School days and their impact on our lives has been a major topic of discussion here over the past six months when authors and bloggers have shared their reminiscences. (You can catch up on any reminiscences you missed here.)With no one else quite ready to share just yet, I thought it would be interesting to have a look over some aspects of the reviews.
The first questions I asked were related to where schools had been attended and whether the schools were government, private or independent.
Where did the interviewees attend school?
A total of twelve countries were listed:
- USA (8)
- England (7)
- Canada (3)
- South Africa (3)
- India (1)
- Wales (1)
- Australia (1)
- Malaysia (1)
- Singapore (1)
- New Zealand (1)
- Malta (1)
- Zimbabwe (1)
- And the British Colony of Hong Kong (1)
Three interviewees attended schools in two or more countries (two attended in three).
This gives us quite an international flavour to the interviews.
Were the schools government, private or independent?
This one is a little more difficult to summarise as the systems seem to be classed differently from country to country. However, the majority of interviewees appear to have attended government schools, with a smattering attending private or independent schools, and some a mixture of both.
Was there an overall favourite subject?
Discussions on the posts indicated that there might have been a trend towards a liking for English and a dislike of physical education and maths. I think the trend away from PE and maths especially may have emerged through the discussions themselves, as when I went back through the posts, it wasn’t so obvious. However, I didn’t specifically ask which subject was most disliked.
English with its related subjects like reading and writing was definitely the overall favourite with eleven listing it as such.
The list of favourites includes:
- English (11)
- History (4)
- Music (2)
- Geography (2)
- Social Studies (2)
- French (1)
- PE (1)
- Art (1)
- Humanities (1)
- Maths (1)
- Drama (1)
(Note: If people listed more than one, I may have included it.)
What aspect of school was most disliked?
As I didn’t ask the question about subjects that were disliked, but what was most disliked about school, I received a variety of responses.
PE did figure in the responses of six respondents, but the social aspect of fitting in and making friends, including when changing schools was listed by seven. Subjects such as maths, physics, geography, biology and geometry rated only one mention each. Other dislikes included disruption due to war, rules, long distances to and from school, and being picked out to answer questions. Others said that there was nothing they had disliked about school.
It is interesting that the social aspect of school and physical education ranked so highly. I wonder how much of the dislike for physical education was related to the social aspect of it.
Thank you for reading. I appreciate your comments. Please share your thoughts.
Norah Colvin 
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