School came easy to me as a kid. In second grade, I was asked if I wanted to skip classes. But I didn't want to leave my friends and was too afraid of a new environment.
I was the best student in fourth grade when pupils in Germany are separated into three different schools. It was obvious that I would go to the most challenging one, the Gymnasium. My parents wanted me to do Latin, so I did, although that meant I was separated from the few kids from my class who also went there. In my new class, I didn't know anyone. It gave me nightmares.
The new school was nerve-wracking. It was in the biggest town in the district. The other school forms, Realschule and Hauptschule, were way closer to home.
I liked elementary school. At once, my nervous system was on high alert all the time. In the Gymnasium, I was afraid every day. I was afraid in the mornings, when I was there, and at home, fearfully anticipating the next day. The weekends were not long enough to relax. Saturday was the only free day (no looming Monday) and when I had to do homework, it reminded me of what was to come.
It's not that I was overwhelmed by the classes. I had good grades. I was terrified of getting bullied.
There was this one guy who was the mobbing victim. I always expected to be the next. So I had to be invisible. I couldn't raise my hand anymore, because that would label me a teacher's pet and that was uncool. That could be a reason to single me out and make fun of me.
It took a while for my grades to decline. I think in 7th grade I stopped receiving a price for my average. I could look into my reports but I rather not. My body still has stored the anxious energy of that time.
This is also when I started procrastinating. Reading was my escape. I wanted to leave reality. I started doing my homework at the last moment possible. Over the years, that led to me doing my homework on the bus to school. Still, I got B's and C's.
In the Oberstufe, the social pressure changed. Suddenly it was cool to have good grades. But I had unlearned how to study. Or maybe I never had. As a kid, it wasn’t necessary because I was naturally curious and could easily remember things.
School replaced curiosity with disdain for hierarchical structures. Studying became a chore instead of joyful learning. Filling my head with facts that other people found important made me lose interest.
What I hated was the structure and the social dynamic in the classroom that always affected me but never was acknowledged. I couldn't understand how this place was supposed to be for learning when the social dynamics in our class clearly were discouraging it. And that nothing was done to change this climate of bullying.
And that's why I studied sociology.