folio

There’s not that much difference between our lad and how I was at his age. Sure, I wasn’t a teenage tearaway, but I was still completely disengaged at school. Indeed, my parents faced a school parent’s evening much like I did last night, with all my teachers telling them I was destined to flunk everything, and achieve nothing at all in life.

My wife met me just after I had completed a Masters degree, and just as I was settling into a professional career, so it has always been hard for her to imagine my pre-story. Her journey in education is very different from mine.

Showing promise at an early age, she moved from a far-flung rural village to attend secondary school in Istanbul, before attending one of the top universities in Turkey. Me? I was removed from my state primary school being so behind in learning, and put through private education until 16.

Throughout, education was a real struggle for me. The only subject I excelled in was nature studies, dropped at eleven. And so my dreams were much like my son’s, seeking out a job that would be simple enough for me that I’d nevertheless love. On my shortlist for a long time, to be a gardener.

To this day, I’d still rather like to be a gardener. That would beat filling out exhaustive paperwork for yet another cyber security assessment, or working long hours staring at screens. I might not feel that way on a cold, blustery day, pouring with rain. No doubt on those days, every gardener wishes they were a bored office dogsbody.

Much like me at his age, our son has given up all hope of passing his exams, and has already begun searching his options for jobs that are simple but pay well. He’s set the desktop wallpaper on his Mac Mini to a matt black M3 coupe with sports trim, so good pay here is key. High aspirations, no ambition.

In the end, I did get serious about my revision, and left school with a decent set of GCSEs, in all my worst subjects. The hope is being able to convince our son to do the same: to just believe in himself and have hope. Something I’m only able to say with hindsight.

Like him, I went through my second year of A-Levels with similar levels of despair. So much so that I didn’t apply for university at that point, utterly convinced that I would amount to nothing in life at all.

Much like him, I too would prefer a simple job that pays well. But such jobs seem to be in quite short supply. By the time he reaches my age, and realises how expensive life is, he will be content to pursue a dreary management job that pays well, even if it sucks the life and soul out of him.

So far, I have failed in convincing our son that he actually has great potential, just as I had without knowing it. But then, it’s only in the last year that my parents have started being open with me about their failures in education. Something they couldn’t speak of during my youth, as they sought to encourage us to emulate their later successes.

Who knows, maybe our son will make a better success of life than I did, restoring the former glory of our lineage, joining the ranks of my siblings, setting in motion greater fortunes for his offspring. Anything’s possible, really, regardless of what teachers may think.

I too was written off at his age. Sure, I never joined the ranks of the doctors and lawyers, but I haven’t been a complete failure. I just lived my life a bit differently, that’s all. Hopefully, he can do the same. If only he can find a way to believe in himself.