OPINION
“Meiosis is a form of cell division with the purpose of creating 4 haploid daughter cells which are genetically different to the 2 diploid parent cells.” Right now it’s study break for Year 12 NCEA students and homes all across New Zealand are set to a high pitch of anxiety that only parents can hear. Their children – those beautiful creatures, born so soft and gormless – are now prisoners at the sharp end of the toughest year in secondary school captivity. Year 12 NCEA is the big one, the toughest, the boot camp of the mind. All the 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds cramming like hell to remember things that barely make sense, that would confound God. None of my diploid parent cells have any idea what her haploid daughter cells are thinking about.
“Polymers are large molecules (macromolecules) made up of many small repeating units known as MONOMERS. Organic polymers form when small organic molecules (monomers) join together by forming covalent bonds between the monomer molecules. This process is called POLYMERISATION.” When did our children get smarter than us? Maybe always; Year 12 is just the proof. Her earliest writing was mirror writing – parents of kids born left-handed will know all about that, and remember that amazing script, the letters turned inside out, running from right to left. To gaze at it was like reading a new language. It was so delightful and part of the delight was that I was able to regard it with such a patronising air. I thought: She’ll learn how to do it right. And: She’ll get there. But a part of me also thought: I wish she wrote like this forever.
“TETRAHEDRAL. 4 regions of negative charge around the central atom. All regions bonded. Bond angle between electron clouds = 109.” Schools love setting exams so much that they came up with a brilliant idea of doubling the amount of exams: before the real exams, they stage mock exams. I gather the theory is that if the kids get sick and can’t sit the real exams, they can be assessed on the mocks. It makes a certain kind of sense but really it’s an exercise in duplicating anxiety. Their entire future rests on the possibility they will get sick, and have to perform to the best of their ability in the mocks. If they don’t get sick, their entire future is once again at stake in the real exams. True or false: the most insane people in the wider community are school teachers.
“Ethane, methanol and aminomethane have a similar molecular mass. The BP of aminomethane is higher than ethane but lower than methanol. Why?” The kitchen table is buried beneath stacks and stacks of little lined study cards that I bought for her at Warehouse Stationery – twice; she used up the first packs during mocks. After breakfast, I test her with flash cards – question on one side, answers on the back. I have no idea what I’m reading aloud. The molecular mass of my brain turns to mush. But she gets them right, card after card, and I sit there dumb and proud, dazzled and not a little afraid. You can go far with a mind like that. You can go a long way, and leave a parent behind to sit at the kitchen table and miss the days when it was buried beneath study cards from Warehouse Stationery.
