ED2014 Columns ED2014 Comedy

Ria Lina: Five lessons to teach in homeschool

By | Published on Monday 18 August 2014

Having decided to homeschool her kids, Ria Lina suddenly realised what fun she could have devising her own curriculum.

Ria Lina

With her ’School Of Riason’ performing daily at Gilded Balloon, we asked Lina to tell us the most important life-lessons contained within her teaching plans – worldly advice for old and young alike, that’s for certain…

School should be a nurturing, caring environment in which children can grow into contributing members of society, which is why it never addresses the truth about what it’s like to be an adult – in case children get wise to it and decide never to grow up. Here are five life lessons that I teach at my homeschool, that I feel more accurately prepare my children for what is to come…

There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
Now that every child up to the age of seven automatically qualifies for a free lunch, there are going to be eight year olds up and down the country learning the hard way, when they can’t find anyone to bully for lunch money. The bottom line is: somewhere, somehow, you are going to have to pay for everything in life, whether it’s your health, your sanity or just your sandwich. Might as well start now.

Nobody is THAT special.
Did you get the lead in the school play? Well I hate to break it to you but that doesn’t mean you’re about to win ‘X-Factor’. I’m half-Filipina, half-German, raised in Britain and at 21 I got to the final audition for the lead role in a German thriller, because they needed a young Filipina girl who spoke German with an English accent. I still didn’t get it! Turns out there were two of us out there and she had bigger tits.

Asparagus changes the smell of your pee…but not the taste.
This may seem facetious but it applies to many things in life. The rule of thumb is if it looks like piss, but smells a bit funny, don’t taste it to check. It’s probably piss. Some things can’t be disguised no matter how hard you try. I suppose ‘a rose by any other name’ also gets the idea across, but it’s nowhere near as funny to teach.

Life is not fair.
The arrogant kid who never did their homework (and yet never failed a class) is going to get the job you went to uni for, because his uncle owns the company. The punk kid who shoplifted cigarettes (and sold them in the playground) is going to win a large sum of money from one of the scratch cards he stole. These people didn’t work hard at school and now they’ll be more successful than you, because life isn’t fair. Luckily this works both ways and Eugene – the ginger kid they picked on mercilessly for glowing in the dark – is going to be a tech-firm billionaire. Go Eugene! Stellar job.

School is not life: It just isn’t.
Not everybody fits in at school, but somehow they all manage to fit in, in life. Which is lucky because life counts for 80% of your grade.

‘Ria Lina: School Of Reason’ was performed at the Gilded Balloon at Edinburgh Festival 2014.

LINKS: www.rialina.com



READ MORE ABOUT: |