ON SCHOOL… With Jamie Dornan and Bernie Sanders

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2:08Welcome to How To Fail with me, Elizabeth Day. Today I'm reaching back into the archive to share a curated collection of some of my favourite conversations. Conversations that remind us we're never as alone as we might think. First up, it's actor Jamie Dornan, who opens up about how failing at school helped shape the person he is today. And fun fact, we actually went to the same school, although he's a few years younger than I am. But this was a fascinating one for me to compare notes. Then we hear from US Senator Bernie Sanders, who reflects on his teenage years and the humbling experience of being good, but not quite good enough for his high school basketball team.

2:50Whether you're looking for comfort, insight, or just a reminder that failure is part of the journey, I hope these stories resonate with you.

3:01That brings us on to your first failure, which is your failure to do that well at school. And fun fact, we both went to the same school, although I am older than you, so I don't think we ever coincided because I left in the third year. But you went to school in Methody in Belfast. Yep. So tell me what happened about at school. I don't look back on school and think that it was a failure because when I was at school, I felt that I was there to gain friends and play sport and sort of come out the other side with this sense of being part of a group and having a structure of friends in my life. I was very aware of that at school.

3:44I really felt like I should be, I want to be like friends with everyone. and it wasn't even to be popular it was just to actually have friendship and probably particularly boys because I have two sisters and I was always sort of longing for brothers basically not that listen I love my sisters are brilliant but you do there's a part of you that always thinks if you've only got one sex siblings of like what would it be like to have the other I really wasn't at school in my head to get an education that was just not it's terrible and I tell my kids very differently now as a parent but I didn't see it as school being about that as much as my parents tried to drill into me that that's very much what school is meant to be about I didn't see it that way and as a result I did no work I really mean that in the truest sense of the word no work I really didn't I don't say that with any pride at all as I said before it's not a message I will pass on to my kids but you know when it came to like revision for stuff and your mates would always be like yeah I've done nothing yeah absolutely done just done nothing I'm not ready for this exam at all and I'd be going no I've done nothing and they'd be yeah no no me too I'm not no no I'm serious I've literally literally done nothing I haven't opened a book you know if I've had study time my dad's comes in to check to an hour later to make sure you know I was literally like sort of making you know study graphs and coloring stuff in and you know you know mucking about my Game Boy or something, you know, just anything but revision.

5:12And the proof was in the pudding a wee bit. Like I didn't do very well in my exams and all my friends who said they hadn't done work, but actually had done, did a bit better than me. And then everyone else who worked very hard did a lot better than me. I also had an issue with school about how exams were. Like I always felt like it was kind of just a memory test. A lot of the time you're being prepped for the particular the questions that were going to come up sometimes the exact questions that were going to come up and the teacher would kind of have a sense of what it was going to be even for the state exams not even for the in school like the mocks and stuff by the way which is an easy way like I could have just learned those answers and done the work and memorize stuff you see the relief of people when they open their exam paper and they'll be like oh yeah it came up I would never even have that relief because I wouldn't even have bothered to learn and revise and remember all this stuff and like I didn't do terribly at school like I did enough to pass my GCSEs I did enough to come back from my A-levels just with a bit of negotiating here and there but I struggled with the sort of structure of our school and I felt that I would have potentially done better in a different school where whatever strengths I had were harnessed a wee bit differently I have a lot of good things to say about Matthew because as I say I've still got all my best mates in the world from that school and from a couple other schools in Belpast, but friends from when I was a kid.

6:31But that whole structure of it with the sort of donning the big black capes and the silly hats and putting this massive blockage between students and the teachers and making them so unapproachable and terrifying. I just don't think that's the way a school should be. And I understand that that comes from trying to insert respect in the kids so that you will respect these people who are in charge of you and you respect your elders and stuff. It actually makes me do the opposite. You'd have my respect if you smiled at me and knew my name and were wearing normal fucking clothes and not some fucking sinister black cape.

