The Miseducation of Jeb: Primary School
September 1, 2001
(With more apologies to Laryn Hill)
The cacophony of screaming children that surrounded me on my first day of primary school confused me. How could they not be pleased to attend such an exciting place? The toys presented to us were far more exciting than the toilet paper roll and egg carton tripe forced upon us in kindergarten.
Through the arena of four year olds wailing for their parents, I spotted Renee, my friend from kindergarten, calmly pottering around with some Lego. Mutually relieved to find a friend, we stuck together in both class and playtime. Renee’s sister, Tanya, was in grade 2 so we hung around her a lot. She seemed quite streetsmart and in the know as far as primary school went.
Unfortunately, the friendship swiftly ended when I made a crass remark about a Fame T-shirt Tanya wore one day, and the two girls vowed not to hang around me again.
To navigate home from primary school meant using a pedestrian crossing. Understandably nervous at the prospect of their son teetering over a busy highway, I was instructed on my first day of school to wait for my dad at the crossing.
Upon trotting up to the crossing and looking around, I waited five minutes for my dad and grew impatient. Puffing my chest out, I proudly walked over the crossing myself and continued home. The reaction from my parents was somewhere in the middle of outraged screaming and proud confidence.
Wary of my pedestrian crossing escapades, my dad’s next tactic was to offer to drive to school and pick me up there. Taking care to park the family car in a position where I couldn’t miss it, he jumped out of his driver’s seat and began waving wildly at me when I simply walked straight past.
‘Don’t you want a lift?’ he insisted.
‘Nah,’ I dismissed. ‘I quite like going over the pedestrian crossing now.’ The resulting look on his face, I clearly remember, was one of failure.
As the months passed, winter kicked in and so did the puddles of mud I had to creep around on my way home. After noticing other children simply clomping their way through these puddles, though, I decided to do the same. This was met with vast disapproval from my mother.
‘Did you do that?’ she’d demand, pointing to my pants which appeared to be the victim of violent dihorrea.
‘No,’ I lied. ‘This other, uh, kid jumped in a puddle and splashed me. On purpose, too,’ I added.
So the charade continued - every day I continued my pantomime of being splashed by another boy from a different school. When I arrived home one day covered from head to toe in congealed dirt, my mum - fearful that I was being tormented by a bully of some sort - telephoned my teacher at school.
What eventuated was a one-on-one interview with me and my teacher to sort out who this child was, and eventually she clicked onto my little scheme. ‘There is no other boy, is there?’ she exploded.
Ashamed, I shrunk back outside to join the rest of the children. It was the most embarrassing moment in my life thus far, and I lucidly remember thinking ‘I’ll remember this for the rest of my life.’ Strangely, I have.
During my first year of school, I was taught by Mrs Waddel. Teaching was only one of her jobs: after hours, she also worked for a theatre restaurant in a principal acting role. This saw my class working through simple math problems one moment, and singing in a chorus of ‘Roll Out the Barrel’ the next. I frolicked through schoolwork with ease, although encountered some difficulty when required to pronounce the letter Q; little to know it would probably end up being one of the more important letters in adulthood.
My introduction to torment and bullying also began in primary school. Justin, an aggressive young man with particular influence over the schoolyard, was infamous for inflicting both mental and physical agony on as many children as possible at the school. During playtime, Justin and his cronies would stand guard over a tree nicknamed the ‘Poo Tree’, due to the strangely faecal resemblance of the growths it sprouted. Any child who dared step near the Poo Tree would suffer a barrage of missiles from Justin.
A year later, our school organised a special school assembly and announced Justin had been killed in a car accident. The student community collectively heaved an audible sigh of relief at this news.
It wasn’t just children who tormented me, though: a disturbed flock of magpies occupying some trees near the school’s entrance took to swooping kids. This began my obsessive avoidance of this area of the school, after embellishing swooping stories to my mother (’It plucked out THIS MUCH hair, mum!’)
In hope of fending off further feathered attacks, I wore a jacket of mine which I considered decidedly intimidating every day. Cowering underneath it’s protective covering provided a small amount of comfort. After I began wearing the coat every day (and also being exposed to a couple of episodes of Knight Rider), I thought the coat made look rather hot. Strutting around one lunchtime in 30 degree weather - still wearing my coat - I was waiting for the inevitable horde of girls to run screaming after me, but to no avail. All I got was a worried teacher asking me why I was wearing a giant raincoat in the middle of summer.
