About Me — Bernie Pullen

Who Needs an Education Anyway?

I’m going to take you on an educational journey, a journey that shaped me and may help you to understand a little bit of who I am.

It started at the age of 5, I was presented with my first starchy school uniform. My parents had been talking about this school place for a while. On the day, there was a lot of fuss and photo-taking and I thought heh this school place must be really great if everyone is so interested in me going there.

But school wasn’t what I had expected though. I found out that we had to sit still in things called classrooms for most of the day and listen to an adult telling us what to do.

This can’t be right I thought. They must have dropped me off at the wrong place. Why would they make me come here when I could have freedom at home to play in the garden chasing the butterflies in the sun or having tea parties with my dolls.

I decided that there was only one thing for it, I had to get out of this place in the only way I knew how.

I did what any self-respecting 5-year-old would have done. I cried.

I cried inconsolably until the teacher too had had enough and agreed to release me from the temporary imprisonment.

I was able to tell her, through my sobs, that I lived a few doors away which I did. I didn’t even have to cross the road I told her (this was true). I often go to the shop on my own I told her (well almost true).

She fell for it, and I am sure this would not happen in this day and age, but we are going back sometime now, things were quite different back then. She let me go home.

My happiness was short-lived when my mother did not connect with my 5-year-old soul and ideals.

She marched me back to school the next day as she told me about the importance of education.

And that was the start of the process to mould me into becoming a part of the conforming world.

Let’s say school was not a happy place for me.

My next experience had a profound shaping on my voice. I joined the school choir. I was a quiet child always in the background so joining the choir was a big thing. Even then I knew that the voice was important and that I needed to develop it or at least use it. The first choir practice was my first and also my last. It went like this.

The whole group was singing, and I decided to really let my voice out. Freely and enjoying the moment. Suddenly the choirmaster stopped and asked each small section to sing. Then narrowed it down to the section where I was standing. He made us sing a nursery rhyme that I think you are no longer allowed to sing. I sang it in my best voice only the sound that came out blared out in two different tones. The choirmaster looked at me and said, “It’s you, you’re off-key, I’m afraid you can’t be in the choir.”

Just like that.

In front of everyone.

He made me take my things and leave.

That day my little 9-year-old self, lost her voice. I became even quieter than I had been before.

The next stage of my journey was my transition into secondary school. I grew up in the city of Harare, Zimbabwe which is in Southern Africa. It was a normal family life with my mum and dad, two sisters, and a brother. But what was so unusual was that I grew up in a segregated society. This meant we also had to attend different schools according to our race.

Yes, I know it seems hard to imagine that it was still happening in our lifetime. It was 1980 and in my high school years, the country achieved independence and many changes were happening. One was that we could go to any school of our choice. This meant that black and white children could sit next to each other in the same classroom for the very first time in the country’s history. I decided to move schools to a previously whites-only school, which was closer to where I lived. I had never mixed with anyone different to me. I’m mixed race by the way. I was 12 years old and had not spoken to a white person in my life until that point.

Despite these changes, I discovered that school was school no matter who attended — there were bullies and there were teachers and sometimes it was hard to distinguish between the two.

You see I rode a bike into school and back each day and parked it in the bike shed. You can guarantee that at least on half of the days there would be a puncture in the tyres as someone would decide to use it to store a drawing pin. Why did they target me? At the time I didn’t have a clue, but I guess my quietness made me stand out louder than ever. I think I knew who they were, but it happened for most of my schooling days, and I had many long walks home pushing my bike. It was my thinking time. Time to mull over where I was and what I wanted to be. My time to dream of all I would become.

You would usually find me in the library. I often helped out in there. It was also a place of safety. I loved books and literature and often lost myself in some adventure or other. It was my coping mechanism it helped me get through those years.

In the year that I turned 16, I was due to complete my O levels, I was also entered into the annual swimming gala. There was just one distinct problem. I could swim alright. But I absolutely hated swimming. So, I bunked off for the first time in my life on the day of the gala. The headteacher was furious with me. He said that I had let the whole team down. Now I couldn’t argue with that. I guess I had.

Reluctantly, he let me back to study in the sixth form, taking Literature as my main subject. I found that the same headmaster was going to take us for our career guidance class. I still remember his name, Mr. Dry. He had these big bushy eyebrows with this sneering terrifying face.

As he took our career class one day, he said

“Some of you would be better off leaving school right now”

“Some of you would be better off going to find a job rather than wasting your time here”

“And some of you,” he said, looking directly at me, “Will never amount to much in your life”.

I left school shortly after that. I didn’t complete my A levels.

I had been bullied throughout my years and finally, I decided I had enough only thing was I giving in to the biggest bully of all.

I found a nice safe job in the bank — it was a calculated disaster. I knew from day one what a mistake I had made. I spent the next years planning my escape. I saved up enough money and bought a plane ticket, with plans in my head for adventure and travel. I arrived in the UK in my early twenties, free to go where the wind blew me.

But the wind blew me to fall in love and I met and married my husband. I wish I could tell you that it all ended there, and we lived the fairy tale dream, but I cannot. Mark died when I was just 25 years old. Our baby daughter was three months old. My life had come crashing down once again.

I muddled through the next few years and, I really don’t have much recall of that period. I expect that I must have cared for my daughter because she survived the experience and is now around the same age that I was then. I later remarried and had another daughter.

These experiences shaped my life profoundly. I knew then that I wanted to work helping others. So, I embarked on further study. I know you would think I would never have wanted to return to education after my early experiences. I studied for the next five years to obtain my first degree whilst raising my daughters.

On the day that I stood on the stage receiving my degree and social work diploma, I could see that headmaster and I knew that I had finally beaten the biggest bully, I had learned the biggest lesson in my educational journey.

I knew that I could achieve anything if I just put my mind to it.

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