Not nothing...or brainwashed

I learned a lot in school and from an early age.

I don't mean how to read and write, mathematics and all that other rubbish like conforming to whatever the agenda of the day was, following the teacher's directions to the letter like a good little lemming and basically becoming brainwashed. Nope, I mostly avoided all that bullshit, certainly as my age crept upwards, and I came to see it for what it was. I learned well though, despite their best efforts to brainwash me.

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I was quite brutally victimised by the other kids (and some teachers) from a young age because of my skin colour and other reasons like my parents being a mixed-race (white and brown) marriage and so on; beaten, spat on, ostracized and shunned, my stuff taken away and meddled with...it started when I first got there at just under five years old and...yeah, it wasn't nice.

Kids can be cruel Humans can be cruel, unjust, selfish, hateful and many other negative things...and I learned it all from a young age which I've carried forward and used to good advantage.

Conformity is one of the biggest lessons they try to teach (brainwash) kids into doing. Stand here, write like this, obey blindly, think like I think...I wasn't into it. This doesn't mean I was a rebel and was anti-social or badly-behaved, (I was brought up better than to do that), but I certainly saw it for what it was and decided to forge my own paths, think out of the box and actively look for solutions instead - non-conformity doesn't go well for a kid in school, but I did it anyway. It was a lesson that helped me later in life and through some difficult and dangerous things, professionally and personally, and generally in my life; school and my experiences there taught me to be inquisitive, to seek and learn not accept, and to be an individual in defiance of them trying to force me to conform.

A respect for, and obeyance of, authority was brow-beaten into kids at school in my day. Respect these people because they're teachers or the headmaster (principal) or because I was told to. But...often these people were instrumental in demonstrating to me that they didn't deserve to be respected; their behaviours were sometimes just as bigoted as the kids and I felt it was worse coming from these "adults" I was supposed to respect and who should have known better.

I learned that respect is earned not given just because someone said so. This helped me become a leader, to lead by example, have my team's or unit's best interests as my first priority even should it place me at risk or danger and to not demand respect but seek to earn it.

They spoke about diligence, effort and a willingness to do what's required to succeed - study hard, do your homework and so on - but I saw people following study-guides and regurgitating the "right" answers, short-cutting for grades, rather than doing any real work...and it was rewarded with those good grades and pats on the head from teachers. I learned that the "effort" they wanted spoke more to making an effort to stay safe, "colour within the lines", fear things at which one may fail.

I learned, through their flawed ethos, that the path to success comes from actually doing the hard work, taking responsibility and ownership and having the discipline and fortitude to stand up and keep on moving after being knocked down no matter what. I learned that to succeed I must first fail and has it worked in life? You bet your ass it has.

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I learned a lot at school, but not what they hoped to teach brainwash me into learning.

I was told by a few of my teachers that, I would never amount to anything, that I was and shall always be nothing.

It was a little confronting to the 15-16 year old me but I soon realised it was the best thing they could have said because it underlined my thoughts about school (and human beings) and I used it as motivation to be my true self despite them. I had no desire to prove them wrong, (they didn't matter to me in the least bit and what they thought in that moment or may think in the future mattered less). No, I did what I did for me, and because I'm me, and because I learned that I'm responsible for my success or failure and only through the latter could I attain the former.

I'm not nothing, although I guess others may disagree. I'm something, always was and always will be, and I'm pretty content being myself, taking the ownership and responsibility required for my life's sake and applying the right elements towards making it the best it could be.

I wonder if you learned lessons at school that were not necessarily the ones they wanted to teach or part of the curriculum and if you have would you share any below? Feel free to comment below, I'm interested about how school was for you, what you learned, how and why.