As I progressed through the years, we began taking classes outside the haven of our regular teacher. Previously happy to occupy ourselves within the safety of reading, maths and other harmless classroom activities, we were suddenly flung headlong into such terrifying subjects as physical education and art ‘n’ craft.
One of the more interesting classes was Music. During my younger years at primary school, we were instructed by the vibrant and energetic Mrs Tindal. Mrs Tindal obviously considered classical music her life partner and was most insistent that we took flight and expressed ourselves freely to the music as she did. Largely this would involve our teacher circumnavigating the room at dangerously high speeds, screaming at the top of her lungs to Ride of the Valkyries.
After Mrs Tindal left - or was fired for scaring children, we never found out which - we were introduced to the terrifying Mr Leighton. Rumoured to be an ex World War II colonel, his commanding presence instilled fear into music like we’d never heard it before. As he boomed at us once a week in vain attempts to teach us the artistry of playing the recorder, all we could do was shakily trill through our instruments in fear.
Art ‘n’ craft was enjoyed by the majority of students, but for a half-blind left-handed uncoordinated eight year old, the fun factor is diminished somewhat. Often I would end up slinking out of art ‘n’ craft classes covered in incredibly sticky PVC glue, left hand aching from attempts to use scissors designed for the opposite hand, a pipecleaner sticking out of one ear and slight scalding from the pottery kiln. It was due to burns like this that I became convinced the word kiln was simply a jumbled abbreviation of killin’.
In grade two, I was taught by Mrs Neilsen; whose radio broadcaster-quality reading voice hypnotised me. I’d taken a keen interest in reading before I even began school, so this was one of my favourite parts of school. I found it very difficult to concentrate when she would read out passages for us to studiously dictate on paper. At the end of the school year, we were instructed to write a page on how we felt about the year of school. I composed an essay on why I loved Mrs Neilsen. Her slightly horrified reaction may indeed have been what turned me away from women for good.
After successfully progressing past grade three and proudly earning my pen license (yet still unable to colour inside the lines), I began hanging around a firmer group of friends. In the past I’d simply jumbled along with a largish group of people playing games like tag and brandy. Two popular yet violent students who I wanted to be best friends with were Steven and Tim - everyone liked them and they were captain and vice-captain of our class respectively. My annoying tagging along eventually lead to a punch in the face from Tim and a request to fuck off. Strangely, the exact same act was performed by Tim nearly eight years later at the high school we both attended as well, although I wasn’t hanging around him at that stage - he just hated me by default because I wasn’t part of the ‘in’ group. (Incidentally, Steven is now a convicted criminal in jail - true! - and Tim is a well-known championship surfer).
Seeking a type of friend which didn’t involve continual cowering on my part, in grade five I began hanging around a friendly group of guys: Greg (nice guy, strange head shape), Shannon (near-mute giant), Billy (footy maniac), Stuart (obsessed with ships), Beau (prankster who also owned the electronic version of the Battleship board game, thus ensuring instant friendship with everyone) and Cade (probably my best friend at this time). We started off getting to know each other through our swapping of Nintendo games, and eventually began hanging around each other at lunchtimes and on weekends.
We had lots of fun together - the most popular TV show at that time was Double Dare, which we vainly attempted to recreate in the playground. Although we didn’t quite have the resources to facilitate slime being dropped on people at random moments, we somehow managed to concoct an obstacle course of our own on the playground equipment. Timing each other with a stopwatch, the Double Dare game eventually ended when Stuart nearly got blinded from a bucket of bark chips we dropped on him from a large height to simulate a slime dumping.
So we moved on to the Phys Ed room. The large gymnasium-style Physical Education room was open for student use during lunchtime. The soft, giant blue mats and never-ending supply of plastic balls ensured it was a popular location to hang out. That was, of course, until a small child flung himself headlong into a wall, actually managing to break a hole exposing enormous wads of asbestos insulation. The Phys Ed room was quickly ruled off limits for the next few months.
