Which conflicts does daily life at school hold? Which positive experiences do you connect with school?

"That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse."

(N.H. Kleinbaum, Dead Poets Society)

Our School Experiences

by Amelie Håkansson and Klara Welmsö, VKS Växjö/Sweden

We go to a school where everyone is accepted, we meet new people every day and one day is far from similar to the other. At our school there are over 1000 people, which gives us the opportunity to make a lot of friends, and not just in our own class. We get to explore our creativity in music, theatre, dance and art, at least us two who attend the Arts program. We both love it because we get to develop at the same time that we work with all those who have the same profile as we do. We also appreciate that we are able to choose what our education is going to look like. We get to choose which two extra courses we’d like to take in year two and three apart from those which are mandatory.  This gives you an opportunity to really shape your own life and choose something that you are interested in, and you can choose courses that will help you get into the university you want or just think are interesting.

Our daily life at school is quite simple but at the same time still contains many small conflicts and problems. We have homework every week together with exams and essays. There is a lot of stress and pressure that you have to handle. School demands that you plan your week and don’t start studying for an exam the day before, which seems easier to do. The stress is something that isn’t only showing when you are at school but also at home where our parents think that we are stressed out all the time. The two of us who also work and have other interests outside of school, can easily relate to stress and all its side effects. We get little sleep and don’t prioritize being with friends because we simply don’t have the time. Both of us also have a long way to school, which means that we have to commute every day. This makes the mornings early and the nights late after trying to study when we get home after our activities.

When you have to wake up so early every morning you often do everything that you can to reduce the time it takes for you to get ready. For example, you often choose to not eat breakfast, since you want to get some extra sleep. Then you come to school hungry, which can make it harder to concentrate on the lessons. One good thing is that we get free lunch, which many countries don’t have.

Although we have free lunch you maybe expect us to say that it’s really good, but that’s not the case, at least not in our opinion. During lunch, we always have a main dish that might consist of some buttery mashed potatoes and sausages that look very unappetizing. We also have a vegetarian option that usually is a stew with everything mashed together, which isn’t that nice. The salad buffet isn’t just like cucumbers in one box and salad in another, it’s everything together here as well, except for sometimes when there are some carrots in a separate container. This is what we don’t like because we believe that we are so used to having all the food separated from when we went to elementary school where we also got the food for free. That’s something that we both miss about elementary school alongside with the opportunity of having the school close to you, that our courses went on for 3 years and not just one, that you played during the breaks and much more. But as we said these are just small conflicts that we have to deal with. If we compare ourselves with other countries we believe that we’re doing well, better than most people. But still we complain. Why is that?

Right now we’re reading a book called Lies we tell ourselves in English class. It was written by Robin Talley in the year 2014 and the story – which is about school integration -  is set in the American South in 1959. In the book, you get to follow two girls, Sarah and Linda. Sarah is one of the first black students at Jefferson High, which was formerly an all-white school. Sarah and the nine other black kids face a lot of conflicts and hate from the white kids every day. They call them names, throw things at them and even spit on them. But in school, Sarah meets Linda who is one of the most popular white kids thanks to her father who is the editor of the local newspaper. In the beginning, they both hate each other, but after a while, both of them start to understand that they are not so different from each other. Sarah starts to understand more about Linda and Linda starts to realize that the thoughts she had about integration were wrong. In the end, we can relate to this book since we both learned when coming to our new school that no matter what, you should never judge a book by its cover. We have met people at this school that we never would have met otherwise. It’s been almost a year since we started attending this school and we still haven’t even begun to get to know at least half of our class. So, no matter what you do, have an open mind when you meet new people.

Posted on 19.03.2019

Hello Amelie and Klara,

We really enjoyed reading your article. We sometimes feel stressed too considering to graduate in two years. The level of stress is actually immense in industral countries like Sweden or Germany, where we come from.

So, we can understand you guys. Actually we heard about the book "Lies we Tell Ourselves" and the story is really interesting. The story itself is moving and an amazing example for showing people that race, skincolor or religion are not something to tear us apart. We should stand together and not be devided. However, school is a perfect place to find new friends and with them experiences, and stories to be told someday. School is a very important part in our lives, yes, but we should not forget our aim at the end of the day. Being happy for who we are.

Yasmin Ben Touhami - 30.04.2019 @ 16:15

Hello Amelie and Klara,

I don't really agree with everything you said in the text but some of it was definitley accurate. I don't get very stressed out by schoolwork, except for some homework and when the teachers put all their tests at around the same time. 

Me and Greta agree mostly about the food in school. It is usually pretty bad but a lot of times there is at least one good option that you can take. We also agree that Katedralschool is a school where everyone is accepted and that there is a very big diversity of people here, which we think is a good thing! 

Gabriel Lindström - 09.05.2019 @ 11:40

Hello Amelie and Klara,

I just really enjoyed your article which made me so interested that I continued to read. I do not really agree with you about the stress, because stress is something that you can control. For example if you have stress of alot to work at school so in order to avid stress plan everything and do things the smooth way, as we say in Swedish ( sagt och gjort) and when you do this well then you never gonna have any stress again. It is up to you how you choose to live your life.

I myself do eat every kind of food without pork or something like this,because I have been through times when I did not have just food to eat. In my opinion, food is always food even if it is smashed together or not. And why we complain about the things we have that many country do not have, it is because we never have been through times in which we do not have something to eat and where we are ready to eat every thing that we find just to fill our stomachs. 

I agree with the statement that you should never judge someone or something at first sight.  

Navid Donia - 10.05.2019 @ 13:35

Hello Amelie and Klara,

I really enjoyed reading your article, which was very interesting. Our school life is not always stressful, but sometimes there are weeks or perhaps months where school is very exhausting. 

We don't get free food at our school, but I don't think that is a big problem. We don't have many lessons in the afternoon (only one time per week), so it isn't necessary for us. 

In my opinion, it is very important for our society to not judge someone or something on your first impression. Many people hide their real personality because they are afraid to show somebody how they really feel. So it is important to be friendly to other people and you have to get to know each other. 

Rebecca Fasching - 19.05.2019 @ 21:38

Hi Amelie and Klara!

We've read your article, and we really liked it! In our school in Poland we have no lunch avalaible for students, but we found the food in Sweden quite enjoyable, so it may be just be a matter of perspective. But we all agree that you should be open to ideas and other people. We all read the book ''13 Reasons Why'' by Jay Asher, and we think it brings up the very important subject of acceptance at school. In the book we can see consequences of bullying and judging people by the cover. We recommend this book, because it makes you think about your actions and how they can affect other people.

Clara Danielsson - 04.10.2019 @ 13:45

Hi Amelie and Klara!

We think that your article was really interesting and we have some thoughts about it. At first, school isn't as bad as you say.

You should be really lucky that you have free food because there are so many schools that don't serve free lunch or meals at all. For example, the schools in Austria normally don't have real meals to buy. Every time they have school in the afternoon they have to buy food somewhere outside the school because in school, it's very limited and often there's no food left if you want some. For people that have school in the afternoon, it can get very expensive.

For the other thing about stress, we think many teachers blame it on students. But that isn't always true. Most of the teachers only think about their subject and forget that the students have other classes as well. Maybe if the teachers thought a little more about that it would be much easier for many students. They also always compare our lives to their lives back then and think it is easier for us, that's not true for most parts.

But in general, we can say that you should not worry about school that much because like every other thing, it ends at some point, and if we always keep that in mind it shouldn't be so bad.

Tindra Bolmgren - 04.10.2019 @ 13:56