7:12Do you know what I mean? Like I just, I've always really struggled with that, you know. And even when we, early days when we were going to see some schools for our eldest, we were to see this school and the headmaster was saying, oh, we're very relaxed here. you know the kids it's all first name terms I was saying all the right things I want to hear and I said something along those lines of like I've always found it very strange with that sort of us and them thing that teachers put at my school very much so that like you know I don't know how to say it really because I am I did have a good time at school but I it sounds like you which is interesting because I wouldn't initially have thought this about you but like you were a bit of a rebel I wouldn't say I was a rebel I was maybe trying to get to that like I wasn't badly behaved at school but I did struggle with a lot of the sort of conforming at school and that whole thing of like if one of those teachers the headmaster the vice headmaster whatever it is headmistress was walking down the corridor like they were so on you about your shirt being like an inch untucked or you know something your collar being up a little bit because you've sort of thrown it on after PE class or whatever so if you saw one of those teachers walking down the corridor you were terrified that shouldn't be the case you shouldn't be terrified of your teachers I feel like I was always on my shirt untucked or whatever so I wasn't a bad person but I struggled with that sort of conforming to the rules that that particular school set for me and in the way they studied and the way you're harnessed in class because I didn't think I was stupid but I felt like I was made to feel as stupid quite a lot at that school and the school I went to and you went to it was very much like you're either going to be a doctor a lawyer or you're going to work in business and there was really genuinely nothing else talked about that was just the way it was and maybe slightly about the time it was too but if you sort of uttered the idea of doing anything outside of those three vocations you're kind of laughed out of the room you just weren't listened to not that I was sitting there going I want to be an actor I really didn't think that I want to be the golden torso I want to be that you know that's a that's a massive aim for for a kid from Belfast I want to be the golden torso.

9:14It's not as if I get it, but I never felt stupid, but I felt that I had something to give that maybe could have been harnessed better or seen maybe by teachers and stuff, you know. So interesting talking to you about it because I had forgotten how terrifying Methody was from that perspective. My memory of it was very much, I need to do well at exams to get approval. And that was a kind of habit that shaped the rest of my life in quite a negative way, because I thought if I just work hard, I'll get approval and that will make me feel better about myself. And obviously that never really happened.

9:53My memory was much more because I've always spoken with this English accent that I didn't feel included or welcomed at all in my peer group. so actually methody for me was not about friends at all it was about feeling really isolated and sad and probably terrified as you say because it was so regimented if we could switch your experience of my experience or we could combine the two if you use them yeah it'd be like i mean they'd be delighted with us would be like the perfect product that they've created the exam side of it my mother died just after my gcse's and then four of my best mates were killed in a car accident all from my year at school the following summer I wasn't in a great place I've got to say in my head and that's when I was talking about we had these negotiations I'd done okay in my GCSEs but my mum was dying the whole way through and I wasn't and I wasn't doing any work anyway but that had sort of become this like other huge factor when it came to working out what I would do next in terms of A-levels and stuff and we came to this deal that I would stay at school doing my levels in methody but i board for two years we had a boarding department it's actually quite good if you've gone through school your whole school life as a day people and there's a boarding department at that school you're always fascinated by what goes on in there you know when they go behind that wee door what happens down there like it's just a whole other world that you just aren't privy to so you get to do that once you're a bit more sure of yourself and you're 16 17 18 and you're probably at the right end of the totem pole in terms of what happens in boarding and the bullying that goes on in every boarding school probably.

11:32And I played rugby and stuff. And that was like help in boarding to go in and be in the rugby team. You knew you weren't going to get messed about, to be honest. So I didn't do well, mate. I was about to say I did okay. I didn't do well. I got CDE, I think. But I got enough to get into a university that I didn't want to go to, but I was sort of forced to go. Not forced to go to, but like it just seemed like the done thing. Like what we're saying about that type of school is like you chose the right A-levels to stay in the same path to get to this certain goal, which always struck me as quite a boring goal.

12:03And the only thing I ever, ever knew about myself growing up was that I didn't want to work in an office. It's the only thing I've ever truly known about myself. I just don't have the right patience, aptitude. I don't really know how to categorize it, but I just knew that I didn't want to do that. I'm not saying that means I wanted to be an actor or anything else. Frivolous is that, but I knew that I didn't want to do that. And all of these things I was being led towards were kind of pushing me in that direction. So I didn't do very well with my A-levels. And then I went to uni that I kind of only went to because I got in to do a marketing degree.

12:34Absolutely no interest. You know, my school would have been kind of happy with that because it's something that could end in a sort of relatively serious job. And the whole time I felt like I was sort of doing, making those decisions against my will. I guess this sort of comes back to in terms of why I think it ended up being good for me. Sort of failing at school is had I worked, had I really taken those exams seriously, those mock exams, So it was your GCSEs, your A-levels. I mean, even A-levels, I swear to God, I'm not doing it to sound. It's not even cool, even if I didn't do any work from A-levels.

