The Penguin Who Would Change The Rules.

From classroom fairness and mysterious school rules to forbidden sweets, a very serious penguin and a suitcase heading for Spain, Sarah discovers that some rules make perfect sense, some need explaining, and some deserve a little revolution.

By Sarah, France.

I woke up about fifteen minutes before my meeting with Janita. Really, fifteen minutes. But I was good! I had been very, very busy during the week, helping at a camp with children, organising activities and doing all the things that come with looking after a group of children. So I was a little tired, and I had also been difficult to reach.

I was preparing to leave for a school exchange in the Canary Islands, in Spain, for one month. I still had to pack, organise my school things and work out when I could have my English lessons while I was away. I didn’t even know exactly what my timetable would look like.

Janita and I tried to arrange our next meeting. Thursday? Tuesday? Wait, which day was I leaving? At one point I even had to check what day it was. It was Saturday. Okay, perfect.

We decided I would message her when I knew more.

After that, we started talking about rules. Not the rules written in school books or on signs, but the rules nobody explains because everybody is supposed to know them.

And I had quite a lot to say about that.

Respect Works in Both Directions.

At my school, there is a rule about the canteen queue. You don’t jump ahead of other students. If somebody from the school sees you doing that, you can be sent away instead of getting your food.

Nobody really explained this rule at the beginning of the year. I think it is because it is logical. You wait your turn. Everybody understands that.

But not all rules are so obvious.

Janita asked whether I had ever broken a rule without knowing it. I remembered that something like this had happened, although I couldn’t remember the exact situation. Somebody reacted as if I had done something terrible, and I was thinking, what? I didn’t even know I wasn’t allowed to do that!

How can you know you are breaking a rule if nobody tells you the rule?

Then Janita asked something much more interesting. Why is it sometimes acceptable for a teacher to arrive late, but not for a student?

For me, there is no reason. Both should be on time.

Last year, I had a French teacher who was late for practically every class. Sometimes there was an apology, but then it happened again. And again.

I don’t think that is fair. It is about respect. If I respect you, you respect me. If I arrive on time because I am supposed to be in your class, then you should also be there.

Otherwise, what am I doing? I came for your lesson, and you’re not here. Should I just go home?

For students, being late can have consequences. At my school, there is a difference between arriving a few minutes late after a break and missing a whole lesson. Depending on the situation, your lateness or absence is recorded, and you may have to explain why you were not there.

I explained to Janita that these records matter because they can be considered when students apply for further studies. If you have too many absences without proper reasons, the school can also contact your parents.

Of course, if you have a medical appointment or another good reason, that is different.

Janita told me about a time when she was late at school because older students had sprayed water down the stairs. Nobody wanted to use the staircase because they were afraid of getting wet. Luckily, the teachers knew what had happened, so the students were not punished.

That makes sense. Sometimes being late is not your fault.

But when a teacher is late every time? Please.

School Is Important, but It Is Not My Entire Life.

There is another unwritten rule that I find really annoying.

Teachers can say they don’t have time. Students are not always allowed to say the same thing.

Sometimes I think adults imagine that school is the only thing we have in our lives. We go to school, we do homework, we study, and apparently that is everything.

But no!

I have my parents. I have my friends. I have tennis, dance and Scouts. I have activities, things I want to do, and sometimes I just want to watch my series.

I spoke about the student demonstrations and anger I had noticed in France. I felt that students were not always being heard, although I also thought that some people involved in demonstrations seemed more interested in fighting or breaking things than explaining their concerns.

For me, the important thing was that students have lives outside school, and adults do not always seem to understand that.

I am not saying homework is useless. Absolutely not. I understand why we have exercises and presentations. They prepare us for exams and for the important presentations we have to give at the end of the school year. We learn by doing this work.

But sometimes we genuinely don’t have enough time.

Of course, if somebody says every day, every week, that they don’t have time, then maybe it is not a very good excuse. I understand that, too.

Janita used our own meeting as an example. I had been busy, she had other things to do, and we had to find a time that worked for both of us. We eventually arranged an early Saturday meeting because I was leaving for Spain.

She could have said she didn’t have time because it was Saturday. I could have said I was too busy. Instead, we found a solution.

That is what I think people should do more often.

The Mathematics of Pretending to Understand.

Janita asked what subject I would put on a teacher’s report card if students could secretly give teachers marks.

For me, one of the most important things would be understanding what students actually need in order to learn.

