Hi, I’m Sam,
Me + School = total disaster, not because I’m not
smart or intelligent. I just think my overall problem with
school is reading for exams and writing exams or tests. You see, I don’t mind
going for classes or even doing assignments but once it comes to preparing for
exams and writing it, the whole fun in school gets sucked out. I read somewhere
that a student said that a section should be added to our answer booklets where
you write down things you read in preparation for the examination just in case
the things we read didn’t come out in the exam and I think that’s a great idea.
Our education system is one that if you fail an examination it looks like
you’re the dumbest person in the world which should not be so. Apart from
people who claim to be too churchy, another set of people who I can never be
friends with are bookworms LOL; I find it a little difficult to vibe with them.
Because of the nature of my
dad’s job, I was always the new kid in school because we moved around a lot. I
went to one Nursery school, four primary schools, three secondary schools, and
now two universities; well that seems like so much for someone who hates
school. The only graduation I can remember being a part of was the one from
Nursery three to Primary one, after that, we moved and I entered Primary one,
and up to Primary 4, I was changed to another school. Instead of starting at
primary 4, my new school told me to start from primary 2 because they felt like
the school I was coming from wasn’t up to their standard and that I couldn’t
keep up with their “intelligent students” and possibly ruin the common entrance
examination result slip. We didn’t argue with them, I started from primary 2
but that didn’t stop my mum from counting how many years I had till I would
write my common entrance. By the time I got to primary 4 in my new school, I
would’ve been in primary 6 in my old school so my mum registered me for the
Common Entrance Examination to get into secondary school.
It wasn’t much of a debate
if I was going to go to a boarding school because two of my elder siblings were
in the boarding school at the time. I liked the idea of going to a boarding
school because you’re given pocket money and provisions but no one prepares you
for the horrors of boarding school and the horrors can never be
over-emphasized. My dad suggested one good school but a family friend shut the
idea down saying that the school was too flashy and that he knew a good school
that we’d learn a lot from. I refused that I was not going to write the
entrance examination for the school but my dad threatened that if I didn’t then
I wouldn’t go to the school of my choice, he told me to write the exam and that
if I didn’t pass then we’d consider another school; but I know how brainy I was
and how hard was the exam going to be? After everything I entered the exam hall
to fail the exam I still came out with flying colors, that was the first time I
cried about passing an exam beyond my expectations. My dad paid the acceptance
fee and it was time for me to pack my bags and get shipped off to boarding
school.
The one-week orientation was
fun and had us fooled as to what boarding school was really like, most of us
got too comfortable, and it was till the other students came back that we knew
that sh*t just got real. Barely two months into my JSS1 first term before the
visiting day, had I written a letter to my dad telling him that I wanted to be
going to school from home. I promised to wash the plates every day, sweep the
house, in fact doing all the house chores if it would mean me going to school
from home because I couldn’t bear the flogging from seniors, the time consciousness,
and so on. My dad didn’t say anything about the letter till I came home for the
Mid-term break looking like a small letter ‘i’; he told me he was going to keep
the letter till I got to my SS3 and he would show me the letter. Because of the
tough love, I knew I wasn’t getting out of this so I had to prepare my mind for
the two years remaining to complete my junior secondary school. I went through
a lot in boarding school including the torture, punishment, and everything in
between, and also the most devastating, losing one of my close friends. And
just like that, Junior Secondary School was done, it was time to go and conquer
Senior Secondary, and so I was off to school to conquer but it wasn’t easy it
got worse. In my second year in senior secondary school, I fell mysteriously
ill and I was withdrawn in the second term of my second year of senior school
and I started being home-schooled.