My nanna passed away last weekend after many years of suffering from dementia, and lately respiratory problems. This blog is more of an emotional and thoughtful reflection about something we all take for granted but my nanna was denied: education.
Nanna migrated to Australia from England during the depression and went to High School in Melbourne. Nanna was quite a bright young chicken and loved to boast to us that she was once the quickest and best at mathematics in the class (although science was a different story!) Like many other girls from a working class background, she had to give up her education at age 15 to earn some money. Seamstress it was.
But nanna was determined that her only daughter (my mother) would have a decent education. She worked hard so that my mother could go to a private school and then on to University. And she did just that.
Which brings me to my point - that going to University was just an automatic assumption for me. Of course I am privileged to make that assumption in the first place, but I can think of only one single person from my graduating class of 120 that did not go on to University. In year 12 at my private school, conversation would centre around which uni and what degree.
My brother for example, did not know what he wanted to do when he finished school, so he randomly picked electrical engineering – he had a vague interest in it and one of his friends was doing it. Well, that saga only lasted a year before he changed to a TAFE course to become a chef. Had there not been an automatic assumption that he would go to University, he may have saved himself from many big fat fails.
Getting back on track….as Nanna would have said, education is the key to life. And every now and again I need to remind myself how lucky I am to be studying at such a fine University.
Comments
Indeed how lucky we are! Particularly those who migrate from other countries (such as myself), education is like the dream and gateway to something better.
About the assumption to go to Uni, I had the same: my parents had gone to uni, so it seemed like the next natural step for me. You're right to point out that uni is not for everyone, and some people truly are better off finding their passion and pursuing that.
I do feel however, particularly in the current political climate, that anti-elitist attitudes have meant that uni is painted as some hoity-toity insitution for the priveleged with nothing better to do. A society that values the importance of education for all its people, in whatever form that comes - Uni, TAFE, school, college, apprenticeships - is one that will not tolerate its members to settle for anything less than they are capable of achieving.
Posted by: Ghassan | June 25, 2006 09:40 AM