Often when you speak to older adults they will tell you the school days were the best days of your life, this is not because the school days were the best of their lives, simply that they were conditioned into believing this. No adult can honestly believe that the best days of their lives were when they were treated with little or no respect, or when they were beaten with a slipper for speaking out of turn. If they truly believed that school days were so good then why did most of them leave school at 16?

Fortunately today teachers don't beat us with old slippers of canes but does that really make school a better environment for the student?
Well the most you could say is that it's an improvement. The fact is that the school environment is an unhealthy one; everyday you're faced with the same old routine, and even worse the same people.

During your younger teenage years in the lower part of the school we are all faced with a huge task, not learning about algebra or
Shakespeare, but the ultimately more important lesson of learning who we are, and who we want to be. So during these turbulent years we are not placed in a constructive, and helpful environment, we are forced into a volatile environment where the minority are bullied and the majority are too afraid to be different, we are surrounded by social stereotypes, greebos, skaters, townies goths, etc. The only way to truly be an individual is to shun other people's opinions of you and be yourself but this can be difficult when they surround you. Bullies often unfairly target those with learning difficulties, and we all soon learn that teachers and parents can't really do much to help, we are told over and over again to "just ignore them" or "try to stay out of the way" But it's hard to stay out of the way of someone if you have to be in their class or form.