlooked.
Not really understanding all the fall outs/dramas.

I liked the social side though- the discos, French exchange, camping trips etc. And my best friend who I'm still best friends with :)

The floodgates open.

You all have reminded me of a description of a book called "Wounded by School: Recapturing the Joy in Learning and Standing up to Old School Culture". I've not read the book, only this summary: www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201106/how-does-school-wound-kirsten-olson-has-counted-some-ways

Apparently the author did not set out to describe school trauma. She originally had a different mission. She intended to describe the wonderful school experiences which, she assumed, must have been the precursor to the success which certain people later enjoyed. But when she began to interview people about school, she didn't hear the stories she had expected.

I've had some very fruitful discussions with people, including my partner, who initially didn't understand why I would want to deprive my kids of all that school has to offer. In an unguarded moment when we haven't been talking about home education, and when the subject naturally arises in conversation, I say something like, "Tell me about your time at school."

Then I wait and listen. And these stories come. A few are pleasant, but a great many are really very painful.

Or I'll not mention school at all, but just ask people to tell me their best memories from childhood. "Where were you? Who was with you?" and later I may ask about the worst things which happened to them. Or, "Tell me something interesting you remember learning about when you were a kid."

The pattern is often stark. I observed to my partner that nearly all of his traumatic childhood memories were associated with school. All of his happiest times were elsewhere. Once he had begun to really remember and feel what it had been like to be that little boy, he started to realise that he wanted to give his daughter a different experience. We didn't really discuss home ed after that; I could see the penny drop and his objections evaporate.

School Uniform

I really, really regret not taking full advantage of the excellent education offered to me.
I wish I had worked harder at subjects I didn't like such as science and maths, and not just concentrated on the arts.
Nobody's fault but mine.

I always loved learning. About a fifth of the teachers were interested in teaching. I was a grade A student. Our school year was the most sucessfull to go through the school (achieved the most A levels by miles). I was a shy and very well behaved girl, no trouble to anybody. But I was bored stupid.

One history teacher spent the entire lesson putting up a projector screen only to show us the same 3 slides for a whole year. The second history teacher would tell us about monks for 10 mins then talk about campanology for the rest of the time. One RE teacher spent a year explaining 3 facts to us - actually it was one fact: the rivers Ur and Euphrates join the Red Sea, but there were 3 names to remember. We weren't allowed to cook in cookery classes as the school didn't have a teacher insured to do it with us. We were top stream so were not allowed the option of photography or typing or drama. Girls were not allowed to do woodwork but I don't think I would have enjoyed making the giant dice that the boys took a year to make.

I wish I had been given catch up lessons on the few occasions I was ill. I missed learning to do tan in Maths because we were drip fed information and I had no idea how to find out about it myself. In A level physics we had to differentiate equations. I wasn't doing A level Maths so had no clue how that worked. The physics teacher shrugged his shoulders at me and told me he didn't have time to teach it. I wish someone had taught me how to find out stuff for myself.

My experience was fairly similar to AGnu's- undiagnosed Aspergers made secondary school hell for me. There was mild but continuous bullying from the children, but it was mainly the teachers I struggled with.

I went to a very academic school with a great reputation and glowing OFSTED reports. It was obvious from my point of view that they cared more about their reputation than they did about the mental well-being of their pupils. I drifted along for a couple of years with 'could do better' reports but OK results. Then it all went tits up in my GCSE years. There was too much work (I calculated that with homework I was doing 60 hour weeks at 14 years old), there was too much pressure and any 'encouragement' consisted of being told I was lazy and that I would never amount to anything if I didn't work harder. I was working hard and I was burning out but no-one seemed to care how I actually felt, it was all just about results. The more burnt-out I became, the less work I did and the more trouble I got into. I don't want to go into loads of details but I was pretty ill.

I became a school-refuser, my attendance was around 50% at one point and the EWO was sent round to see my DM.

I did pass all my GCSEs in the end, and my results were not that bad. It was enough to get me into college which is good because the school refused to have me back for A levels anyway. The system they had is that you had to be recommended for A level by your GCSE teacher to be accepted on the course. I got recommended for one A level, Art, even though I only got a C. My art teacher liked me. All the other subjects I got 'not recommended' even though I got an A in my physics exam. They just didn't want me there.

I did really well at college and loved it, I'm still in touch with my tutors. It was the right environment for me. But the damage was done.

I still have nightmares about school :( Actual wake-up-in-a-cold-sweat nightmares. If enough people tell you you are lazy and will never make anything of yourself then you start to believe it and it's hard to shake off. I still have massive problems with criticism and authority and like AGnu it's unlikely that employment will ever work out for me.

And that's without even going into all the previously mentioned things like school uniform (scratchy and uncomfortable), memorising rather than learning, having to tick boxes, lack of freedom, lack of choice of subjects etc.

