Dear ones, my older daughter doesn’t like goodbyes, which became particularly clear when her time at school ended last year and she realised that: Never again will I experience so much in common with so many of my peers together in the same place. And it’s true.
Our boys are going on another school trip next week and how often do I think: Wow, I’d love to go on a school trip like that again. Someone organises everything, sends around a packing list and then you just get on a bus with your bag and your mates and are taken somewhere where a pre-designed programme is already waiting for you. What a dream come true for mentally overloaded working parents… right?
Class trip: Just get on the bus and off you go
The only organisation needed is: who will secretly bring a sandwich maker in case the food doesn’t taste good? Who can we set up with whom and who will make the biggest mess again – and above all, how? That needs to be planned. I remember exactly how we thought about whether someone would dare to stick chewing gum under the door handle of the teacher’s flat before our class trip in year six. Hahaha. Huiuiui.
How much rubbish we get up to together during this time, how it brings us closer together. We’re all in the same. And then everyone disperses after school. Some hang around and work here and there. Others travel the world doing work and travel or a voluntary social year. The first ones move to other cities or countries to study, and the friendships are a bit tattered.
And later in life, your best friend may unfortunately not live in the same street or have children at a completely different time or be in a different phase of life in some other way. New people join, old ones leave, others stay, but only sporadically.
Of graduation reunions and alumni celebrations
Just yesterday, I was invited to an alumni reunion at the school I attended from Year 5 to Year 9. Here on site. I’m going to go there one day, even though I didn’t graduate from there. And next year I’ll have a 25th anniversary reunion at my other school, which has given me so much and where I’m currently looking into organising an anniversary reunion with a former classmate.
I never want to go back to school, I’m not good at dealing with unnatural authority, I questioned a lot of the content back then and I’ve realised through my many further education and training courses that I really enjoy learning, but I’m much better at eye level and in a way that’s fun and where the content isn’t just about working through the curriculum.
School time: the we’re all in the same community feeling
But that sense of community from back then…. The shared goal of finally leaving it all behind and heading out into the world. The many free hours in the Volkspark with the big sound system, the parties, the trips, it was all just really unique and will never be forgotten. At least if you were as lucky with the people as I was.
We left it up to our boys to decide whether or not they wanted to leave school in the summer after year 10. Hey!, they asked, what else are we supposed to do?! Oh, and they don’t want to go abroad like their big sister either, because their lives are so good here and with their friends. And who’s to argue with that, right?
This time is unique and won’t come back and I don’t begrudge them the chance to experience it like this. And of course I’m excited to see what happens next. Definitely with much more creative pranks, just chewing gum under door handles like we did back then… and then maybe even with a few peers afterwards, like the older one is currently experiencing at university. Although that’s also much more individual and more mixed than school back then.
How is it with you? Do you still have a fixed group of friends with whom you still go on regular school trips? Or are such trips a long way off for you? Do you prefer learning today to back then because it’s voluntary and not forced? Do you miss the sense of community or do you enjoy the freedom and variety that comes with adult life, where everyone cooks their own soup and meetings are simply more sporadic as a result?