Sometimes teachers just talk and talk. They explain something, and everybody sits there saying, yes, yes, yes. But are we really learning?

I think practical work is important. We need to do things, not only listen.

Janita asked whether the problem might sometimes be the curriculum rather than the teacher.

I explained that, in French lessons, teachers have certain themes they must follow, but they can choose different ways to teach them. One example is emancipation, which can involve literature and poetry that challenge traditional expectations in society.

So there is a framework, but there is also some freedom in how teachers approach it.

Then Janita asked whether I had ever pretended to understand something because everybody else looked as if they understood.

Oh, yes.

Every day, I think.

Especially in my mathematics speciality class.

I am in a class with people who are really, really intelligent. I don’t want to call them nerds, but sometimes the teacher explains something very difficult and everybody immediately says it is logical.

Logical? Please!

I am looking at the board, and there are letters everywhere, calculations and all these strange things. Everybody else seems ready to start the exercises, and I am sitting there thinking, oh my God, what is happening?

But it is difficult to say that you don’t understand when the rest of the class seems to understand perfectly.

You don’t want to be the only person asking the teacher to explain everything again.

So sometimes I just wait until I get home and watch a video that explains it differently.

It is a little uncomfortable, but it works.

Maybe that is one of the strangest unwritten rules in a classroom: when everybody else looks confident, you feel that you should look confident too, even when you have absolutely no idea what is happening.

The School Where You Can Walk Out the Door.

If I became principal for one day, Janita wanted to know which rule I would destroy.

Actually, I think my school has quite good rules. We have a lot of freedom.

For example, there are restrictions on using phones at school, but at my school we can still use them in certain places. We are not supposed to use them in classrooms or corridors, but we can use them outside, and there is also a room called the foyer where phones are allowed.

I think that is really cool.

Our principal found a way to apply the restrictions without making everything too strict.

We also have quite a lot of independence. As high school students, we can leave the school grounds. Of course, that doesn’t mean we are allowed to miss lessons without consequences. If you decide not to attend school, it can still count against you.

So you have freedom, but you also have responsibility.

Janita told me about the phones she had when she was at school. They had small screens, and there was an application called Mxit, which she had mentioned to me before. It was a little like messaging today, but people mostly used it in the evenings.

At her school, phones had to stay silent or switched off during lessons, although students could use them during breaks.

Things are different now.

I have a laptop with Snapchat, Netflix and Spotify. It is almost like having my phone on a computer. If I am sitting at the back of the classroom, I can even message somebody without the teacher noticing.

Not that this is what the computer is supposed to be for!

Our school provided laptops, and I have been able to keep mine. At first, it had a cover with the name of our region, Grand Est, on it. I didn’t really like the cover, so I took it off.

Now I use the laptop for school and at home. We have access to Word, Excel and PowerPoint, which is very practical for presentations and documents.

My maths and history books are also on the computer.

That is wonderful because I remember carrying all those heavy schoolbooks before. It was horrible.

Janita explained that students where she lives often carry thick textbooks and exercise books in backpacks, sometimes with lockers to store them during the day. If you forget a book at school, though, you may not be able to do your homework.

She described a school day with different subjects divided into eight periods and two breaks, one longer than the other.

Our school days can be very long, too. Sometimes we spend around ten hours at school, and on one day this year I have only one hour of break.

Imagine carrying every single textbook for that!

No, thank you.

The Great Candy Injustice.

Rules are not only at school. There are some very suspicious rules at home, too.

Janita asked what my parents are allowed to do that I am not allowed to do.

That was easy.

Eat things whenever they want.

If my parents want candy or cake, they can go to the kitchen and take some. But if I go to the kitchen because I want a sweet, my mother can ask what I am doing and tell me it is not good for me.

What? It is just a candy!

There are also things in the fridge that adults can take whenever they want, but I have to ask.

I asked Janita to explain this to me because she is a parent.

She told me that her son has rules about sweets, drinks and bedtime, especially during the school week. She also explained that some food in the fridge might be reserved for a meal she is preparing, so nobody should eat it before she needs it.

Okay, I can understand that. My mother does the same thing.

And actually, after my week at the children’s camp, I could understand why adults sometimes have to say no.

On the last day of camp, we had ice cream. A lot of ice cream. There were boxes of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry.

One little boy, about six or seven years old, kept coming back with his bowl, asking for more.

“Please, ice cream!”

Again and again. I think he came about eight times.

He was so cute, but eight times!

If you give children absolutely everything they want, they will eat everything. There will be nothing left in the fridge.

