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Education

failure

By Roy TraversPublished 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago 5 min read
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Photo by Austrian National Library on Unsplash

Liverpool in the 50’s and early 1960’s prior to the Mersey sound explosion and in particular the emergence of The Beatles was a typical working class British City famous only for its football clubs, docklands and ferry’s that crossed the Mersey into Birkenhead and the Wirral. Growing up in these times was the same for all young men and women living in industrial cities across the nation, war had been over for 15 plus years and although rationing was a distant memory there was concern as jobs were scarce and there was unrest amongst the soon to be referred to as the ‘Baby Boomers’. Teddy Boys were desperate to hang on to their identity as a new wave of delinquents were emerging from the new sounds beginning to filter through from the bowels of a cellar in the heart of Liverpool called The Cavern. To say Liverpool was a hard city to grow up in would be an understatement, anger and resentment hung over the city like a dark cloud, times were tough throughout the UK and Liverpool was just one of many working class cities that was struggling with a wartime hangover. Discipline was the order of the day, conformity a must, follow orders and do as you are told was embedded in the psyche. You must conform or pay the price and most of all remember where in society you fit, the class system expects you to play your part and get on with it. There is no room for anarchy the country expects you to do your bit after all the government knows what’s best for you is the message, what is it you don’t understand? Your social class determined where you lived and your primary schooling would shape your future, your childhood dreams of success no matter how ambitious are taken away and put into the “who do you think you are” category like an orphan from a Dickens novel. Thankfully those days are behind us now but it was not that long ago that this mindset existed. Back in the 50’s and 60’s in the UK the education system in its infinite wisdom had decided that all school children finishing primary school must sit for exams called the eleven plus which would define the educational path you entered into, success (passing) meant winning the ‘Golden Ticket’ and yes this statement is meant to be a reference to ‘Willy Wonka’ as the stupidity of the system resembles a fairy story and failure (not passing) meant mediocrity in education. Successful students moved into the College system providing a pathway to university and beyond, sadly failure meant secondary school an inferior mode of education aimed at herding students through and out into the world of manual labour or the trades if you were lucky at the age of 15. So at the age of 11 the quality of your primary schooling along with the ability to pass an exam would be instrumental and the key to your future. How absolutely absurd and thank God this archaic system is well and truly defunct and today’s generation has equal opportunities to move on academically whenever they feel ready. I have to admit that my primary school years did nothing to prepare me for what lay ahead, was it the system that let me down or was I just not cut out for academia. I suppose these days I would have been diagnosed with dyslexia as the 3 R’s seemed to have passed me by without registering and my only clear memory of attending primary school was the day I was escorted off the school grounds by my class teacher and being told to go home and change having shit my pants, not my proudest moment but control and concentration obviously were not my strongest points. I unfortunately became a casualty of the system having fell at the 11 plus hurdle and was eventually thrust into the secondary school caldron and labeled by my educators along with everyone else a waste of space, a failure and a total loser. Secondary schools housed mainly non achievers either through the misfortune of failing a one off exam or more often than not a load of thick muppets who hated the world and considered education a waste of time, the 3 R’s were not as important to them as having enough grease to keep their Elvis Presley hair styles in place. Sadly the school that I attended falls into the latter and on day one of my attendance at this institute of learning (tongue in cheek) saw me man handled by the older boys who like Vultures survived on the rich pickings of fresh meat that happened to walk into the school grounds. I was duly set upon and dragged across the schoolyard before being deposited down the coke chute and into the bowels of the furnace room where I remained for the first lesson of the day with ripped trousers and a face as black as Louis Armstrong’s bottom. It goes without saying that my senior school years were not and I stress not my favourite times apart from playing football where the kicking at least was controlled, I spent most of my school attendance trying not to be beaten up or have my dinner money stolen. I found having to pay protection money to some spotty moron who thought a Caesarean Section was a district in Rome didn't help my educational aspirations and my thoughts were like those of a prisoner chalking out the days, weeks, months and years of his sentence on his cell wall till it was time to be released. The sheer Joy I felt when I turned 15 having reached the end of my sentence and the education custodians had seen fit to release me out into the real world, was overwhelming, I felt so much joy that I had survived and my time had been served I was now about to become a free man, poorly educated, very bruised and no qualifications but free.

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