Eau Sorry you had to and are continuing to go through a similar experience. Sucks doesn't it?!

That my teachers and parents let me get away with doing very little because they liked me and I was friendly. If I had been pushed a bit more I think I would have realised how much more I could do instead of getting away with the minimum.

I was reading Saracens link and the first wound really rings true for me. When I was little I wanted to be a writer. It might be hard for people who are used to reading my posts to believe, but I still have some of the stuff I wrote then, and I was good at it. My primary school was really supportive of my interest and sometimes used to give me time just to write, while the class did something else. Of course at secondary that didn't happen. My parents would have supported whichever path I chose but by GCSE time, I had my heart set on a scientific career. After many years of struggling, I'm doing OK now, but I've had some very dark days. I work with the general public and although I've mastered that now, I think the life of a writer would have come more naturally. I don't regret the knowledge I have of science, but I'm sure I could've combined the two. My parents supported whatever I wanted to do but I think they were secretly disappointed when I changed my mind. Maybe they knew I was making a mistake. I'm glad they didn't try to change my mind, better to regret your own mistakes than other people's.

I loved school. Really, really loved it, enjoyed it and succeeded in it.

Honest question - do you wonder whether you are projecting your experiences onto your DCs? Maybe your DCs would love school. Maybe not.

If my DC were unhappy at school, I would consider home ed. Would you guys consider the other direction - if your DCs wanted to go to school, would they?

I don't think my parents ever knew I wasn't happy at school Goldfish. And obviously projecting is something I'm constantly aware of. The trick is to talk to your children I suppose. I think home ed will be better for DS1. But at some point I think he'll need time in school for him to realise that. So I will make sure that that door doesn't close, and hope that someday he is grateful I let him make his own mistakes too. Do you have children in school? Do you ever wonder if you are projecting your own happiness in school onto them?

Ps the name GoldfishSpy brought a smile to my face

I think as well, although it's good to remember that you are not your child, the child is more likely to think along the same lines as a parent than a stranger, if that makes sense (told you it was hard to believe that I was once good at writing )

Goldfish:

"do you wonder whether you are projecting your experiences onto your DCs?"

Of course we are. It's the usual starting point for parents. If you love football, you take your kids to watch football until you notice they are bored by it. If you love making music, you sing to your kids and encourage them to take up an instrument, and only stop when you can see that they never choose to pick it up. You, I assume, would naturally send your kids to school in the first instance?

It's only a problem if the kids never have a choice. I think it can be worth making that choice explicit and not assuming that we know whether our kids are happy, because some kids will fake an interest in football for years in order to please their parents, because they think it is expected of them. The older home ed kids I know (and some younger ones too) are asked occasionally by their parents how they feel about school and whether it is something they'd like to try. In fact, in my circle it is somewhat unusual for a child never to go to school, though it isn't unheard of; most are curious and will at least toy with the idea at some point. My older child tried school, but I don't think her sister will want to.

I wish all children had the choice of school or home ed.

In our HE circle, it is very common for children either (a) to have come out of a very very unhappy school experience, and swear never to darken the doors again or (b) to have been HE from the start, and to decide to spend some time in school somewhere between about 8 and 12 years old. They usually come out of it after a term, a year, or two years and say they are glad to have tried it, thank you, but not going to school is a considerably better experience for them.

I know I'm not projecting. I had a good time at school except for the two horrid years I mentioned above. I would have been perfectly happy to send my children to school. It just turned out that my children weren't (and aren't) school shaped. I'm really grateful that the alternatives are exciting and socially open and educationally rich, these days, where they wouldn't have been for those of us who went through school in the 1970s and 1980s (because HE was almost unheard of in those days).

"School shaped" - I like that.

I know my parents didn't have a clue about how bad school was for me - I mentioned it in passing a while ago & DM asked why I'd never told them how bad it was. I genuinely thought they knew & just expected me to toughen up & that there was something wrong with me because I couldn't.

I'm not sure projection is the whole reason that I'm planning to HE. A big part of it is because I think I'm capable enough to teach them the basics & how to find information for themselves & that they'll have a better, more rounded education with the 1:2 attention I can give them than as one of 30. Obviously, I want to protect them from having the same experiences I did but I'm pretty sure that, as boys, they could've been at school with all the same people I was & have a very different experience to me. I'm not planning on giving them a choice initially, I'm planning to HE throughout the infant years & once DS1 gets to junior age we'll discuss options with him. I want to make sure we've built a strong relationship so he feels we can discuss any issues that come up & I want him to have gained a certain level of maturity before he starts. I'll be a little reluctant perfectly happy to let him try it out for a while but I'd be fully expecting him to change his mind at some point!