Why primary school is better than college

I know, I know what you’re thinking. There’s no way primary school is better than college. I can drag my hungover arse in and out of college willy-nilly because nobody actually expects me to go, I’ve no morning classes this year and if I chose correctly I could also have no classes at all on a Friday. These are all true. However, primary school wasn’t all early mornings and uniforms. There were some pretty sweet parts of primary school that I think could easily be adapted to third level education to make college a better place for us all to be.

Primary school was a simpler time. A list of my biggest worries when I was in primary school included the following:

• How long before I can change out of my uniform?
• How much of my sandwich do I actually have to eat before I could get away with moving on to the crisps without getting in trouble?
• Why can’t I get a cool wrestling pencil case like Random Friend X has?
• What If I DON’T remember all 150 pokemon and what each one evolves in to!?
• Must…get…more…pogz!
• Who’s gonna be on in chasing this yard-time?

And a list of my biggest worries in college:

• When’s that assignment due!?
• We have WHAT mid-term this week?
• It’s worth HOW much percent!?
• Did they just say something about this being on the exam? Is this gonna be on the exam? Crap I should be listening…
• What in God’s name am I going to do with my future after I finish in College!?
• I have to have a career now!?
• …Eugh, peer evaluation forms have to be filled out
• Naggins are HOW MUCH!?

Naggins are HOW MUCH!?

But this isn’t even the point I’m making here. The point is where primary school is better than college, and where we, at the end of our educational careers, can learn from those at the very start (Outside, of course, of bringing back Pogz. My God they were epic).

Stars

You all know the situation. A lecturer has asked a question, no one has answered. It’s been more than ten seconds and now it’s beginning to get awkward. The lecturer stands there staring out in to the sea of faces. Some disinterested, some whispering to the person next to them “what did they ask!?”, others whispering “I don’t have a clue!”, some showing visible signs of the strain of the ever increasing awkwardness and most staring at the floor or their phone or anywhere that isn’t the lecturer’s face (The latter here is a defense mechanism in case the lecturer is one of those rare breeds who will actually ask people individually if no one answers soon). As the silence grows more deafening and the awks become major everyone secretly hopes someone, ANYONE, will answer. Everyone looks to the foreign kids (as they are are usually quite reliable in this kind of situation to transfer the awkwardness back on to the lecturer using a combination of incomprehensible accents, broken English and un-pronounceable names) but nothing from them this time.  Finally, after what seems like aeons of time, the lecturer cracks and just answers themselves and moves on having lost the game of awkward moment chicken with the class. A collective sigh of relief is breathed.

Memes...They just make image hunting SO much easier! 🙂

But this could all be avoided? Remember Primary school?
A question wouldn’t be out of the teacher’s mouth before hands would shoot up all around the room, stretched as high as possible in the air, with the other arm either placed over the lips to show you were being silent or  used as a support arm for the long-haul stretches where the teacher was being indecisive about who to pick to answer. People would literally be shouting “Sir, Sir, Sir, I know!” trying to get the teachers attention.

Now I’m not saying we should be doing this in lectures (even if it would look hilarious). But think back to why your hand was in the air, why you wanted to answer the question. It wasn’t due simply to an overwhelming desire to show off what you knew (unless you were one of THOSE kids…*evil eyes*). It wasn’t because your teacher was some kind of tyrant who would bate ya with a stick if you didn’t show enthusiasm in class (unless you had one of THOSE teachers). It wasn’t even because you had just eaten a load of sugar at lunch and were now struggling just to keep yourself in your chair (though this sometimes was the case). It was because of stars.

If you did well, you got a little reward. A sticker of a little golden star, or perhaps a smiley face, to show that you were feckin’ brilliant! And being honest, it was the fact that you now had a sticker to play with that kept you entertained not the brilliance you supposedly had. You didn’t give a flying sh*te at that age how brilliant you were….you just cared about the rewards you would get for at least appearing brilliant. And the rewards didn’t stop at stars. If you got consistent gold stars or smileys or whatever you had, then at the end of every week or month or something there was a possibility of an even greater reward…and this could be amazing. Prizes I encountered in my time were: choice of toys at play time, jellies, chocolate, biscuits, taking care of the class goldfish, no homework, getting the class giant teddy bear for a weekend and many more. I don’t care how old I’m supposed to be, if you give me jellies for answering questions I will answer those questions and sit in class with a big smug “I’ve got the jellies” head up on me. Delighted with life.

Answering questions...the safer alternative to getting in the van

So what I propose is this: In every lecture there is a chart with all our names on it (perhaps it could be done online….I mean this IS college like!). When you answer a question correctly or provide something constructive to the class you get a star, which is added to your online total of stars. Then, at the end of every week, the person on top of the class gets something they’d enjoy…like a naggin…or the shift. Be grand!
No more awkward silences and we all get a better educational experience for just the price of a naggin a week. Who says we need to bring back in fees!?

Milk

Remember Milk in Primary school?
You sign up for it at the start of the year and then once a day for the rest of the year someone would arrive to your classroom with a carton of refrigerated milk for you to enjoy while you were in school. Brilliant!
Now, albeit at the time I probably would have preferred it to be a red lemonade or Tanora or something (image below for those who have the misfortune of not being from Cork) but  it’s the idea of being handed a drink every day that I like here.

Look at it....Om nom nom Tanora!

Imagine. You’re in a two hour lecture. It’s warm in there (like it is in ALL Ucc lecture rooms except the Geography building) and you’re starting to get thirsty. You’ve got one of those lecturers who refuses to take a break and wants to fill every minute of those hours with their voice. You’re on your last legs, not sure if you’ll survive the next twenty minutes. Note taking has reached an all time low, as has energy and sanity. Not only are you not learning but you’re staring to forget things you already knew….like your name.
Suddenly, the lecture room door swings open and in steps a man with a small basin filled with hope. He’s got your drinks. Refreshment sweeps through the room as the man with the basin doles out the ice cold bottles of whatever-ya-like (not unlike the guy who doles out the peanuts at American sports events, but you’ve already paid for the service). Everyone is now back on track. Ready to face the next hour of this class and take notes like a boss!

It could even be pints! Imagine a pint midway through one of your most boring lectures. Wouldn’t that just fix all your problems? You’d be more than delighted to be at your lecture then!

Mmmmmm....Educational

I may be single-handedly saving the Irish educational system here…

Games at yard time

Think of the amount of time you spend hanging around college. I know you’ve got things to do a lot of the time like assignments, readings and creeping but be honest…most of this time is spent on Facebook anyway.

Remember lunch time in Primary school? It was nothing but whatever game was popular at the time, like Pogz, chasing, Pokemon or whatever. Again, I’m not saying I expect to see college students playing chasing up and down campus (at least not while they’re sober) but at least something entertaining when we leave class instead of just sitting around people watching until our next lecture. I’d be up for a game of Pogz in college. Pogz society? Just putting it out there…

 

Oh my God, BEER POGZ! (I reeallly liked Pogz!)

There’s loads of things you could actually do with your free time. There’s only so many times I can pretend to do work in the library. Free time from our education used to be fun. Now it’s just sitting around campus or in student housing watching home and away or sitting in the bar with a pint. We had shag all to keep us entertained during breaks in Primary school but we were creative enough to keep ourselves going the whole time even though we were stuck inside the walls of the school grounds. Now we can go wherever and do whatever we like, we don’t even have to be creative, and we can’t even think of one thing to do half the time. 8-year-old me was so much cooler.