Education?!?!

My first school was Midhurst Primary… On my first day I ran away from the school back to our home, only to have my mother smack me and drag me back to it! My teacher, who was patient, gentle and understanding helped me settle in. When we moved closer to the school I would stay behind and help her clean the class. I had lots of little friends, and have alot of wonderful early childhood memories of this time. One very strong memory was being allowed to have lunch time dances in one of the classrooms, and I loved to watch and dance with the older students. But for some reason, it was stopped when we were not allowed to play Abba songs on the record player. The whole school marched around the school shouting "we want Abba, We want Abba, the older students had placards and the rest of us yelled as loud as we could! Our march took us up to the teachers lounge and kept chanting until they finally gave in and let us play Abba songs as well as the other music we danced to. We had huge trees that most of us younger students built huts in during the lunch break. They were huge Macracrapra Trees, with funky trunks and brows, and the leaves were evergreen and drooped low to the grown giving us good coverage from the sun and older kids playing on the fields. One day one of the farmers' placed his electric fence around them and let his cows in the end where we weren't playing in. We didn't know till the bell went and we all ran into the electric fence and got a huge shock from it! I don't think his fence survived the onslaught of at least 20+ kids hitting it at once neither! This farmer also had bulls in the paddock opposite the school and some of the older boys would tease them on their way to and from school. One beautiful summers morning we were sitting outside our classroom, our teacher at the time was very bossy, cranky old lady who didn't like it when children talked without permission. She was with her back to the field and was reading a book to us, when we saw the bull coming across the field, we screamed and hollered at her about the bull, but she wouldn't listen and so we all ran into the classroom, locking the door behind us and leaving her outside with the bull! We couldn't stop laughing when she finally saw the bull and ran screaming towards another classroom... The farmer finally got the bull back into it's paddock and the boys responsible for teasing and letting the bull out where punished in front of the school. We had a wonderful large field behind the school, where alot of us kids would gather to play "Bull Rush!". A game where 2 people where chosen to stand in the middle of the field, while the rest of us lined up at one end. To start off, they would call a few names, those kids would run like the clampers to the other end, if they got tagged, they would then join the folk in the middle. If they didn't we would then all scream "BULL RUSH!" and also run like anything to get to the otherside without being tagged! In the end there would be so many in the middle and so few on the end that it really was a mushpit for the remaining runners! It was a rough and tumble game, often with kids scrampling/tumbling on the ground from the tackle/scrum and once in awhile bones would get broken. I was high tackled by a boy and fractured by wrist on the ground impact when I finally went down! It was fun, exhilerating and hard! After I had the fractured wrist from bull rush, and had me arm in a sling for weeks, I discovered that the school had a wonderful large library and it was here were my first passion for reading was encouraged.... Half way through my 3rd year of primary school, my dad moved me, along with my older sister to the Eastern back blocks of Taranaki, to a place named Te Wera. We attended a little school called Huiakama Primary. We had a short bus ride to get to the school and with only one teacher and 22 students overall, my sister and I fitted in and established good friends in no time.... When the rest of my family moved to our new home it enabled the school to be able to employ an extra full time teacher. I loved going to Huiakama, we did alot of school plays, sport and our teachers loved to teach us new things, and we all loved to learn. Because we had different levels of learning classes in one room, we older children would help the younger ones. I loved to write stories about dragons and faeries, adventures of traveling the big world and learning as much as possible about other cultures. My school reports were always my proudest moments of presenting them to my dad, and showing him the projects that I had done for my lessons. The school had annual "calf club day" once a year, and a local diary farmer would let us enter a calf into the calf club competitions. I won the cup for best calf one year. The calf's name was called Logan after the name character of Logans' run. I loved stories of fantasy and mythology. We built a fort out of the posts of pine that the Forestry had donated to the school, and we had many huge trees that we would climb and play in. Near the end of my time there, (when I was around 13) we would spend alot of our lunch breaks in a competion on who could escape the fastest. This would basically be a skill test on how well we were able to get out of situations, i.e. being tied to a huge oak tree in the playground and how long it would take to get free from the bonds or being holled up in the fort and timing how long it took one to figure how to escape without being seen by the others left to guard the "prisioner". I excelled at these games, "spy" games, were fun and challenging, and we would break up into teams and play a game similar to "Flag", our team