Janita helped me find the English word desire, and we talked about how wanting something does not always mean you should have it immediately.

I could understand the rule a little better after thinking about the children at camp.

Although, to be fair, I also wanted ice cream after that conversation.

A Penguin, a Giraffe and a Chicken Revolution.

Then Janita decided that we needed some very serious questions.

Obviously, the first one involved replacing my mathematics teacher with a penguin.

What rules would a penguin introduce?

Well, first of all, the classroom would have to be really, really cold. That would be difficult for the students, but probably perfect for the penguin.

There would also be fish in the canteen. And maybe ice on the classroom floor so everybody could slide around.

Very practical. Especially for mathematics.

Next, a giraffe joined the school. Unfortunately, there was an unwritten rule that nobody was allowed to be taller than the teacher.

What could we do?

My first idea was simple. Make the giraffe the teacher. Then nobody would be taller.

Janita pointed out that the giraffe might not know how to teach.

Ah. A little problem.

Maybe the giraffe should go to giraffe school instead. But then Janita asked what would happen if the giraffe really wanted to attend a human school.

I thought about that. If the rule was absolutely important, perhaps we would have to respect it. But if it wasn’t really important, why couldn’t the giraffe come to school with us?

I was mixing all the sentences in my head by this point, but I think the idea made sense.

Then a chicken became our new principal.

Every morning, she would scream at six o’clock and expect all the students to arrive at school immediately.

Absolutely not.

Normally, if I have to be at school at eight, I wake up at about half past six. So if I had to arrive at six, I would need to wake up at half past four.

Half past four!

In winter, it is still dark when I wake up at my normal time. Even at around quarter to eight that morning, it had looked like night outside.

Janita told me that sunrise and sunset are quite different where she lives in South Africa. We compared the seasons, the darkness and the changing clocks.

I had almost forgotten that our clocks were changing to winter time.

When Janita explained it, I realised something very important.

We could sleep more!

That was definitely the best part of the clock change.

As for the chicken principal, I would start the revolution on the first day.

No discussion.

Sixteen Hours of Sleep, Please.

Our last ridiculous question involved a cat becoming the leader of my Scout group.

The cat’s first rule was that everybody had to sleep for sixteen hours every day.

Sixteen!

That is more than half the day.

At first, I thought I would support the cat. Maybe for one week, because I could recover all the hours of sleep I had missed.

But after that, no. I would want to go out, see my friends and have fun. You cannot spend your entire life sleeping, even if the cat thinks it is a wonderful idea.

Although, on that particular Saturday morning, sixteen hours of sleep sounded very attractive.

Unfortunately, I had a suitcase waiting for me.

One Month, One Small Suitcase.

I was leaving for the Canary Islands on a school exchange, and I needed to pack enough things for one month.

The problem was that my suitcase was small.

Really small.

So I had bought special bags with a pump. You put your clothes inside, remove the air and make everything flat. Janita understood what I meant after I explained it with words, gestures and probably some very strange noises.

She asked whether I was taking the pump with me so I could pack everything again for the journey home.

Of course! I was also hoping to do a little shopping while I was away, so I would need some space.

At least my schoolbooks were not a problem. Most of them were on my laptop, so I didn’t have to carry a mountain of textbooks.

I was also going to attend school during the exchange. I understood that classes there would run from around eight in the morning until two or three in the afternoon, although I still had to discover exactly how my own schedule would work.

There was another thing I was very happy about.

I expected to have my own room.

That was really important to me. During an earlier exchange in Bremen, I had shared a room with another girl for a week, and I knew I didn’t want to repeat that experience for a whole month.

One month, please. My own room!

From what my exchange partner had explained, I thought I would be staying on a different floor of the house, with some space of my own.

That sounded really cool.

Then we said goodbye, and I went back to the problem of fitting one month of life into a very small suitcase.

We had started the morning talking about rules nobody writes down. Some of them were obvious, like waiting your turn in the canteen. Others were more complicated, like teachers expecting punctuality while arriving late themselves, or students feeling they should pretend to understand mathematics because everybody else looks confident.

And then there were the rules that made sense once I looked at them from another side, like the children at camp who would happily have eaten eight bowls of ice cream.

I still think respect should work in both directions. I still think students need time for their lives outside school. And I still think a giraffe should be allowed to attend a human school if there is no good reason to stop it.

But a chicken demanding that I arrive at school at six in the morning?

No.

That revolution starts immediately.