Yet again my school has managed to allocate an entire day to imparting information that could have been fit into an hour. Today was Sixth Form induction. Rather than being given our timetables or signing up for extracurricular activities we were subjected to a 'carousel' of sessions. Only a secondary school management team could make a fairground ride sound so ominous. As it turned out, 'carousel' was shorthand for a series of lessons during which we learned little more than the importance of organisation and the dangers of becoming overly reliant on Google.
As tedious as this was, the true horrors began when we were sent to the hall for 'ice-breaking activities', despite the fact that most of us already know each other and those of us that don't are old enough to independently engineer our own conversations.
What our heads of year lacked in good sense, they in no way made up for with originality. After hours of having the importance of time management drummed into us, we spent the afternoon building bridges out of cardboard boxes and wrapping eggs in newspaper and duct tape so that they could be dropped without breaking, using any resources the different departments could provide. One girl suggested going to the food-tech classroom and hard boiling it. The whole thing somewhat undermined the promise that we were going to be treated like adults so long as we behaved like adults. Several participants broke their side of the bargain as soon as they were handed raw eggs. By the time the teachers announced that they were ready to test our constructions, the session had descended into anarchy.
If I learned anything from today, which is questionable, it is that a morning spent telling students that they are expected to be mature and responsible should probably not be followed by an afternoon of building cardboard suits for eggs.
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