In the Real World

by Nōnen Títi

  “There’s no winning a vote without debating the issue and so far you haven’t given me any reasons against it,” Mr Shriver replies.

  “But Charlotte did, you see? If you’d only listened between the lines you’d know that, because she obviously went to her father for help with her homework. Lots if kids do that, like with maths, so if you have a parent who’s good at something or doesn’t mind helping out, you have an advantage. Same goes if you have the right books or a computer at home. Some kids don’t have that, or they have to listen to their parents fighting and can’t concentrate, so there’s your so-called equal opportunity for all students gone out the window the moment you send it home.”

  With a little satisfaction I notice that even the teacher is silenced by Mariette’s flood of words. Her two teammates, who were supposed to speak first, have nothing left to add and Charlotte’s team openly says they agree with Mariette.

  Next it’s Kathleen’s turn. Her subject is whether PE should be compulsory in year ten and Kathleen has to argue for it. I wonder if Mr Shriver has assigned these subjects to certain students on purpose and in the next ten minutes I start to wonder if he’s now sorry that he did.

  Kathleen makes the opening statement. “I think PE should be compulsory in year ten and every other year because it benefits everybody. It benefits the parents, who can save money on sports clubs, knowing their kids get exercise enough running around in a polo shirt promoting the school. The school benefits because it can hire even more PE teachers and make them teach other subjects. The teachers benefit because it gives them yet another reason to threaten with detentions and the students benefit because it gives them a few periods off each week.”

  Her delivery is met with laughter from most of the class, annoyance from Mr Shriver and surprise from the other two members of her team, who like PE and whom Kathleen can’t stand.

  “In that case you can have an F for English this term and stay in detention at the end of the day, seeing as that’s what you believe teachers are here for,” Mr Shriver says to Kathleen. She grins at us.

  The two guys get a chance to do their part, but without a proper opening their words aren’t convincing. The other team has no problem winning the debate.

  “I know that not all of you agree with your subject, but I won’t tolerate any more nonsense,” Mr Shriver warns the teams that are left.

  Tuesday is the only day of the week without English. The first two periods are called ‘careers’ and have to do with choosing a job later. In the third term year ten students will get a few weeks of work experience. Most look forward to that because it means no school but it’s a bit pointless because at least half the kids already have a weekend job. The weekly classes often consist of some guest speaker holding a lecture about a specific field of study, which generally means we can sit back and relax, but this time the guest hands out a multiple choice test to determine who best fits which jobs.

  “How can you tell from a piece of paper what job suits me?” Mariette asks.

  She and Kathleen often make a competition of asking useless questions just to keep the lecturers from finishing on time.

  “Because this piece of paper can give me an idea of what your personality is and people choose jobs that fit their personality,” says the man.

  “How come we all have to study the same nonsense in high school then? Do personalities develop after eighteen or something?”

  “No, people are born with them. You probably know that students have different learning styles and you all know that some people do well in mathematics while others always struggle with it, just like some people are left-handed. That goes for everything else as well. You might be very good at sports while she is more interested in philosophy,” he says to Mariette, while gesturing at Lindsey. This sends Kathleen into a giggle fit.

  “Like some people are built for sports? A little like skin colour, everybody is born different?” Mariette asks, ignoring Kathleen.

  “That’s right.”

  “So if the school promotes sport but not philosophy, it’s discriminating against inborn differences, right?”

  “This isn’t the time for those questions, Mariette. We have a time limit,” Miss Coven says.

  “Why not? I’m asking an honest question.”

  “Because this is about career planning, not about the meaning of education.”

  “Doesn’t education have to mean something if it’s supposed to lead to a career?”

  “You’re disturbing the lecture. Can you either be quiet or leave the room?” Miss Coven asks.

  “No, no, she’s right. I have asked myself that many times since I learned this,” the guest tells Miss Coven. “All people are born with a natural gift, but it’s different for everyone. You don’t really need this test to work out what that gift is; it’s what comes most easily to you and it makes you happy. If you know what you do best naturally and don’t have to learn, just practice maybe, then that’s your natural gift. If something is a chore or you need to study hard for it, it wasn’t meant for you. So some may have a gift for sport, others for art, for maths, for language, for science and some for philosophy. If you want my very honest personal opinion – there isn’t a school or parent who can change what you are or teach you what doesn’t suit you.”

  “So why are we here?” Kathleen asks.

  “Because it keeps children from being exploited by child labour,” he answers without hesitation.

  Suddenly everybody is grinning.

  “So is it true that those who aren’t capable of an art or a skill end up teaching it?” Charlotte asks.

  “I’m not answering that.”

  “So in fact only Miss Coven is of any use in this school, since she helps us finding our natural gift and everybody else is wasting their time, never mind ours,” Fred concludes.

  “You didn’t hear this from me,” the lecturer says but his eyes show pleasure and Miss Coven is blushing.

  “You can invite more guests like that,” Pat tells her when he’s left.