13:08Nothing. I mean, literally nothing. Went to uni. I went to nine hours of uni, five of them in Freshers' Week. So then I spent eight months, and I went to four hours of university in eight months. I played rugby four days a week and drank a lot. I had a good time, I've got to say. But I knew I wasn't on the right path. had I done better in my A-levels and then gone to uni and done a course I really wanted to do and done very well and come out of a good degree I'd be on a very different path I just wouldn't be happy so actually that failure at school for me not for everyone obviously but for me worked to my favour in a really big way

13:45so talking about youth we're going back in time for your second failure to you as a young man when you were at high school and you were cut from the basketball team. Yes. So you are a tall man. What's your height? Six feet. Yeah. And you were good at basketball. Tell us the story. Well, I was a good basketball player, but I grew up in a community where there were a lot of other good basketball players. So the elementary school we call elementary school, we won the Borough Championship. We were one of the best that I was on the team. And I went to high school, which is a very good basketball school, with the hope that I would play on the varsity.

14:23Again, one of the better teams in New York City. And I initially made what's called the junior varsity. I don't know what you call it here, but there's a varsity and junior varsity. You're younger, you're on the junior varsity. And I got my beautiful uniform, number 10, very shiny, slept in it. Did you? I did. I loved that uniform. What color was it? It was gold and white. It was very nice. Then when there was a practice, the coach said, well, sorry, you're not going to be on the team anymore. So that was very disappointing. So that, you know, meant that I was not going to make the varsity team.

14:58That was a failure, if you like. I was good, but not good enough. At least the coach thought that. And then I had to decide as somebody who was interested in athletics and participated in athletics. Well, what do we do next? Well, I'd always been a pretty good, always had good endurance. You know, I was a good long distance. You used to run around the block and stuff. And I'll go off of the track team, we'll see how that goes. And it turned out that I was pretty good at it and became one of the better long distance runners in New York City. Where the failure was not making the basketball team, but where that became converted into a success story was that being a good runner and winning races and getting medals and all that stuff maybe gave me a sense of confidence that I might not otherwise have had.

15:41I've got this image of the young Bernie Sanders running around Brooklyn. Is that what you used to do, running around the block there? Well, you don't run all over Brooklyn, but that's a big, that's many miles. But we used to run in cross country, which you do here, of course. In those days in high school, it was two and a half miles. And then I was a good miler and a half mile, mostly a mile. I think young people, obviously, we're all in the process of finding out who we really are. That's one of the purposes of life. And when you're young, it's quite difficult to differentiate between what people are telling you you are and how you feel inside.

16:17When you were rejected for that basketball team, was there a sense that you internalized that rejection? Did you take it personally? It's interesting to me that it's still uppermost in your consciousness. It was painful, sure. I loved basketball and very much wanted to make diversity. And it was a very harsh blow that I was not going to be able to do that. No ifs, buts, and maybes, so it hurt. But on the other hand, as I said, getting on the track team and eventually becoming captain of the team was a positive experience. So how old were you at this time? 15, 16. So what was 15, 16-year-old Bernie like other than sleeping in your basketball uniform?

16:56Is this a therapy session here? Yes, basically.

17:02I don't know. You know, I was a fairly typical kid, I think. I spent half my life playing ball and being on the track team and looking out for girls. and doing some studies, nothing out of ordinary, I think. And it was just you and your brother, is that right? Yeah, my mother, father, and my brother and myself, yeah. Did you get on with your brother as a child? I did. He was very much a mentor to me, opened up a lot of doors in my life. My father had dropped out of school, I can't remember what it was, 14 or something, and he left Poland at 17. And my mother, and by the way, just on that issue, some years ago, my brother and I and our wives went back to the town that he was born in in Poland.

17:43And it really, you know, I know people say these things all the time, but you imagine somebody 17 years of age, can't speak a word of English, don't have a nickel in your pocket coming to the United States of America. Man, that is a very brave thing to do. And that's true of so many immigrants who were in the same boat as my dad was. We grew up in a house where there weren't a lot of books. My mom graduated high school. You know, we had a few books in the house, but my brother brought books into the house and exposed me to ideas that I'm sure I otherwise would not have learned about. He was involved in politics when he was at Brooklyn College in New York City.

18:22So, you know, it just kind of rubbed off a little bit on me. Please do follow How to Fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts, please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.

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