I've just discovered my school reports from the school I attended between the ages of five and eleven, an undistinguished primary school in the country. Would you like to hear some of it?
Well, school reports are, I think, generally bland, partly by design, so as not to alarm the parents, and partly because teachers have so many of them to write, and simply wish to get the job over with.
The first sheet in the folder, chronologically, records my first year at school in class 7, and my age is given as 5 years, 3 months. There are four categories under which comments have been written:
BASIC SKILLS, LANGUAGE, MATHEMATICS AND READING
After a week or two of unsociable behaviour, Quentin has now settled down very well. He has a good appreciation of number and has started formal reading. He has had great difficulty with writing and drawing, but his determination to communicate on paper is overcoming this.PLAY AND CREATIVE ACTIVITIES
Loves all creative activities.PHYSICAL ABILITY
Despite his size, he performs very well in the gym. Very confident in the pool.SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND GENERAL COMMENTS
Very interested in Nature.
Well, generally, as intimated, the comments are rather bland, and I'm not going to copy out those for every year. My 'physical ability' deteriorates over the years, however, and other abilities come to the fore, it seems. I couldn't help noticing this comment in the end of year report for class 4, when I was 8 years, 2 months old, in the category for 'ART, CRAFT, NEEDLEWORK':
Very individual style but has some good ideas – well done.
Notice the use of the word "but". This is typical of the Victorian attitudes that lingered even when I was at school. I hated school and even as a child had a notion of a superior natural education that would actually be focused on nurturing children as individuals, encouraging the particular talents and interests of each. The general feeling I am still left with is that school was actually designed to destroy children's curiosity and interest in the world.
At least in those days there wasn't enormous pressure from exams and exam-learning from a young age. My first three years were not even graded. After that I notice that I received exclusively A's and B's. That was while I still had some interest in lessons, before comprehensive school, which was dreary, oppressive and barbaric, and destroyed what joy in life still remained to me at the age of eleven.
In the final year report for the primary school, my age given simply as eleven, I noticed written the following comments under ENGLISH (for which I received a B):
LANGUAGE: Good vocabulary.
SPEECH: Sometimes indistinct.
WRITTEN ENGLISH: Uses words well. Enjoys story writing. Has many good ideas within a rather narrow 'science fiction' field. Needs to develop an insight into people as characters.
Jane Austen strikes again!
This certainly brought back memories. I didn’t like school till I was 50 yrs. old and finishing college. For some reason, when I was young, I had no social skills, at least that’s what the report cards said. “does not join in”, “is too shy in groups”, “does not speak up when asked a question”, etc. etc. My favorite comments were: “stares out the window too much”, “does not pay attention”, “Pam’s penmanship is excellent but needs to work on spelling and numbers”, “spends too much time doodling instead of listening”, etc. I guess that’s why I’m an artist.:D
I think a lot of people believe that school is good for you as a kind of rehearsal for the indignities of adult life, since you are forced to mix with strangers, and for that reason many people deprecate the idea of home-schooling. Personally I think the ‘mixed Roman baths’ model of schooling is horrific, and that home-schooling is a wonderful idea.Staring out of the window and doodling were probably seen as problems in you because they didn’t work well with the one-size-fits-all regime of the school, but I don’t see any reason you shouldn’t have been encouraged to stare out of the window and doodle.
It is interesting the things we remember from grade school. I was about 6, we sat two to a desk, so I sat very close to another little girl. The assignment was to draw a line from a picture of an animal to the appropriate word but I didn’t hear the instructions from the yammering teacher. I was probably staring out the window. So I looked at what the little girl next to me was doing and got the idea. I am better with visual instructions than with loud yammering. Well, the teacher promptly came over to me and whacked my bare leg three times and yelled NO CHEATING! I had no concept of what cheating was at 6 yrs. old but I was mortified for getting whacked in front of people. From that day forward, I hated going to school and didn’t like old teachers who wore glasses and hats.I think I would have excelled at home schooling, as long as my dad wasn’t the teacher.
I have a rather more embarrassing story of why I came to be similarly assaulted by a teacher, but it probably doesn’t bear repeating here. Come to think of it, most of the things for which I was reprimanded or punished at school have left me with a very bad taste in my mouth. I don’t recall ever thinking, “It’s a fair cop.” And looking back I can see the heaping injustices for which I had no recourse whatsoever.http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92642058School is the enemy of genius.
Amazing little boy…..and to be able to play the piano all day…. something he was good at and loved. Sometimes I wonder where I’d be now had anyone at all noticed my artistic talent when I was young. I know my mom did because she had artistic talent too but my dad was a tyrant. Oh, well, we can’t ‘cry over spilt milk’ as my paternal grandma used to say. I am where I am now at 60 and that’s what it is.