Moving Forward, Moving On

This image is what moving forward and moving on has looked like in recent years.

When I was 12 and a half we moved from the home of my childhood to a bigger town further north, much closer to my new high school. I was so excited for the move, and had many grand plans about how I was going to be the most popular girl in my class, and how high school would be exciting, wonderful and fun. Full of naive enthusiasm, and totally, totally oblivious.

Looking back I think this had something to do with the fact that the farm I lived on wasn’t sold until many years later, so I had that lovely sense of moving forward without too much changing behind me.

As the movers filled their trucks I wandered around the property, saying goodbye to the familiar hills, the dams we swam in many times, the rickety old fences and reticulation piping I could be consistently relied upon to trip over. I thought of the geese we’d had before, and the rock I stood on to feed them, pretending I was a sailor at the bow of a ship. I used to leave a couple of handfuls of grain in the bucket for our one goose with a deformed beak, which meant he had to strategically scoop the seed into his mouth rather than peck. He was imaginatively named Beaky.

I wandered around, saying goodbye to trees and bushes because I was a child, and moreover a child who spent a considerable amount of time in a fantasy land of her own. A big property is fruitful land for many things, not least a child’s imagination.

If I was ever asked the day that my childhood ended I would say without doubt or rancour, that this was the day.

This post was written in response to the prompt ‘disappearing’ 

Has My Traditional Education Done Me a Disservice?

“I love learning”

That’s something I can say with ease, although the last 12 months (changing into a trickier role at work) have shown me that I prefer learning when I’m able to really grasp the point quickly. I’ve found to my dismay that my enthusiasm for endlessly pursuing difficult theories is very limited. I don’t think I’m totally alone there.

Back in Australia, the high school leaving exams used to be called the Tertiary Entrance Exams (TEE), and you had to study TEE subjects to sit the exams (no surprises there). I remember hearing that the Dux of my primary school hadn’t taken TEE subjects and seeing my headmaster be visibly silent with disappointment. When I asked my mother if I had to take them, she was shocked and replied something along the lines of “abso-bloody-lutely”.  Five years later the same headmaster, now retired, sent me a card six months before my exams telling me that success was founded on proper preparation. I’ve kept that card, although I heed its advice far too infrequently.

“I’ve had a great education”

That’s also something I’ve said easily. If you asked me the days when my education was best, I could say categorically it was in year 7, at the ripe old age of 12. My teacher (the headmaster) was old school, and we’re talking seriously old school. I remember vividly how all our tests were handwritten in the most perfect cursive. We learnt well. We knew our stuff, that’s for sure, but we learnt by rote – memorising a rule, just because it was the rule. That was of learning has stayed with me to this very day, and I’m beginning to wonder if, instead of giving me a solid basis to work on, it has actually held me back.

Whilst writing has become a great joy of mine, initially I had terrible trouble learning to write essays. The topic of “personal voice” totally stumped me – how exactly were you supposed to give an essay personality if you weren’t allowed to use “I”? My contemporaries from other schools seemed to understand better, or at the very least be more comfortable with not understanding. I feel so frustrated when, after an afternoon attempting to learn, I’m still no more competent than I was before. My analytical skills are underdeveloped, which still makes my life difficult on a day to day basis – it’s totally absurd!

It hit home especially hard after watching this TED Talk by Eddie Obeng.

The world where I learnt how to learn, is over. It’s gone. I better get me some new skills, and get them stat. Things are moving fast, and the adaptable, the inquisitive, the analytical and the dedicated are going to reap the benefits. My early education was structured for the old world, and for that world it was a fantastic beginning. A solid foundation.

Having said all this, I can’t deny that there have been some benefits – a freakish ability to memorise lines from a film, phone numbers (sadly not birthdays), lyrics. You name it, I can memorise it. I’d also venture to say pretty accurate spelling 88.3% of the time, which is a boon. It’s not all bad.

Fly A Kite

When I really think about it, I’ve actually always been a terrible vintage throwback. I think the image above is to blame. That film, and the actual record pictured there were so much a part of my childhood that I can almost legitimately blame them for the way my life is now.

I think it says something about my childhood that I even had a vinyl Mary Poppins album. It’s well used too, so I either have parents who were Mary Poppins fanatics, or rather very kindly, and let me indulge my borderline autism by allowing me to play and play and play that record until we all wept. Fuck it, they even joined in half the time. So I guess it comes as a massive surprise to exactly no-one that I spend about forty percent of my life faffing about in seamed stockings and hunting down baby cham glasses. Sad but true.

It could be worse.

I need some bunting with that on, I think.