  After recess I have InfoTech with Fred, but the last two periods are core science for all of us. The teacher starts by congratulating Peter, one of the danglers, for winning a national science competition with an invention of his own. She produces a newspaper article in which Peter explains his invention and Mr Moralis praises him for being the most attentive student in the school and using his classes and the school’s resources to their utmost. There is even a picture of them together.

  “You sure don’t have to do tests to find your natural gift,” Fred tells Peter.

  “So if personalities are inborn they have to be based in genetics, right?” asks Mariette. The focus of this term’s science classes have to do with genetic transfer.

  “There’s no proof of that. No gene for personality has been found yet,” the teacher replies.

  “I’m not asking for proof. I’m asking for logical deduction.”

  “It’s possible, but as long as it isn’t proven, no claims can be made on those grounds,” she says.

  “I wasn’t making claims. I’m posing a hypothesis.”

  “Mariette, stop stirring up controversy. For now all you need to do is learn your lessons and leave the speculating up to those who know what they’re talking about.”

  “You know it isn’t fair! You people say we have to go to school to learn. You show us movies that claim we’ve learned logical thinking from the Greeks, who on top of that gave us science and philosophy, but when I try to use those thinking skills in school, to learn, you tell me that I’m controversial.”

  Mariette hasn’t exactly tried to control the volume of her voice and now the teacher stands up and points at the door. “You can either be quiet and do what you’re here for or you can leave the room and come back in detention.”

  Mariette kicks her desk away from her chair so hard it topples over and the people in front of her have to jump out of the way. She picks up her bag, shakes off Kathleen’s hand and leaves the room
, slamming the door like she does at home.

  After class, when we’re all walking to the buses Fred asks her, “What’s wrong that you are on the war path all the time? Enough’s enough already.”

  “Nothing’s wrong with me. It’s just that I’m starting to see what’s wrong with the rest of the world.”

  “And of course you’re not at all big-headed,” Kathleen jokes, but Mariette ignores it.

  “I don’t know why I haven’t noticed it before. It’s like in that movie we saw Saturday night, where the jury is pre-selected by the outcome they require, like the teachers. If you question them they threaten detention. It’s the only word they seem to know.”

  “It isn’t worth the trouble,” Fred says.

  “I’m beginning to think that it is. I ask questions – I’m disturbing the class. I don’t ask questions – I’m not interested enough. If I point out discrepancies I’m disrespectful. If I object to their demeaning treatment I’m… whatever. I’m sick of it. They get away with all this crap because we back away to avoid trouble.”

  “Because they hold the strings, baby. If they don’t like you, you fail your class and you won’t leave school with the piece of paper that gets you into tertiary and so you end up in fast food,” says Kathleen.

  “So you’re saying it’s predetermined so that only those who follow the rules without thinking about it stand a chance in this world? That makes school an obedience centre, like doggie training: Sit up and bark.”

  “Have you been talking to my dad?” Kathleen asks.

  “No, but I’d like to if this is the way he thinks.”

  “He also says you can’t win against the system, Mariette. You either comply or you’re doomed.”

  “So this is a dictatorship? It isn’t fair; they yak about equality and freedom and what have you in civics, but it’s all a lie, isn’t it?”

  We say goodbye to Fred, who has to wait for a different bus, and sit together at the back. “You haven’t said anything yet, Jerome,” Mariette observes.

  “I think even if… or especially if this were a dictatorship, you won’t be able to change the way things are, so it’s probably safer to stick to your own life,” I tell her.

  “Yeah right, and that’s exactly why nothing ever changes, because nobody cares enough to try.” She taps Peter on the back. “Why did you let Moralis say all that stuff in the interview if you made your invention outside of school, without their resources?”

  “He asked,” Peter answers.

  “But it’s a lie. It makes it sound like he taught you this stuff. Why do you accept that garbage? Why do you even come to school; you could teach those assholes.”

  “Because if he doesn’t he won’t get his piece of paper and then he’ll be called dumb,” Kathleen answers.

  Mariette kicks her bag so hard it goes flying down the aisle and earns an angry look from the bus driver. Her mood doesn’t improve when we get home and she can’t find her black jumper and track pants.

  “They’re in the hamper. I washed them,” Aunt Karen says when she comes in with Miranda.

  “How dare you take my things without my permission? I hate you!” Mariette yells.

  “It was about time; they were stiff with filth!” Aunt Karen shouts back.

  That’s enough to cause an avalanche of cursing from Mariette’s side and then Aunt Karen raises her hand. Mariette takes a step closer, her eyes flashing. “I dare you,” she challenges her mother.

  I put my arm around my aunt’s back and take her hand, unsure how she’ll react, but this has to stop. She lets me take her into the kitchen. “Don’t fight her, Aunt Karen, you can’t win.”

  But Aunt Karen can’t not fight so at dinnertime when Mariette starts stirring trouble, she goes against Uncle Gerard’s advice and once again the meal ends with food flying across the kitchen.

  I would like to go to Mariette’s room and tell her this isn’t working, but I don’t. I can’t fight her anger either.

  MARIETTE

  Today in first period English it’s Fred and Jerome’s turn to debate. Pat opens with their pro-uniform statement: “We have to argue in favour of uniforms, so here are the convincing slogans parents and teachers use to promote uniforms. By being alert to these deceptions you can be sure you won’t fall for their excuses when they tell you what to wear.”

  “Stop,” Mr Shriver says. “A debate is about opinions, not a collection of quotes.”

  “Oh, our opinion? Well, we’re all against it, but you said this wasn’t about the contents, so it doesn’t really matter what we say.”

  “You can sit down. Opposing team, opening statement.”

  The opposing team consists of Lindsey and two of the sporty boys. “We don’t believe uniforms are a good thing, because they are a lust object for principals and-”

  That’s as far as Lindsey gets before the whole class bursts out laughing. “Shit, I didn’t think she had it in her,” I say to Kathleen, who has collapsed over her desk.

  Mr Shriver silences Lindsey faster than he did Pat and sends her to her seat. “You had better watch yourself,” he says to me.

  “I had nothing to do with this.”

  “And you can stop your comic relief or leave the room,” he tells Kathleen, who tries very hard to control herself. She manages for the next thirty seconds, which is as long as I can keep myself from looking at her. The moment our eyes meet it’s a lost battle. Mr Shriver sends us both out.

  “Shame, now we can’t hear Fred and Jerome,” Kathleen says.

  The next two periods are geography, which is usually boring. It’s all about the environment, natural resources and pollution. The same things we’ve heard day in and day out all our lives. We know about recycling; we’ve grown up with it, but because it’s new to them, the older generation, they feel the need to lecture us about it with the excuse that it’s about environmental health.

  “Can I ask a question then?”

  “Sure Mariette, go ahead.” This teacher likes me; she has since year seven, because I knew enough geography to make her feel like someone was actually listening in her classes.

  “Isn’t it true that people need a healthy environment to stay alive?’

  “That’s true.”

  “And health is more than just physical, right? It also means mental health, being appreciated?”

  The teacher acknowledges my words with a nod and a frown.

  “And mental health can only exist if a person’s personality is respected?”

  “Where are you going with this, Mariette?”

  “I just wondered how dressing all people in the same clothes can respect their personality.”

  “I take it you’re referring to uniforms. I heard you’re giving Mr Shriver a hard time.”

  I smile at her. “Well, does it?”

  “I’m not answering that, Mariette. Human rights is a civics issue, not geography.”

  “You see, you people talk about providing a rounded education involving all subjects – a bit like baking a cake ready to go on display –but the thing is, you all contribute only one ingredient and none of you mix them in the same bowl. How can you ever make a cake that way?”

  “The answer to that, Mariette, is that we’re all working for the same baker and he has the last word.”

  “I thought this was geography, not HomeEc,” Charlotte says.

  Not sure if she’s joking or sarcastic, I forget to reply to the teacher. Not that there’s much I can say. They’re also stuck in the system; they follow the rules of the board of education. “A group of over-aged stiff pricks used to baking traditional cookies who can’t even see anymore how warped their cookie cutter is.”

  “Where do you get all that from?” Kathleen wants to know at lunch.

  “Nowhere, it just makes sense.”

  “So what are you planning?” Fred asks.

  “Nothing, just waking them up I guess. I mean, they should be aware of it and if they’re not it’s about time they were. It’s
like what that guy said yesterday. Teachers all have the same personality, so the school considers that the only acceptable one and expects all students to be like them while preaching that they know about learning styles.”

  “So how do you think you’ll convince them if they’re so different from us, but they all think alike? They’ll have each other to back them up while you stand alone,” Kathleen says.

  “Isn’t your dad in the council?”

  “Yeah, all they yak about is money spent on repairs and parent involvement in the building upkeep and canteen. He says it’s a waste of time.”

  “So I’ll write an essay or something. There has to be at least one of them clever enough to understand.”

  “You might want to start by being less aggressive about it. Give them a chance to listen before you beat them over the head,” Jerome says.

  “Aggressive? I’m only asking questions and I’ll respect any person who tries to answer them honestly, even if they can’t. I just want to be taken seriously.”

  “Suit it yourself,” Kathleen says.

  In history I give it another try. “Didn’t you say that the communist regimes don’t allow individuality and are thereby degrading their people?”

  “First, you’re generalizing,” answers Mr Fokker. “I said that in reference to communist China under Mao; I never said every communist government. Second, I know what you’re getting at, so I suggest you come up with what you want to say in your own words and don’t try to make me say them.”

  His look says he knows he threw me off track and I suddenly know I’ve found an opponent worth the trouble. “Okay, you condemned the idea of all people having to wear those blue suits, yet that’s the same as school uniforms.”

  “That is correct,” he answers.

  “So what is it, a tool for obedience?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think it is. Look at who wears uniforms: the army, the police, all those who can’t think for themselves only follow orders regardless of what those are.”

  Mr Fokker sits down on his desk. “And nurses, bank personnel, judges, chefs and even businessmen to a degree. It’s considered a symbol of belonging to a group by most people, which is why most don’t object to wearing it.”