I really hated school when I was a kid. At the time I just thought it was because I was weird. As I got older, I realised that there were a whole lot of us who were weird, and that really helped.

I have a very short aural attention span, so teacher monologues were a real problem for me. Luckily, I tended to tune out around the same time as my friend Lisa, who had a major fidget issue, and we whiled away many pointless classroom hours passing each other notes or constructing complicated paper games or, as we got ever nearer to our release date, feigning death spasms until we were thrown out and could go and sit peacefully outside.

Unfortunately, the school system was what it was and we could do little but jostle along in it until it was time to leave. I bunked a lot. I am queen of the ûber complicated doodle. But mostly, I remember the tactile rising panic of an after lunch double period of Geography, with a droning teacher, a prickly, sweaty uniform and absolutely zero interest in what she was talking about. Remember that feeling? Remember wanting to rip your skin off and run screaming into the corridor?

"No," says Andreas, who is lying peacefully beside me while I write this on my laptop, reading a tome of a book called Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive. "I loved school. There was so much to learn. So many opportunities!"

Okay, clearly my theory isn't rock-solid. There's weird and then there's weird.

Whatever. My point is that there are so many millions of children out there who are stifled by the tenets of the traditional school system, but have to stick out twelve whole years, usually losing the awe and wonder they came in with… simply because we have no alternative.

Do you really believe in traditional schooling?
Because let's face it, how many of us actually BELIEVE in traditional schooling? Let's have a little test: Who out there thinks that:

a) A 6 year-old should were a collar and tie.

b) Getting answers wrong is worthy of punishment/ridicule/humiliation.

c) You should be friends only with children the same age as you.

d) A 10-year-old should be told she is "The top of the class!"

e) A child should have to do hours of homework in the evening, after spending an entire day at school.

f) Actual alarm bells should sound when you need to change your focus from Maths to English. If you can't swap quickly and quietly, you have a problem.

I could go on forever. I personally have chosen a Montessori primary school for my sons, where they learn at their own pace, in classes which span three year groupings (3 to 6 years old, 6 to 9 years old, etc).

But what I'd like to know is, what do you think about our school system? Would you ever consider alternative schooling options like Montessori or Waldorf, or even home schooling? Is cost a prohibitive factor for you? Or am I missing the point here?

Battling to choose a school for your kids? Check out these articles on the different SA schooling systems: