Jack Averty: Try a new school of thought, as education’s not so bad after all

That quote sound familiar? Well it’s probably because we all uttered it once as a fed up pubescent teenager thinking we didn’t need an education.

Oh how we all laugh now as our teachers did back then.

Lots of kids hate school, it’s part and parcel of life. If you didn’t hate your teachers, your lessons or your uniform then something else wasn’t right – unless you were the teacher’s pet or a boffin.

Hating school is often the norm. As unruly teens, we would charge home unloading our verbal venom at mum and dad, boiling over with hormones and hatred.

Our anger though didn’t stem from that day of hell involving two hours of maths and having to play hockey in the rain in PE, no, it was because we had to attend school in the first place.

Why did we have to go anyway? We knew how to add up, nobody was ever going to use those complicated algebra formulas in real life and we were well aware of how to read and write.

Occasionally you might pick up some great little nuggets of information that stick with you for life – such as the fact Hitler was really bad or Shakespeare wrote a lot of plays – but the point remains.

As was so eloquently put on the BBC Three show People Just Do Nothing: “Kids should have an option not to go to school like adults have the doll.”

Every teen would bite your hand off to have the chance to sit at home all day doing nothing and accumulating dollah (cash), as the kids like to put it.

Of course this hate for school has time to fester and grow mostly over the revision break.

There’s oodles of time to prepare for those upcoming GCSE exams, being allowed to break up early specifically to study. And yet, so many 16-year-olds find every excuse under the sun not to prepare for the 10+ exams they have lined up in the coming weeks.

No doubt they’ve given themselves the pep talk, reminding themselves just how important these tests are and repeating the mantra ‘they will set me up for life’ while neatly laying out the desk for a day of revision.

But after some Facebook scrolling and TV time – and of course a lie in, it is the holidays after all – somehow it’s midday. But hey, it’s not problem, there’s still all day to revise.

The first page is finally ready to be turned on that biology book, but then bellies start rumbling and it’s lunch time. No worries, going to grab some grub won’t take long, then it’s back to the revision afterwards. Of course, nobody can start revising straight after eating, that stomach needs time to settle.

The sun’s almost out now and given that it’s a British summer, it won’t be fine weather for long, so it might as well be enjoyed while it lasts. Not to worry there will be plenty of time to revise afterwards.

But having fun outside can be awfully tiring and a quick rest would do wonders before hitting the books. Then dinner lands on the table and the evening sets in and revision can’t possibly happen now because, well, it’s the evening. Still there’s always tomorrow. . .

Fast forward a few weeks and thousands of nervous teenagers are back at school, standing in line to get those GCSE results sweating buckets worse than that time they tried a lamb madras for dinner thinking they were hard.

What happens for most, however, on opening that dreaded envelope is that it all turns out alright. Our results are fine and if they weren’t then GCSEs are a load of old cobblers anyway. But for many of us, we also learn a valuable lesson: that school is actually OK.

When many of those children pensively ripped open their envelopes this Thursday they hopefully came to the same conclusion that school’s not that bad after all, and if they didn’t, they will realise it when they have mouths to feed, a mortgage to pay and real life to deal with.

School may not be perfect, nothing is. But it provides us with friends, many of us keep for life, it shields us from the harm of the world when we should be enjoying our childhood and most importantly helps us to become adults.

All those teachers you said you hated – you probably didn’t really.

All the times maths seemed to be the worst subject ever – no doubt you miss those complicated sums now.

All the times parents had to listen to us whining and trying to haggle a sick day off school – imagine trying that now with your boss?

Sometimes school is seen as a chore and not something to enjoy, but the second we leave we finally realise actually it was quite a lot of fun and really not that bad. Sometimes the appreciation for school may be delayed until after university – especially as you trudge off to some part of the UK to drink £1 shots every night and tell your mates how school was crap and this is what education is really about.

But then work life starts and the pining for school really begins. It was so easy back then, just the occasional exam spread between years of messing around, watching Cool Runnings a dozen times and occasionally learning something new.

Granted A-levels aren’t for everyone, and there will be people who chose college or an apprenticeship, leaving at 16 with GCSEs or not, and never looking back.

But that still doesn’t change the fact that the previous years they spent in school proved immensely useful – regardless of if they ever choose to accept that or not.

Whether Thursday’s teens decide to stay at school for their A-levels or pursue another path to greatness, school has helped them create unforgettable memories and started them off on the long windy path of life.

School is a blessing that we should all recognise, even if it is a decade too late.