always managed to figure out where the other team had hidden their treasure, and steal it without them even knowing that we had got it. Sport, played a major part of our schooling and our school had a netball team that my older sister and I would play in. We would travel to Stratford and play in the school netball competitions, and did quite well in them. In 1980, Dad had to move us again, and we ended up attending a College that was 20 times the size of our little Huiakama Primary School. Pio Pio College - A High School that took kids from Form One to Form Seven, (year 7 to year 13) this school was to provide our "higher " education. Which in my view, harsh as it may sound, DID NOT EVEN COME CLOSE TO IT! College life, at Pio Pio was to say the least, HELL for me. I found it difficult to adjust to a school that had over 500 students in one school, along with not fitting in with the so called cool kids, or fitting in with any of the different groups that had formed at the school. It didn't help that I was having a lot of serious problems at home that was also affecting my schooling too. The move from a small school to a large one affected all of our family, and it created alot of difficulties that would surface in abuse and pain. I longed for my old school and friends, and no matter what I did, it seemed to make the kids in this College more determine to hurt me. My teacher didn't have time to talk to me like my old teacher did, and often I never understood what was expected of me. Most teachers thought that I didn't want to learn or was lazy. Coming from a lower social economical family, some of them even suggested that it wasn't worth teaching me as I would probably just leave school and go on the "dole" our unemployment benefit, or have loads of kids to different fathers and be on the solo parents' benefit. This was further from any truth as far as I was concerned! I wanted to learn, I loved to learn, but begun to find it difficult to express or explain how I came to answers or understanding. Most of the teachers were not interested in trying to work with me, and more often than I wished, I would get more withdrawn or resentful towards them. Right from my first day at Pio Pio College, I discovered that most of my class found it way too much fun to pick on and bully me, lunch break was the hardest time, it was difficult to find a safe place and I would have to keep moving to keep out of their sights. One lunch break, I got beaten up in the toilets by the cool boys of my class, while the cool girls kept watch for the duty teachers during one summer. Name calling, hair pulling, tripping me up, wetting my books in my locker, walking behind me then pushing me over, snide remarks about our family's poverty, would often end with me sobbing and begging them to stop. This became a regular feature in my school hours. Sure often I would try and stand up to them, only to be given another good beating or even more relentless teasing. We hardly attended any School events due to lack of money or I couldn't face being picked on during the event. The bullying was unrelenting, in class, waiting for and on the bus, during any breaks and even when I wasn't at school! I felt worthless, useless and unable to do anything good and this just seemed to encourage most of the teachers and kids to think that, that I was there just for bullying and for target practice... On the school bus I would sit near the front where the driver could see me, and away from the bigger bullies, in amongst the little children, I would end up making stories about faeries, dragons, princes and princesses for them to listen to whilst we traveled on the dirt roads back out to the farms. The young kids loved hearing the stories of imprisoned princesses awaiting the hero to rescue them or of the dragons and faery folk that were friendly battling the horrible dragons that wanted to enslave them. I loved to escape into these fantasy worlds, whenever I could, just to get away from the painful real world that I was in! I would dream that I would be rich enough, never to worry when the next meal would be, or to buy anything I wanted when I wanted to have it, a husband that loves me for me, to never have children that would be made to suffer the way I did, a beautiful home and to travel around the world and see and experience many wonderful things, that I would be successful in all that I do, and that most of all I will be Happy! Sigh, dreams are powerful and wonderful things! Sure I had a few friends, but even then I didn't know who really was foe or ally. I hung out with 4 other girls who had similar backgrounds, and together we tried to support each other, but often ended up fighting each other! Sometimes I would stay at a friends place, but was always embarrassed to have them stay at our home. We had the odd camping trip on the farm and we would have fun. But it was hard for them too and often if they hung out with me they would become the target of the bulling too... I did have a favorite subject, Maori till I went into 3rd form,(year 9). My Maori teacher was a strong Maori woman who was passionate about teaching us her culture and language. She was a very powerful and humble woman, who loved to help kids find their potential and took no excuses when one didn't achieve the goals she set us. I excelled in this subject and was upset when I couldn't take it any more (form 3) because I had to take typing if I wanted to get a "serious" job. I hated typing, I kept getting the keys back to front and the teacher would get very impatient with me cause if I tried to type fast, like the class, I would end up making alot of mistakes and not getting anything