adolescence

The school buffet

This is your first year in our school. You have just left primary school and you are starting secondary school. It is all a bit different: new teachers and more subjects. You may be a bit worried with the new subjects, and all the different options you can take. But you do not have to worry, all those options and possibilities are there for a reason.

Have you ever been in a buffet restaurant? Imagine that you are on holidays in an exotic country. In the buffet restaurant of the hotel, there are many kinds of food, many of them you have never eaten before, so you do not know how they taste and whether you like them or not. You may be able to identify some of the ingredients, but you have never tasted them cooked that way. However, not every dish is exotic in that restaurant, they also offer you some dishes you already know, such as like fried eggs and pasta.

When entering a buffet restaurant, some people choose the most exotic food they can find. The dishes with the brightest colors and the strangest ingredients. They fill up their plates with that food, expecting to enjoy it, but then finding that they do not like it very much. Other people are conservative, they do not want to try anything new and they stick with what they already know. So they choose a couple of fried eggs and some pasta. It is not the most exciting food, and they may be missing some other dish they would really like.

Now it is your turn. What are you going to do? Are you going to try something exotic and unknown? Or are you going to stick with what you already know and miss the opportunity of enjoying something new? What if you ask the waiter attending the buffet restaurant that you would like to try a little bit, just a mouthful, of several dishes before deciding what you are going to eat? You just take a small plate and a fork, and put in it a small quantity of different dishes, those that you do not know but smell deliciously, or have ingredients you like, or they just look good. After tasting them, you take a large plate, fill it up with the food you liked most, and enjoy your meal. This way, you will not be disappointed and at the same time you will not miss the opportunity of tasting something new.

Secondary school is like a buffet restaurant. During the next four years you will be offered a lot of subjects. Some of them you already know from primary school, like social sciences or maths. Other subjects will be new to you, like chemistry, computer science or philosophy. Like exotic food, you will not like some of them, but maybe there will be others you will find interesting. During these years, you will be offered a small taste of many different subjects. The reason of all that variety is that you will discover where your talents are, the subjects you like most and you are good at.

Everybody has talent, it only requires to be discovered. You have to discover your talent and you will discover it during these four years. As you progress from one year to the next, you may abandon some subjects while choosing another ones. At the end, you will decide which one you like it most, which one you want to study later, in high school, at the university or as a profession.

Adolescence is the time for discovering our talents, and your school will help you to discover yours.

• • Do you like to try new food? Or do you prefer to stick with the meals you already know?

  • What subjects are you good at?

  • What are your talents? ¿Do you have any clue?

  • Compared to a regular restaurant, where the waiters are in charge of all and you just sit at your table, in a buffet you are in charge of many activities such as getting your fork and knife, your napkin and glass, moving your tray from one place to another, etc. In order to avoid problems, some basic rules need to be obeyed by all clients. Can you name at least three of these rules?

  • When you think about what things are under your control, your new school is also like a buffet restaurant. You will enjoy more freedom here, but freedom is always accompanied by more responsibility. You will have to follow some basic rules, so we can all enjoy safely of our school.