For most of us who grew up in Africa, we can all agree to the fact that we spend about 80% of our lives in the classroom. I’ve been schooling since the age of one and in all my twenty plus years of living, I’ve been fortune to have only one gap year. Some people see gap years as a good thing while some see it as a bad thing.
Let me tell you why. Growing up, we’ve been made to the believe that you have to start schooling at the age of two, complete junior high at the age of 14 or 15, then you move on to secondary school which will be for three years. By the time you’re 18, you should be done with senior high school and heading to the university. By 25 to 28 years, you’re expected to be a billionaire. Well, I’m sorry to burst your bubble. Life isn’t a fairytale and most of us realise that late.
Schooling doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to be rich and big in future. I’ve known people with PhDs and what have you yet they are not even able to afford a comfortable life. Schooling is just an avenue for us to learn and develop ourselves in various ways. As they say, it’s better to have the certificate than not have it.
I used to love school soo much as a kid, my only problem then was I liked going to school late cos my house was closer to the school and trust my teachers to give me some lashes for being late.😂 Those days, there wasn’t so much technology at our disposal as it is today. You’d be lucky to have a mobile phone only after you have completed senior high school and passed. Now, even kids who are in grade 5 use mobile phones and tablets. Back then, there was so much meaning to friendship because if you didn’t have friends in school, you’d be the lonely one among the rest. In those moments, we learnt to accept people for who they are, get to know them and build good friendships with them. I can tell you that the friends I made in primary school and junior high school are part of the few genuine friendships I’ve had.
Now, with social media and what have you around you don’t even know who your friend is. Everyone is out there looking out for himself. There are literally a few or no one to go to in dark times. Being a student then, I always looked forward to going to school because of my friends and how they helped me in my academic life.
School wasn’t always fun for me you know. Even though I loved school, sometimes I just needed a break. When it came to my academics, sometimes I would get so frustrated because of some stuff I didn’t understand from class. And to make things worse, my teacher would add up assignments on what he thought, God knows sometimes I had all wrong which meant I had to write correction. Just the thought of having to write correction made me frustrated. My parents were really busy people and I didn’t have my own personal phone for research and all of that.
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Fortunately, my dad had his own internet cafe which was run by his employees so, sometimes when I visited there, I would get the opportunity to use the computer to make more research on my home work. On days when I’m not so fortunate, the only solution was to go to school early and copy my friends homework. I didn’t like it but I had no choice. Limited access to information was a very big problem I faced in those moments but thanks to development, today we have so many tools at our disposal to make learning easy.
Technology can have its good and bad side and from my life story you can tell that. Today, we put little to no value on friendship, thanks to social media but also, on the good side, our kids have access to technological tools which can enhance and make their studies easier. This is the beauty of evolution.
All images belong to me unless stated otherwise.
