12 years at a private boys school

I went to a private boys school in Perth called Scotch College for my entire schooling. I was good at the things that school’s like kids to be good at. I did the logical stuff well (maths, science etc) and was good at remembering things and regurgitating them later.

This was almost entirely opposite of my brother Matt who turned out to be good at a whole bunch of stuff that school’s don’t necessarily care about (or at least you don’t get graded on) such as invention, innovation and leadership. I use to think this meant that I was smart and Matt was dumb, it took me years to realise this wasn’t true. I now prefer the Theory of Multiple Intelligences and it just turned out that I had the types of intelligence that worked well in high school.

The down side of 12 years at a private boys school was I left not knowing a lot about girls. I spent a fair chunk of my adolecent years feeling socially awkward which is sometimes hard to reconcile with my current work but it clearly goes to show that people can change.

I’m not entirely sure why but I don’t have a great affinity for my time at Scotch and I’ve missed most of the school reunions because I don’t know how I’d feel seeing some of the people I went to school with or what the hell I’d talk about. My biggest fear is that in the moment of conversation I’d feel I have to somehow prove something to someone about how amazing my life is…it kinda just feels awkward so this year I didn’t go again.