Before I was admitted into senior high school, I was confident that I was going to excel academically as I did in junior high school. Little did I know that the fatigue from the long distance to school coupled with teachers who never showed up in class to teach would weaken that resolve. Every resolution soon gets tested.

I was preoccupied with the good reputation of the school. I hadn’t taken into consideration the need for balance in my education. Our school was a single-sex school and I couldn’t foresee that the absence of girls created some lack in our training. Looking back, I do not see myself sending my kids to a single-sex school. A mixed one is better. There are parents who like to help their smart kids skip classes. If the kids are exceptionally brilliant and are in Grade 1, at the end of the academic year, their parents want them to be moved to Grade 3 instead of 2. I have resolved to let mine follow the ladder, step by step. No hurried growth. They will mature naturally without the help of any chemicals. It is important to allow children time and space to socialize properly and grow at a comfortable rate.

Ours was a great school. But for over a year, some teachers never showed up in class and instead of applying the necessary punishment to whomever was negligent, the school authorities only acted surprised that we suffered such a fate. The few who came to class were impatient. You dare not ask a question if you didn’t understand the lesson. And that left me wondering how the school made its name.

Perhaps some hardworking people laid a solid foundation which the lazy gold diggers are now trying to pull down. I soon discovered that the attitude of many of the teachers was a deliberate one. By refusing to take their time to explain properly what we learn in class, the student is forced to get a private tutor and guess who parents are likely to choose. So this was a marketing strategy. An evil one of course.

The decline in my performance stemmed from that and other stuff. Some days I went to school and spent part of my transport back home because the food I carried to school wasn’t enough. I remember standing on top of a building overlooking a university close to our high school and encouraging myself that one day, I shall make it there. It gave me fuel to withstand the bad days of hunger and discouragement and bullies in high school.

I remember asking an old friend during vacation whether in her high school students were bullied. I was shocked to discover there was nothing of the sort in hers. In our school, bullying was so normal the teachers joked about it in class. Seems every student should expect it from their superiors.

High school is a big book of disappointments and short-lived excitements, a blend of unforgettable memories overall.

One day, I wondered if I would ever finish. Our completion seemed so far and distant it hurt to think if it. But it surely came, like echoes of a distant dream.

No wonder the day I finish high school I felt some mighty chains binding me had ben broken. And it wasn’t metaphorical. In every sense of the word.