The school debate 1- my schooling background

I haven't even written the post and I know there's going to be more than one part :)

This is a topic I've wanted to talk about on the blog for a long, LONG time.

Homeschooling vs public school (government school is what we call it in SA) vs private school.

Or maybe not versus. We'll see.



But first I want to write about my schooling. Because it very obviously influences my feelings and decisions.

I'm also going to use terms like white, black and coloured on my blog. While I don't see people based on skin colour (hello, I'm in a mixed marriage!), the fact of the matter is this is South Africa and especially pre-1994, colour was how we were defined.

I know lots of people think that all those issues are a thing of the past... it's not. It's a lot more prevalent in certain parts of the country though.

Anyway, back to my story.

I'm a coloured girl from the eastern cape and so of course I went to government primary and high schools in my community.

At that point in SA, that was the thing to do. You went to the nearest school to your house or maybe one a few minutes further.

My primary school was less than a 5-minute walk from my house and my high school was a 10-minute walk or a 7-minute run if I was late. There were 3 schools within that radius. I went to the furthest because it was the best of the 3.


Coloured people did not go to "white" schools (I'm soooo apolitical but I think we weren't allowed to? Someone tell me...). In my standard 9 or matric year, we had two black girls join our school. This was huge. We just didn't have any contact with other race groups. By the way, I happened to become very close friends with the one girl.

Anyway, since I didn't know there was anything different out there, that was my life.

I was top of the standard (8 classes per grade of about 30 kids) for three of my high school years and second for the other two years. Interestingly enough, the guy who was first those two years (and second the other years) and I ended up working at the same company early on in my career. We both ended up in financial services! Here! In Jhb! 11 hours away from our city. Don't you find that freaky? I did - I could NOT believe it was him!!!

I didn't know if I lacked anything educationally because it just wasn't an option.

Let me also add that even if the racial thing didn't exist, there was no way my parents would have been able to afford a white school anyway. We grew up with very little. Again, I knew others had more but I was on about the 60th - 70th percentile of everyone around me financially so it was all very normal.

One day I should tell you the degrees of coloured as explained to me by a coloured guy at work. It is HILARIOUS and true!

 

So then I decided to go to Rhodes University.

My marks were very good. Good enough to get one of the few bursaries for science at that point (it may have changed since but in those days there were about 3 corporates offering just a few bursuries for science).

A lot of the kids who matriculated with me weren't able to afford university tuition. I think there were two of us who went to Rhodes, (one hour away) one or two to UCT (about 8 hours away?), a good bunch to UPE and Vista (local universities) nd then some went to PE Tech and a lot (more than half) just couldn't afford any tertiary education.

At the time I was very self-centred as only a 17-year-old can be so I didn't even care about anyone else's career goals or dreams. I'm a lot different now.

So when I got to Rhodes the wheels fell off.

Suddenly instead of being number 1 or 2 out of 250 kids, I was surrounded by very clever kids from all over the country, and a lot of them were SUPER clever.

I had a lot of adjusting to do (I think I'm still getting used to not always being the clever one :)) realising that I wasn't that clever after all!

I won't bore you with a step-by-step walk through my life but the point of all that was to say this -

Even though I went to a coloured school I still ended up in a good space in life.

I've worked hard at my jobs and while I'm not where I thought I would be (topic for another post) - you know, CEO  :) - I've done well. Certainly very well for a coloured girl from the community I grew up in! This is both as a result of God's grace on my life but also a few other factors

Then there are other people who have had all the privileges in life - good schools, private schools, who have not done as well.

By the way, by well, I don't necessarily mean financially. I mean making good life decisions, etc.

At a previous company they accessed some research that said the factor that creates success in life was not only education. Please note I'm not saying education is not important - it is. Things like drive, tenacity, commitment, determination, good interpersonal skills, resilience those sorts of things that I do have - are the real factors of success.

Interestingly enough, there is another girl from my high school class who is doing verrrry well here in Jhb and yet she was very average at school. I was 1st and she was about 18 out of that class of 32. But she is a real go-getter, has excellent people skills, etc.

I'm sure you also know people like this?

And then I also know people at work who went to really expensive good schools in Jhb who are not all that awesome in the workplace. They're average workers.

Of course there are people on the other end of the spectrum too.

This is just the background but informs why I don't think going to the fanciest, most expensive school predicts absolutely anything in life.

I really believe it's those other things.

So, tell me about your story. What was your schooling background like? Any other people who had school backgrounds similar to mine?

PS You're very welcome to ask me anything in the comments - I won't take offence.