After a complete refurbishment to prevent any kiddie deaths, the Phys Ed room resumed its status as the principal school location for any special events (for example, the Leyland Brothers - for some unknown reason - decided to pop in one day to give everyone a talk on the outback). I clearly remember when some men from the local fire brigade gave a talk on fire safety, and were asking students questions afterwards in exchange for stickers, rulers and other flammable materials. Steve (the violent young man I mentioned earlier) was asked why they shouldn’t touch a closed door in a house that’s on fire (presumably so you don’t burn yourself on it, or something). The student innocently replied ‘So you don’t leave any fingerprints,’ confirming my suspicions of his fathers’ occupation.
Grade Five saw me placed in Mr Higgins’ class, which adjoined Mr Evans’ Grade Five classroom. Unfortunately for all students involved, both men were avid sports nuts and would practice their golf swings or footy handballing skills as soon as students were occupied with work. Students seated near the passageway between the classes (definitely not a favoured spot of location) eventually got used to sheltering their heads with their hands, pencil cases and books to avoid haphazard runaway footballs.
I felt far sorrier for the students in Mr Evans’ class, though. He was a fan of Skyhooks, and forced them to bleatingly sing along to the choruses of all their big songs (which is surprising, given the slightly touché nature of ‘You Just Like Me Cos I’m Good In Bed’).
And there were far more extra classes than simply Art ‘n’ Craft and Music. Phys Ed was lead by a discouragingly monotonously-voiced teacher Mr Smith, which failed to inspire any excitement into such riveting activities as T-ball and playground orienteering. Then there was calligraphy, a painfully dull subject which caused every student to invariably be smeared with black ink by the class’ end. This was lead by a female teacher whose name escapes me, but I clearly remember her disturbingly scrotum-like throat.
Computers saw us feverishly slaving away at bulky Apple IIe keyboards, being whipped by (who other than) Mr Leighton, the ex-war colonel. (There’s nothing scarier than having a bulbous man shouting ‘Hands on the HOME KEYS! Hands on the HOME KEYS!’ at you when you’re trying to concentrate. God forbid you ever try to open the disk drive while it’s loading, too - an action punishable by death in Mr Leighton’s eyes).
My final year of primary school was with “Mizz” Anderson (students soon learnt not to address her as Mrs, or they were up for an hour’s worth of reiteration on her part on this strange title which was new to most of us twelve year olds). Mizz Anderson provided everyone with a good supportive lead-in to the terrors that high school had in store for us all, so understandably everyone was most upset on our final day of school. I can’t remember much of that day amidst all the girls crying and Mizz Anderson’s final pleads to now incredibly confused students that she now be addressed by her first name if we saw her again, thank you very much.
As for my friends from primary school - most of them attended high school with me, although I changed high schools after my first three years. I often wonder where most of them ended up.
Greg - the guy with a strangely shaped head - I hope he ended up in acting. He had great acting skills, and I suspect he was gay as well. Last I heard (a couple of years ago) he was attending mountains of auditions.
Billy, the footy head, made the natural progression to becoming a plumber. Stuart, obsessed with ships, is apparently now in the Navy as a closet heterosexual.
Beau and Cade both moved interstate after primary school, and it’s these two that I’m most curious about. Beau moved to Newcastle and ended up attending the same school and same classes as the three guys from Silverchair. Despite my desperate attempts to contact him (which had a bit of a selfish motive behind them - I’d begun hosting a community radio show and wanted an interview), I’ve no idea where he ended up.
Cade I often wonder about, considering he was my best childhood friend. He moved to Mackay in Queensland after primary school with his family. It’d be fair to say he had definitely a presence, and I’m sure whatever he turned his attentions to he’d excel at. It’s an unusual name, so I’m sure if I tried hard enough I could track him down.
Shannon - the near-mute guy who was the shiest guy I’ve ever met - naturally, upon leaving high school, he finally cracked and ended up as a punk with a - no shit - two foot high mohawk. He was last seen in Geelong snarling at people in general at punk gigs. I was too worried to make contact with him again - especially after he threatened my mother with a fist after she called out a friendly hello to him in the street. Oh well. Smash the system, and all that.
High school, of course, was the complete opposite to primary school… but that, conveniently, is another story.
