Education
Fifty years on, Judith has figured out why going to school was hard
Key Points
Judith* was a happy child — when she was at home. "As long as I was with my parents, I was happy,"she said. Due to eczema and asthma, that turned out to be a lot of the time.
Judith* was a happy child — when she was at home.
"As long as I was with my parents, I was happy,"she said.
Due to eczema and asthma, that turned out to be a lot of the time.
"So, to start with, I was just missing school because of actual health reasons," she said.
When she did attend school, she often wore bandages for the eczema on her arms.
That, combined with her regular absences, made her a curiosity to the other kids.
"I started to feel quite uncomfortable being at school," she said.
It got worse as she fell further and further behind in her schoolwork.
"This teacher would put us at the front of the class, facing the class, basically as dunces,"she said.
"This is where I started to feel sick before school. The anxiety just was too much."
As Judith continued through primary school, anxiety overtook allergies as her prime reason for not going to school.
Judith's experience of what's now commonly referred to as "school can't" was in the 1960s and 70s.
The term 'school can't' is used to describe when a child genuinely can't attend school due to an overwhelming feeling of stress or anxiety.
Then — and for nearly 50 years since — she assumed it was a problem only she faced.
"I didn't know anyone else. I didn't imagine anyone else," she said.
"I just assumed everyone always went."
That was until she recently came across the organisation School Can't Australia on social media and decided to attend an online forum.
"I said, 'I hope you don't mind my being here; I'm not a parent, I'm actually someone who didn't go to school'."
Judith said that with the help of School Can't Australia, she finally started to understand herself and to feel understood by others.
From repeated absences to PhD
Judith's inability to attend school caused friction between her parents, with one supporting her staying at home while the other fretted about her lack of socialisation.
She was not averse to learning and said she spent much of high school at home in her pyjamas, reading novels.
"Then I started teaching myself piano, started teaching myself Latin," she said.
She repeated some years and eventually went on to university — as a student and then as a lecturer, in Australia and abroad.
"I reckon I went to school half of my 14 years … I have a PhD, and I teach Latin and ancient Greek."
School Can't Australia director Tiffany Westphal said that while Judith's school struggles may have occurred a long time ago, the causes today were still much the same.
While being made a "dunce" was a thing of the past, she said children still experienced classroom shame.
"Sometimes it happens in reverse; instead of being punished, people are rewarded. You get your name up on the board if you've done well.
"But if you're the kid who never gets their name on the board … that can impress on a young person just as significantly as being publicly shamed."
Ms Westphal said Judith's self-consciousness about her eczema was also relatable to many of today's students.
"The impact of being different and having this different need for care … how that makes you feel a bit different from your peers," she said.
"Sometimes those needs are understood and sometimes they're not."
Never too late to focus on education
Judith has some regrets about the impact not going to school had on her socially.
"I was so isolated, particularly as a teenager when my parents weren't spending so much time with me at home," she said.
"It's taken me a long time to become more comfortable in a public sphere."
She said she had no regrets about her low attendance from an academic viewpoint.
"If you want to do something, you just work around to find out how you do it, even if you didn't have the best start at the typical route," she said.
"I've had students who were middle-aged, hadn't done any more years at school than they were required to, got married and had children, and then went to uni."
Ms Westphal said many "school can't" families in Australia today were having to experiment with their child's education.
"There's a lot of narrative at schools about how the way you finish your education, those last couple of years at school, really writes your future, but it doesn't," she said.
"There are so many other pathways.
"When people find the thing that gives them joy or makes their heart sing, something that they can get their teeth into and feel good about, they can do amazing things in learning."
Courage to go to school could take 'several days'
Judith's advice to parents today: don't tackle the issue on a school morning.
"One thing I never explained to my parents was that it could take me several days of gearing my courage up, girding my loins, to think that I'm going to be able to attend school.
"So if my parents were then trying to get me to go to school on the morning of the school day, it was just far too late.
"I would have decided the night before whether I was ready or not.
"It's very important to talk about the issue in a calm manner at a time when it's not crucial how the conversation goes."
Judith said it was nice to see more support in place for today's "school can't" kids, with options for online learning and more opportunities for social engagement.
"There's more awareness of the problems that children can have, psychological problems of one sort and another," she said.
"It's now much more openly spoken about, realising that quite young children can be depressed, for instance.
"Certainly for me, I didn't know anyone else who was depressed when I was a child."
* Judith's last name has been withheld by request