Sarah Haynes, nobody’s school is perfect. But we already know that

Recently Sarah Haynes, the school captain of Ravenswood made news by telling it like she saw it at her farewell assembly. My first thought was that Ravenswood sounded like a house out of Harry Potter but my second and subsequent thoughts were much more considered.

Sarah is young, she is in a privileged position of leadership and I believe she should take that position seriously. It doesn’t matter whether the school is private, public or part of Hogwarts.

When you are an adult and you work for an organisation you tow the organisation’s line. Sometimes you don’t agree with it but there are other things that make you happy so you shut up and accept it. Sometimes it’s too much so you pack your bags and go. At the farewell party you smile graciously and then, if you want to burn all your bridges, you send a tirade by group email when you leave. Hint: It’s never a good idea to burn all your bridges. There are better way to handle things than the element of surprise bomb when your nearest and dearest are gathered together.

You can read more about it in the video at the bottom of the post and hear Kerri’s view as well which, as always, is quite different from mine. But the thing that we both agree on is that your 18 year old self thinks quite differently from your older and more mature self.

Like Sarah I went to an affluent private school and, much like Sarah, I was unhappy with the institution, But I think back to my school days and the things that I would have said compared to the things that I would say now

18 year old me

1. The focus on the kids who “have it all” makes the rest of the kids feel insignificant. You have to be pretty, rich and flash a killer smile to even get noticed. There are a lot of false gods idolised by the masses and it is sickening to behold.

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2. The school claims to have an outstanding reputation for academic brilliance and a cohesive community. In reality it nothing could be further from the truth, so many of the children were unhappy, in therapy, in need of therapy, giving up on therapy. The smart kids were tutored so they reflected a standard not attainable by the average kid and the children who were not excelling in certain subjects were urged to take different, less “academic” subjects . It creates a false illusion of the standards of the school where the pressure to achieve is handled mainly with drugs.
3. No one seems to give a damn about the bullying and quite frankly cruel behaviour, the staff are out of touch with what is going on outside of the actual classroom.

47 year old me

1. No one has it all, everyone has issues. Some people will display theirs to the outside world some won’t. Some will manifest at school, others later in life. No one person has it all. Not even the pretty school captain with the raft of trophies and perfect smile. People will always gravitate to that which they aspire to be, but it’s only when you mature that you realise it’s not a person you should be moving towards but a virtue. Money doesn’t buy happiness, nor do good looks, academic excellence or the ability to kick a ball across a field. There will always be people that have more than you and less than you, how you treat the people you like least shows the most about you.
2. It’s a tough one. Schools try and get the best that they can out of the kids that they teach. Sometimes it’s done for the school’s reputation benefit but often it’s done to get the most out of the kids. But it’s not what defines you. You are more than six years at one institution. High school is a hard one for anybody to deal with. It just happens to coincide with the most “tortured” years of kids. Adolescents are often grumpy, they feel like they are vilified and not understood, they rebel, they seek boundaries and borders, they are sometimes selfish and inward looking – not because of their educational institution but because of their hormones. Most people who experiment with drugs do so in their teens – not because of their headmaster but because that’s part of how our brains develop – we take risks in our teen years. Regardless of the school we attend.
3. 47 year old me was a teacher once, she knows that this is not true and that so much of the behaviours that come to school need the parents schooled as much as the kids. It is never acceptable to allow bullying on one’s watch but not all behaviours can be modified by or blamed on the school. I was angry with my teachers for a long time for not saving me, I am eternally grateful that I have grown up and learned to save myself. I remain a teensy bit angry with my parents.

I know my school wasn’t perfect – far from it. The kids were worse than the actual school – but that may just have something to do with how I felt about myself at the time.  But there are things that you say at 18 that are rooted in innocence and have only the barest smattering of experience attached. It’s often when you leave school and go out into the world that you learn the most. I hope that Sarah Haynes discovers that too.

Don’t forget to watch the video – it has the bonus inclusion of me forcing Kerri to face the cold hard truth about salad dressing at the end.