Upbringings
What was a pivotal moment in your childhood that has shaped who you are today.
This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »
ArishMell · 70-79, M
The largest was I'm afraid, negative.
Dad was a Chartered Electrical Engineer, a scientist in a Government department. His establishment was closed wholesale and a huge number of employees and their families moved to a new, custom-built site about 100 miles away.
I was only seven, in my last Year at Infants' School.
By a stroke of total lack of communication between Departments, it was right in the middle of the schools' Summer Term. I can't think of any other explanation as the country's education system was, rightly, also State-run with similar, largely-coherent term times and curriculae nation-wide. So it only needed one lot to talk to another lot to agree when best to move our lot.
'Best' would have been a couple of months later, in the long Summer Holiday (six weeks) so far less disruptive to so many people.
Many fellow-pupils took it in their stride and indeed some excelled irrespectively of it; but the change was too great for me, especially in Arithmetic for some reason. So I was never much good at anything numerical since; although I did catch up a bit in later life.
So that scuppered my chances of following my dream of science or engineering career, although of what sort i was never certain, since both disciplines are highly mathematical.
(Engineering can be defined as applying scientific knowledge to practical ends; and some areas require very advanced mathematics indeed.)
.....
Still, with a technical streak within my family I did develop and still follow a broad interest and largely-lay knowledge in science and engineering, and did work at "shop-floor" level in various ways in those fields.
Dad was a Chartered Electrical Engineer, a scientist in a Government department. His establishment was closed wholesale and a huge number of employees and their families moved to a new, custom-built site about 100 miles away.
I was only seven, in my last Year at Infants' School.
By a stroke of total lack of communication between Departments, it was right in the middle of the schools' Summer Term. I can't think of any other explanation as the country's education system was, rightly, also State-run with similar, largely-coherent term times and curriculae nation-wide. So it only needed one lot to talk to another lot to agree when best to move our lot.
'Best' would have been a couple of months later, in the long Summer Holiday (six weeks) so far less disruptive to so many people.
Many fellow-pupils took it in their stride and indeed some excelled irrespectively of it; but the change was too great for me, especially in Arithmetic for some reason. So I was never much good at anything numerical since; although I did catch up a bit in later life.
So that scuppered my chances of following my dream of science or engineering career, although of what sort i was never certain, since both disciplines are highly mathematical.
(Engineering can be defined as applying scientific knowledge to practical ends; and some areas require very advanced mathematics indeed.)
.....
Still, with a technical streak within my family I did develop and still follow a broad interest and largely-lay knowledge in science and engineering, and did work at "shop-floor" level in various ways in those fields.
swirlie · 31-35, F
@ArishMell
Are you really trying to sell us on the notion that because your school year got interrupted by a couple of months when you were 7 years old while attending the equivalent of grade 2 in infant school, that it forevermore dashed all future hopes that you'd ever become an Engineer in later life because you never learned Arithmetic to it's completion in that specific year like all your classmates did?
And from that traumatic event you endured and from which you've obviously never recovered from, you were never able to 'catch up' in life to a point where you would have otherwise excelled to great heights in mathematics, science and Engineering and as a result you now blame your father's employer at the time for the dreadful demise you subsequently suffered in your future career path because of what happened to you at 7 years of age?
Is that the package you're trying to sell us here ArishMell, or were you really employed by Monty Python as a comedian throughout your entire adult life?
Are you really trying to sell us on the notion that because your school year got interrupted by a couple of months when you were 7 years old while attending the equivalent of grade 2 in infant school, that it forevermore dashed all future hopes that you'd ever become an Engineer in later life because you never learned Arithmetic to it's completion in that specific year like all your classmates did?
And from that traumatic event you endured and from which you've obviously never recovered from, you were never able to 'catch up' in life to a point where you would have otherwise excelled to great heights in mathematics, science and Engineering and as a result you now blame your father's employer at the time for the dreadful demise you subsequently suffered in your future career path because of what happened to you at 7 years of age?
Is that the package you're trying to sell us here ArishMell, or were you really employed by Monty Python as a comedian throughout your entire adult life?
This comment is hidden.
Show Comment