This is not what happened when I went to school

Yesterday I went off to a school meeting with all the enthusiasm I could muster for doing anything which means leaving my bed,  that is – none at all. The meeting was to find out more about elective subject choices for Year 9 students and frankly I thought I would struggle to find a more boring basis for calling the parents together.

Turns out I was thinking about my subject choices when I was back at school in the olden days – a decade fondly referred to as the 80’s.

So as my my son dragged me off to listen to a man in a suit talk about elective geography I had my phone at the ready to check Twitter when he started to rattle off about mountain ranges and rock formations. I thought that when he got to cloud formations I might excuse myself for an urgent bathroom run. I was prepared*. Except I wasn’t.

I seriously wasn’t prepared to hear about the Asian century and how the kids study what it means and how it influences them. The man in the suit, who actually turned out to be a passionate and amazing speaker, was the teacher who gave his kids the assignment of taking over a hotel in the city and looking at how they could make it more appealing to visitors out of China. No rivers, rocks or cloud but in addition to the Asian century they would study conflict in the world, not how to solve it but why it occurs.

Elective history was similarly surprising. I grew up in apartheid South Africa where we learned about Dingaan, voortrekkers, Hottentots* and heroes that you would never have heard about unless you went to school with me because they weren’t very heroic at all. They were just white. But now my son has the opportunity to learn about ancient India and the rise of Islam and Arab conquests. He can learn about witches and pirates and vampires, the history of medicine and the isms and ologies (like feminism and psychology). There is even a unit on death and how we’ve understood and treated death through history.

But my son isn’t into history, he was to hooked on commerce. Back in the 80’s commerce was about economics. In 2015 at Little Pencil’s school they are learning about how to live in Australia, about health care, medicare and the public benefit scheme. There is a unit on moving out of home (which I hope he doesn’t take seriously). They learn about signing leases, the cost of living and how to live and save at the same time. Amongst other things they learn about buying a home, auction vs private treaty, exchange of contract, the first home buyer’s grant. When I was 14 I thought a private treaty was an agreement our friends made and promised not to tell anyone about.

In the 80’s there were no subject choices like Photographic and Digital Media, which my son will be studying next year learning amongst a host of other skills how to use photoshop and make clay animations while also learning to study and analyse great digital artists of our time.
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There was no class called Information and Software Technology where the teacher handles lego robotics with the same level of excitement and passion with which he talks about coding, app making and how computers actually work.

As far as I can remember there was no excitement about subject choices back when I was at school, no passion and enthusiasm, no longing to learn and to engage like these kids have. I feel as sorry for the students back then as I feel for the teachers who were restricted to teaching a syllabus so boring it could make a dead man weep.

The school may send hundreds of emails a week (and it does), it may send newsletters that are over 30 pages long but it does an amazing job of educating my child and, moreover, it makes him excited and happy to learn

Then there’s the added bonus that we get that warm and fuzzy feeling every time we walk away from a meeting.

I think my husband is even secretly thrilled that I have given serious consideration to studying elective geography and history. My son, on the other hand, is just trying to come to terms with the embarrassment of me hopping up to sit on the very high window sill when I couldn’t find a seat.

*Yes, I see where my son gets his inability to sit still and concentrate.
**Telling that my History lessons have no relevance to anyone outside of South Africa. Actually not to anyone in South Africa either.