right! But there was a silver lining on this clouds lining, I discovered Science as to become one of my favorite classes, chemistry rather than biology though, and to put icing on my cake, the first two science teachers I had, didn't have time for me. In the 5th Form we sit our exams, that shows our level of "intelligence", School C it was called in those days, and our family could not afford for me to sit the full range of exams, my science teacher at that time, (the schools deputy principal) had announced to me in front of the whole class, not to bother sitting this subject as I would never pass it, that I didn't have the talent, skill nor the brains to pass any subject really. His daughter happened to also be in my class, and one of the bullies who weren't making my life easy during this time. So I decided that he doesn't control my destiny, I do, and to prove him wrong, I worked really hard to pass that science exam. I didn't pass any of the others that I sat; though I still had the minor satisfaction of at least passing that one and waving the piece of paper in the teachers' face when I began school again the following year! One of my main difficulties with school work was, I found it difficult to understand what questions meant, my spelling and grammar wasn't of help either. When I wrote, words and numbers would often came out back to front, and yet in my minds eye I could see the answer, and often when I wrote it my brain would tell me it was right, when often a word or number wasn't quite in the right place... I returned to try to pass the 5th Form again, life at home had gone from bad to worse, but I was determined to make something of my life and not end up like my old science teacher said I would be. It was during this year that my new Science teacher and my old Maori teacher finally showed me that not all teachers were alike. My Maori teacher had become the Schools' guidance teacher, and I often went to her office at lunch time to get away from the bullies. She managed to get me a library assistant position during the lunch break, and I found a new hope for life. A new Math and a new English teacher had also been appointed to the school, of this year and I was lucky enough to have them both as my teachers as well. They made a huge difference in learning for me. My new English teacher figured out that I had dyslexia and with a little more of her time, some hard work and effort from me, I passed my English exam for the first time. My Maths teacher also helped me work on understanding maths better, though I didn't pass the exam, my result was far better than any of the previous years. My Maori teacher found me a job in the last term holiday near her home and I stayed with her while I worked before returning to school for my final exams. It was a turning point in my life. Finally I had found someone who believed me about the bulling, and about the troubles I was having at home. I stayed at her home for just over 2 weeks, and learnt anything and everything she would teach me. But alas the school holidays were over and I had to return to school to finish the exams... I decided to take up an instrument, classical guitar, and this was another teacher who took the time to really teach me. I was very grateful to Him and as we couldn't afford a guitar, I could only wait till it was my turn again to borrow a school guitar, about once every 4 weeks. So I would memorize all of what I had learnt, and there would always be a few guitars left in the music room, so when I could, I would escape into the room and practice as much as possible. I did quite well, and my teacher was very proud of my efforts. But the dyslexia was showing as I found it difficult to concentrate on keeping a regular rhythm in my pieces that I played. When I was 14 I decided that I would take up a new instrument, but unknown to me, my father had saved enough money from his possum hunting, to buy me a beautiful classical guitar for that Christmas. My first ever big Christmas present! I didn't have the heart to tell him that I was quitting the guitar for violin, and so continued with the classical guitar. My last year of this school, begun to look brighter each day, I had teachers that actually wanted to teach me, I had a library assistant position and the school had done enough fund raising to own some computers and have a computer lab. Apple IIe's were the brand, and I fell in love! (with the computer that is! LOL!) I loved the challenge of making it work and to try and do simple programming. When I finished formulating my first program and entering it into the computer then running it, (it actually worked first time!) it brought so much joy and triumph! I remember it was a simple program and had something to do with graphics and random patterns, I was fascinated. My teachers worked hard at getting me into the computer lab during lunch breaks, (the lab was often reserved for A+ grade students only and the deputy principal didn't feel that I deserved to be in there, as my grades where lucky to pass at all! But we managed to get there most of the time and I continued to excel in the art of using an Apple IIe! Those wretched typing lessons paid off after all! During the middle of the 1st term, I made a new friend who knew all about being bullied and being picked on. She helped me out, I had begun working in a little Dairy in the village that her parents' owned and I left home and lived with them, while I worked after school, in the weekends and during the holidays, It took it's toll on my exam results, but I was finally happy and not living such a miserable existence for a change...

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