School Spirit

Remember that colleague of mine who just dropped her scion off at school? Well she did so insisting that the school doesn't matter at all in shaping a kid's personality.

How very odd. I beg to differ. School actually matters. Of course it doesn't matter as much as the home environment but it still plays a significant role. Certainly don't mean the boring cookie-cutter schools that have sprung up in the suburbs recently. I doubt you can tell the difference between generic School A or School B, especially with their shockingly interchangeable names. Seriously. Numbered schools?

I'm talking about the older institutions of learning that have inculcated a certain ... culture in generations of students. Though I wouldn't claim that the teachers were all that great, the school environment in these places do imprint a certain indefinable trademark, I would say, on their students.

Even the social misfits.


Bros?
Something instantly recognizable even in a stranger. Like an invisible badge. Even my old schoolmates have remarked on that fact. According to the convent girls, they can tell the hometown boys apart easily. Supposedly boys from my rival school are the hip, happening blokes you date for dangerous fun while the boys from my school are the gentlemanly fellows you bring back to mom.

Paul : So basically the dawgs and the saints.
Gal : That could be the tagline.

Never realized till I found out a year or so back. Not exactly complimentary but I don't mind it. At least wait till the girls find out how we differentiate the different convents.

But not only did the missionaries teach us to open doors for ladies, they also taught us the all-important bro code. Though we might squabble internally - count the number of daily brawls in the school canteen - when it came to outsiders we certainly stood together as brothers. Nothing proves this spirit of fraternity more than the one time I saw a group of jocks defending this lil bespectacled kid from neighbouring bullies just because of his uniform. They certainly couldn't let a member of their fraternity - no matter how puny - be abused by others.

Ah, the bro code. No doubt Barney Stinson swiped it from the La Sallians. Starting with rule number one which is bros before hos :)

Unfortunately I'm dating a bro so it gets a little complicated.

So schools not making a difference? I beg to differ.