What Growing Up Taught Me That School Never Did

What Growing Up Taught Me That School Never Did

I wasn’t raised. I survived. And that taught me everything I needed to know.

By: Hamza Yaqoob

I wasn’t taught to dream. I was taught to keep quiet. To be grateful for stale bread. To keep secrets that weighed heavier than my schoolbag. In a world where silence was survival, I didn’t learn about life from textbooks. I learned it from cracked walls, whispered prayers, and the way my mother blinked away tears like they were dust in her eye.

This isn’t a story you read in motivational books. It’s the kind you whisper to yourself at night, just to remind yourself you’re still standing. So, here it is—raw, unfiltered, and truer than any lesson I ever sat through in class.

The First Lie I Learned: “You're Safe”

I was six when I realized that adults lie.

They told me my father was just "angry sometimes."

But I saw the bruises on my mother’s arms. I heard the smashed plates. I learned to read silence like a language. When the TV volume was louder than usual, I knew something was being hidden. When the neighbors didn’t make eye contact, I understood what shame looked like.

My schoolteacher asked me why I didn’t bring lunch. I said I wasn’t hungry. That was another lie I learned to live with.

I Didn’t Have a Childhood. I Had Chores.

While other kids played cricket in the streets, I ran errands. Milk. Bread. Medicine. Lies. I carried them all.

One day, I asked my mother if we could buy a toy. She looked at me and smiled the saddest smile I’ve ever seen. "Your books are your toys," she said.

And I never asked again.

School Was a Refuge, But It Wasn’t Safe

I was the poor kid. The one with broken sandals. The one who didn’t go on school trips because "Mamma said no."

In reality, there was no money for lunch, let alone a picnic.

But I loved school anyway. Because it was the only place where I wasn’t being shouted at. Where I could imagine myself somewhere else. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere kind.

Still, I never fit in. I was either too quiet or too smart. I learned early: survival isn’t about being liked. It’s about being invisible.

The First Time I Taught Myself to Fight

Not with fists. I would have lost.

I fought with books.

I taught myself how to study under flickering bulbs, with borrowed textbooks and mosquito coils burning beside me. I learned biology from YouTube and physics from a secondhand guide I found in a trash pile.

People mocked me when I said I wanted to be a doctor. Some laughed. Others warned me not to dream so big.

But I had already started. And once you begin to dream in darkness, no one can take the light away from you.

Love Was Not Soft

I didn't grow up with bedtime stories or hugs. Love in my house was a plastic chair being left for me at dinner. It was a scarf thrown at me when I coughed. It was my mother sitting up all night, sewing someone else's clothes so I could have books.

I learned that love isn’t always soft. Sometimes it’s survival. Sometimes it’s sacrifice.

And sometimes, it’s just not there at all.

I Became a Brother Before I Became a Boy

My younger brother didn’t understand why things were so hard. I never explained. I just shielded.

When he cried because we didn’t have birthday cakes, I told him, "Doctors don’t eat cake. They eat knowledge."

He laughed. Believed me.

That lie made him sleep peacefully. That lie made me proud.

One Day, I Snapped

It wasn’t dramatic. I didn’t yell. I didn’t run away.

I just looked in the mirror and said: "This life is not going to be the end of me."

That night, I applied for a part-time tutoring job. I printed notes. I recorded myself explaining biology concepts. I put myself out there.

And someone said yes.

That yes changed my life.

Becoming My Own Parent

There comes a time when you stop expecting someone to save you.

I became my own father when I needed guidance.

I became my own mother when I needed kindness.

I became my own friend when I needed to cry.

And when I passed my medical entrance exam, alone in a hostel room with no one to hug me, I hugged myself. That was enough.

What School Never Taught Me

They taught me the bones in the body, but not what it feels like when your spine carries the burden of generations.

They taught me grammar, but not how to speak up when you're scared.

They taught me to write essays, but not how to write my story.

This? This is what I learned from surviving:

People will leave. You must stay.

Money runs out. Kindness doesn't.

Dreams don’t cost anything. But they demand everything.

Now, I Teach

I teach science to students who are just like me. Poor. Curious. Afraid to dream.

But I tell them the truth no one told me:

"You don’t need permission to become something beautiful."

I tell them,

"Your pain can be the soil where purpose grows."

And they listen. Because they know I’m not speaking from books. I’m speaking from scars.

If You Grew Up Like Me

This is your story, too.

You were not raised in warmth. You were forged in fire.

You didn’t get encouragement. You gave it to yourself.

You didn’t get love the way others did. But you survived. You found your own light.

And now?

You are unstoppable.

Author’s Note:

I’m still that boy with broken sandals in some ways. Still learning. Still trying. Still healing.

But I know this: I was not meant to be a victim of my story. I was meant to write it.

And maybe, just maybe, so were you.