On Thursday morning, I received a confusing text message.
Not confusing in that I couldn’t understand it, like when young people wear complicated pants – but confusing in the sense that I couldn’t believe it.
A teacher I know informed me I was in this year’s HSC exam, with two accompanying photos. One was of an essay I wrote about my favourite childhood superhero, She-Ra – the other a blank lined sheet with a prompt: “How does Fidge explore the impact of role models in her childhood?”
Once the initial questions of “has her account been hacked in order to flatter me before requesting several hundred Bitcoins?” and “is the plural of Bitcoin Bitcoin?” and “there’s been a huge mistake” (not really a question) left my mind, I did what many others would do: I allowed myself three to five minutes of quiet pride, forwarded the photos to my mum and went back to work.
Throughout the day, though, as I diligently filed paperwork and questioned how many exclamation marks are too many for an email, memories of my own exams kept showing themselves.
Almost 20 years ago, I was one of many silent students carefully writing their name into tiny squares, chest pounding. My nerves stemmed from obvious reasons – a test environment and a then-undiagnosed anxiety disorder – but also from specific pressure at feeling I not only had to do well, but do particularly well.
I completed the VCE in Melbourne, but each state has a weighting system affecting each subject that contributes to final scores. My classes were entirely humanities subjects, which I knew would be scaled down more than others. I was reminded of this constantly, by friends, friends’ parents, the manager of my after-school job: why choose two English subjects and no maths?!
The push for Stem is even greater now, but if I had my time over I’d still choose English language and literature. These classes opened my mind and excited me in ways that still affect me today, and I say that without hyperbole (which, as a side note, is a great word to use in an essay).
Mrs Feeney led English language, making conjunctions thrilling and creating lively debates about dangling modifiers. As a literature teacher, Mrs Di Stefano introduced me to Helen Garner and Isabel Allende, turning what could have been dry readings into drama classes, challenging us to not only read the texts but experience them.
All books from both classes remain on my bookshelf.
Reading the question posed to last week’s English class, I’m not sure I could answer it myself. For one, my ability to analyse written texts and name specific intricacies of grammar is not what it used to be (forgive me, Mrs Feeney). But mainly because the last few days have made me want to rewrite the essay altogether – the one in this year’s exam came from an editor’s prompt to write about a childhood hero.
If given that prompt today, I’d want to write about those teachers, and thank them for encouraging us to follow our interests even when those were called “easy” or “pointless”, neither of which were true.
On the off-chance a young person stumbles across this article because they’ve misspelled “Deep-frost Fridge” in Google, let me give a suggestion. Don’t study Stem if analysing dangling modifiers is what gets you excited. Nurture that excitement – it’s where energy originates. Build on that energy, you’ll need it. Because before you know it, you’ll be reminded of high school and ask yourself how 20 years have gone by.
Then you’ll see a teenager walk past in complicated pants and be jolted back to reality.
Deirdre Fidge is a writer and social worker who has written for ABC’s Get Krack!n and The Weekly with Charlie Pickering, and the BBC. Her work has appeared in ABC News, SBS, the Sydney Morning Herald and Frankie magazine
