New Things

I love to learn and discover.

When I was six years old I wanted to learn how to read and write but because of some weird rule about when your birthday is, I wasn't allowed to go to school until the year after I had turned seven. My parents decided not to send me to school a year later, but rather to teach me themselves.

This did not go well, if I'm being honest.

My parents also owned a business and they were constantly busy so therefore could not always keep an eye on what I was doing, so I learnt how to read and write and then I was basically left to my own devices.

When I was ten I got a computer for my birthday and I began to do courses on there of grades much higher than my own. I hardly ever did math because I hated it (I still do) simply because I could not understand it at all and that frustrated me beyond belief. I would instead learn English, Natural Sciences and sometimes other things when I got bored, like Spanish.

I would watch movies and read books and explore outside instead. I asked a lot of questions which helped me to learn and still does, apparently it can be annoying sometimes.

I hardly ever bothered with all of the subjects because to me they were stupid and I didn't see the point in doing them if I didn't enjoy them. This was obviously a problem but one that I would only realize in 2012 when I was sent to high school and I basically failed every single one of my subjects during my first term.

When I went to high school it was extremely difficult for me for the first few months because of the curriculum where I was expected to have background from grades 1-7 (Which I didn't have) and I was expected to pass every subject as well as make friends with people who I couldn't understand because of how they spoke and how they acted.

I hated it. I could not understand why I was being punished so badly and during my first two years of high school I barely passed all of my subjects, when I got to grade 10 I got to choose my subjects and that is when I began to realize that I wasn't actually stupid. I began to get between 60% and 70% for every subject in every term and I was super proud of myself, I still struggled in some areas but overall I did well.

Struggling like that made me realize how much better I could have done if I had of had that foundation of lower grades and it made me really despise home-schooling as a whole. It is a terrible idea, in my opinion, as children don't get proper social skills nor do they always learn the proper curriculum. If the child is older and already has a network of friends then it might be better, but in my experience there is always a problem, socially, with home-schooling.

I finished my matric year with one distinction, ironically in the language that I hated in grade 8, and I went on to decide that teaching or writing should be my career.

I love to help people and answer questions and I love to learn new things. I've come to realize that when you teach, the students are not the only ones learning.

I will forever be grateful to my English teachers from high school, one of which I now work in close quarters with, and to my Afrikaans teacher who believed in me and helped me achieve what I thought to be impossible.

It's teachers like those that make me want to become one, the ones that will never be forgotten.

So I hope you appreciate your teachers while you have them and that you are thankful to them when you have moved on, they are part of your foundation.

Thanks for reading xx