Hello dreamers, how are you?
Tonight I want to talk to you about something important: the school years we take.
It’s because I kind of finished this chapter of my life: school. For now at least and in its traditional form.
Since we can remember we went to school, in different forms. Whether it was kindergarten, primary school, middle school, high school, or college. Did we make almost four of each? But what did we learn and why are they important?
Kindergarten years
These were the simpler years. We learned colors, forms, maybe numbers, and letters. I remember I learned to count to ten in English. These are the years that we start to socialize outside our families and start making friends.
I remember that I wasn’t a social kid, but I played along with the others. Also, I remember watching cartoons projected with tapes and an old video projector. The thing that was the worst was that I grew up in an obscure period for the educational system.
The old communist methods weren’t completely gone, and we all were told that if we didn’t behave, we’ll be spanked with a wooden ruler. And some of my friends actually were…
Primary school years
The first grade I don’t quite remember. I know that my Educator was the daughter of some family friends. We were her first-generation, and after a year she moved so…
I wasn’t the first in y class, because of course, I have shaky hands, but then it was thought I’m not doing my best to create the perfect canes…
The second grade was better and went better until the fourth year. The new teacher we had was and is amazing, and is a model for me. Overall she was a mother to all of us, something I can’t promise even on my best days to be, to my students, but I try. I wasn’t too social, again, but it started to be a competition for the first place in class with a friend.
How did it help me?
Well, I understood that I’m smart and I can do amazing things.
Middle school years
It was the first step of growing up. We had more teachers, and the communist methods that were left showed up. We had a different head teacher in fifth grade.
All I will say is that the competition remained, and one year I was the best, the other she was. I loved biology, and I decided to go on the science path.
Otherwise, I learned physics, but I still remember how it felt to have formulas written on my face.
Highschool years
Well, here the fun begins. Everything went downhill for a while. It actually went from wanting to go to med school to.. nothing for a while. It was half my fault, half of the system, or the people working on it. I had a teacher that ruined physics for me, someone that compared me to my sister, and the last but not least, one that thought that making a teen feel bad about herself when it’s at worst was the perfect way to bring her into the light.
I don’t really know what’s worse. I only know that I write articles in English, but never use french, and of course, I am an engineer in the food industry, including chemistry, paying the same effort I did in HS if you know what I mean.
Otherwise, I had an amazing biology teacher, whose steps I want to follow in front of my students. He is so good at his job that I actually never read for our version of SAT and got over 85/100. And that’s something.
These years are full of memories, with my squad, yet I don’t remember many things about what I studied. I didn’t spend time with my classmates, but I did with my friends. At that time, I said that I never want to come back, but sometimes I wish to relieve the happy moments. Without high school and extracurricular activities, I wouldn’t meet my boyfriend at the time and my best friends.
Of course, we were toxic, but who isn’t at that point? The fact that we turned out pretty great, some getting married, some with their business, others with their mission on hand, and some with a good plan to change something, means that we weren’t that bad. We were young and full of life.
College years
For me, that meant six years of engineering: four in college and two in master’s. And believe me, they are the true best years of your life.
Again, started antisocial, in a college that wasn’t my first choice, and in a long-distance relationship. My grades and experiences in the first year were.. let’s say beneath my expectation. I had a crush on one of my friend’s friends to the point where I was broken up with my boyfriend. Went clubbing, but soon found out it wasn’t my favorite activity. Learned that I know chem and physics and that the biology I once knew, isn’t involved.
From the second year, when my high school best friend came to town, well things changed. I befriended one of my classmates too, and the three of us became unstoppable. My grades went up, we started to travel. Unfortunately, my relationship ended, but I found my actual boyfriend, whom I have actually known since primary school, but lost touch with.
Because he was a smart guy, and the girls were smart too, I started to work harder, and soon enough my worth was seen. You see, I never was a book worm, but damn… I am smart. I am informed, and I have logic, so I know how to respond to difficult questions.
My classmates soon realized it and started working harder, and it was good for them.
Unlike them, I never had anxiety attacks for exams, neither did I cry before, and I had a scholarship.
Do I use the information I learned in college? Yeah, but at some point, the things I know, and the things that I see happening don’t emerge, and I ask myself: Why TF do we have so many food hygiene standards, yet so many people ignore them for money? It’s pretty frustrating.
When I started my master’s degree, it was after the first wave of covid, that I started working. It went by so quickly. We were half of the time online, in lockdown, with responsibilities. We didn’t have many experiences or new information to learn.
When I cross the line, for me college was defining who I am today in a percentage of 60%, high school 25%, 5-10% middle school, and the rest, kindergarten and primary school.
When it comes to information, they are equal, because I learned different things at every step.
Now, why did I write this article?
It’s simply because I worked, either to learn a thing, either to move on with the experiences I had in the educational system, and because, everyone can go at least as far as I could.
Yeah, the system is broken, and the people in the system are not necessarily trained or emphatics, but at this point of the road, it’s all worth it.
All the mornings you didn’t want to get up from bed, all the “how will I use this info “, all the questions without answers.
You end up with a paper that no one cares about, with a degree that’s useless. Yet, you also end up with experiences and non-academical pieces of knowledge that are so valuable in day-to-day life, that you wouldn’t master otherwise.
Enough for today, tomorrow is a new adventure.
#adremerlife,
Cristiana Apreutese
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