There was a rule in our house that you couldn’t leave school until you had a job.
I had enjoyed school until we moved suburbs, and therefore school, when I was seven and a half, part way through grade three. Not good at making friends and trying to adjust to new classrooms, teachers and methods of teaching made school a painful challenge.
High school was better, a fresh start with all our year level being newbies. However, being one of the youngest, already socially immature, along with all the other teenage issues I began to struggle again by Year 10, or Form 4 as it was known then. Being good at schoolwork was a mixed blessing – I could pass tests with little effort and minimal study preparation but when the curriculum changed to assignment-based assessment I didn’t do so well. I gave my parents and the school a conundrum when I both failed Form 4 and aced the scholarship exam. They finally let me go up to Form 5 on probation; I wonder what would have happened if I’d instead repeated the year.
Another issue for me was that I had no direction, the question “what do you want to be when you grow up?” had always perplexed me. At one time I thought I might be a vet as I liked, and related well to animals, but when I found out the length of further schooling ahead to qualify, I wrote that off.
I couldn’t see myself completing Form 6’s HSC as everyone was saying how hard it was, and university didn’t seem to be in my future. At school there were few subjects I really enjoyed and although my small group of friends were wonderful, I began to focus on the negatives. I experienced failure, anxiety and confusion, unwanted attention from a few boys, unwarranted bitchiness from a couple of girls, unfair treatment from some teachers and high expectation from others!
It was all too much – I had to escape. But the escape route could only be reached by finding a job. And so, not long before I turned 16, that is what I did.
I quickly found a job working with horses and even got paid for the privilege! Unfortunately, this role didn’t last long, but after an even shorter stint in retail I began work as a printer’s assistant. It was there that I met my husband-to-be and started another chapter of my life.
I had enjoyed school until we moved suburbs, and therefore school, when I was seven and a half, part way through grade three. Not good at making friends and trying to adjust to new classrooms, teachers and methods of teaching made school a painful challenge.
High school was better, a fresh start with all our year level being newbies. However, being one of the youngest, already socially immature, along with all the other teenage issues I began to struggle again by Year 10, or Form 4 as it was known then. Being good at schoolwork was a mixed blessing – I could pass tests with little effort and minimal study preparation but when the curriculum changed to assignment-based assessment I didn’t do so well. I gave my parents and the school a conundrum when I both failed Form 4 and aced the scholarship exam. They finally let me go up to Form 5 on probation; I wonder what would have happened if I’d instead repeated the year.
Another issue for me was that I had no direction, the question “what do you want to be when you grow up?” had always perplexed me. At one time I thought I might be a vet as I liked, and related well to animals, but when I found out the length of further schooling ahead to qualify, I wrote that off.
I couldn’t see myself completing Form 6’s HSC as everyone was saying how hard it was, and university didn’t seem to be in my future. At school there were few subjects I really enjoyed and although my small group of friends were wonderful, I began to focus on the negatives. I experienced failure, anxiety and confusion, unwanted attention from a few boys, unwarranted bitchiness from a couple of girls, unfair treatment from some teachers and high expectation from others!
It was all too much – I had to escape. But the escape route could only be reached by finding a job. And so, not long before I turned 16, that is what I did.
I quickly found a job working with horses and even got paid for the privilege! Unfortunately, this role didn’t last long, but after an even shorter stint in retail I began work as a printer’s assistant. It was there that I met my husband-to-be and started another chapter of my life.
- - - o o O o o - - -
Postscript: A decade later I changed my mind on the subject of schooling when we had a small business and I needed to learn bookkeeping. I found that tertiary qualifications at TAFE, even as a mature age student, could be fun, interesting and achievable. Over the years I have added a university degree, a second diploma, several work-based certificates, other learning credentials and now, U3A!
Phiona Rhodes
June 2023
Phiona Rhodes
June 2023