High School dramas

A boy’s experiences of joining a high school

The end of grade eight was a defining point in my school life. The next year, I was slated to attend high school, leaving my middle school. I started in grade one and continued to grade eight here — a big change, sometimes frightening. I would have to bid farewell to my friends who stood beside me for the last eight years. Many friendships to miss.

It was a period of mixed emotions. I was excited about the new school. I liked the glamour of attending a new prestigious school in the heart of Colombo. I would be transferred to the senior boarding campus of the Christian Brothers’ formative academy. I would have to form new friendships soon.

It was a drastic adjustment for a thirteen-year-old, from a second-tier school in a semi-rural setting to a premium school in the city. Both were same-sex, boys-only schools.

In the new year, I was in the new school, St. Benedict’s College. It was big, occupying a large area in the city's heart. It had many buildings dating back some 100 years. A huge banyan tree as old as the school was in the middle of the compound. The school had over 4,000 students and many junior, middle, and high campuses. St. Benedict’s was the oldest private school in Sri Lanka. It was located next to the only Catholic cathedral in the country.

I was spellbound, seeing so many boys in the school compound, in groups playing and chatting. They seemed free-spirited. At their service was a canteen stocked with all kinds of takeaway food, nothing like my poor old school.

The new boys in my class were big and tall. Some wore long pants. Some walked with a swagger. They were more confident than my old schoolmates. They spoke differently, their slang new. They spoke better English. Everyone was addressed as Bugger. It was everyone’s adjective. ‘This bugger’ and ‘that bugger’ were in everyone’s vocabulary, just like ‘mate’ today.

The new schoolmates’ bravado came from their more affluent backgrounds. Some came to school in their chauffeur-driven cars. They dressed better in fashionable clothes, crispy white pants and shirts, polished shoes, and some in leather boots, novelties for me.

St. Benedict’s was known for its sports prowess. My new classmates were into sports, rugger, cricket, basketball, hockey and soccer, everything the college offered them. My old school had only soccer and basketball, sporting games that do not cost much.

Everybody around me was a new breed of boys. My challenge was getting used to them as quickly as possible without feeling sidelined. They seemed so grown in their long pants. Their budding moustaches and hairy legs were a novel thing. Some had acne, and some had cracked voices. A couple of years of an age gap is a big deal when you are a teenager. These were the things that I had to get used to double-quick.

The way they laughed and called each other was loud and strident. When confronted, they did not hesitate to use sleazy words to express themselves. The more slang and innuendo they used, the more fearless they sounded. A bit of innocent bullying and teasing was going on.

My voice was not yet broken. Inside me, I felt tiny. I felt docile. A thought I tried very hard to put down. I wanted to get rid of this inferiority complex. I was riddled with anxiety. The challenge was not to show them that I had anxiety.

My new friends were lavish with their name-calling each other. Everybody had a nickname. It was like a badge of honour to have a nickname. The boys did not stop there. They nicknamed the teachers. Japanese Cat was the name of our class teacher, with his unique looks of blue eyes and a round face. The religion teacher was ‘Coconut Oil’ because his hair was glossy and shining. The Sinhala language teacher’s nickname was ‘Mouthful’. He spoke with his mouth closed and sounded as if he had food in his mouth.

Nobody dared to call names to Mr Chapman, who taught us English. He was a strict disciplinarian and an ex-soldier. Nobody dared to misbehave in his presence, and everyone knew what would follow if one dared to antagonise him. Applied mathematics, a complex subject, was taught by Nabiya, his nickname. He was exemplary in his teaching methods. He had earned his respect. These were the crazy monikers of my teachers. Name-calling was so common that most boys did not know their teachers’ real names.

The class master, the Japanese Cat, had no control of the class. The tall class prefect, Shirley, knew how to control the daring boys. When the Japanese Cat was away, Shirley was in charge. He knew the art of managing the boys better than the Japanese Cat. There was no nonsense with Shirley. He was an elegant character; his fashion featured a cool pair of glasses.

Using the toilets was another new experience. The walls were scrawled with raunchy words, most of which I did not understand.

You can imagine me, young in my class, sitting in the front row, trying to deal with new experiences. I tried to hide my immaturity of worldly things from the big boys sitting in the back rows. The more I tried to talk to them, the more I got exposed. I sounded girlie when I spoke. I was teased that I did not wear jockstraps, the type of underwear the rest of the sport-loving boys wore. With no body hair and no sign of puberty, undies were another new concept back then for me.

Denzil, during his first year in high school

My vulnerability was now exposed. I wished I could go back to my old school. I missed my old friends and my old neighbourhood. I was angry with myself. I was suffering the consequences of my new environment.

Gradually, I took all of these in my stride and tried to be friendly with my new friends, downplaying my presence. I wanted to belong. I often displayed my toothy smile when they engaged me in conversation. That did the trick. I pivoted. Gradually, day by day, before I realised it, I was well-liked. I started feeling comfortable in my new environment.

Little by little, we became friends. I learnt to deal with my new friends’ banter. I figured that they were harmless. By the end of the first term, I was integrated and fitted into the class. Now, they were my protectors, caring for the young one.

I learnt to be fashionable myself, emulating my more styled friends. Until then, I had relied on my father’s tailor in my hometown for my tailored clothes. One classmate introduced me to a city tailor and helped me to craft in-vogue clothes. Eventually, I dressed like my big boys in shiny satin shirts and crimplene pants.

The boys in St. Benedict’s were lively, adventurous, and frank. They would not hesitate to call out things as they were. I started to learn from them about the joys of life and how to be a normal boy despite being indoctrinated into a religious boarding. They helped me to move away from my echo chamber. I learned to be funny, happy, adventurous, and fearless. I was infected with their positive attitude of giving a go at life.

I was still a young, physically and mentally immature boy who was innocent of the ways of life of the bigger boys. Yet the promise of becoming older, like them, was exciting to look forward to. From a fixed mindset, I was now in a growth mindset.

There was not a dull day in my life. I enjoyed every new experience in college at my new school. The school became my hallmark.

I embraced the change.

An illustration of the boys in Denzil’s class

I came of age among my classmates in high school.

I also learned some of my early management skills, dumping a fixed mindset for a growth mindset, embracing challenges and seeing effort as the path to mastery.

Where are my friends today?

I became lifelong friends with most of my classmates. We keep in touch and continue to share banter as we did over 50 years ago. Ten of them live in Australia, most of them in Sydney. Some live in various corners of the world, and the majority live in Sri Lanka, where this story started.

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High School

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