School Pride

JED Packs brought me back to my alma mater yesterday. I didn't have an easy time there. I wasn't well liked because I spoke English in a school that primarily didn't, when I was there; that made me seem high and mighty and snobby!  (I am told it has changed in the last 20 years). Anyway, I didn't have the easiest time when I was there but at the same time, I also made friends with people that I still consider my best friends today. And the twenty years has put a great amount of space and time between the ill-feelings and myself.

Even then, I did not expect to feel nostalgia and pride for the days that I spent within the confines of the school. In my mind, I've always understood why Packrat and even his brother see it as a given that Evan and Muffin will follow in their footsteps and go to their alma mater. But today, I truly thought what pride I would feel if Jordan went to my alma mater. I had never thought about it before because I always considered all the schools that I had gone to, just schools and nothing more. I knew I wanted her to go to a good school where it would bring out the best in her. But I never consciously thought about how it had to be my own school.

In fact, my parent volunteering adventures came about because of my reluctance to send her to the same school I went to primary school. But it does seem that when I think about secondary school, perhaps because I had to grow up so much there, I feel different.

I tried to explain it to Packrat last night. There are still things that impress me about the school and many of those things are intangible. It's not so much about results, in fact not at all. It is more about seeing the girls help each other and encourage each other while studying for their big exam that begins next week. It's about manners, that teachers still insist on proper decorum and manners while being spoken to by students. But strangely, it was also about seeing these girls in a uniform that I had worn for four years, rolled my eyes at because the hemline of the skirt had to reach our knees and we, as young ladies, had to wear pettycoats under our skirts rather than shorts.

Will I push Jordan to go there? No, that is not my style. But I will tell her about the school and tell her about what I did there. I would probably give her the sanitized version that wouldn't include mean girls and tears on my part because while all that did happen, I remember the friendships, donning the school colours and thundering down the track to shrill shrieks (girls didn't roar, they shrieked) and taking long walks with friends round and round the bitumen track pondering life issues such as boys and where to go off to college. And if she did go there, I would in my heart know that she would turn out okay because it was a school with values I could get behind, most possibly because the values that I have were imbued within its hallowed walls.

While writing this post, I wanted to put up pictures from all those years ago and am slightly distraught to discover that I cannot find any!

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