Few schooling practices elicit a polarising reaction among Australian adults quite like the pen licence does. If you don’t know what is, it’s an acknowledgment awarded to students with handwriting deemed good enough to graduate from pencil to pen. Depending on the order in which you received it in class, the certificate is either stored safely at your parents’, in a childhood memory box filled with carnival participation awards and first teeth, or was immediately thrown into the bin.
I was the first student in my class to get their pen licence (yes, my certificate is safely stored away at my parents’ place).
As a now 28-year-old – living in a world filled with taxes, inflation and Hinge matches – it’s cute to think that there was once a time when my biggest stressor in life was writing in pen, but, at that time, it was no joke.
Step aside L plates, Atars and first beers: in my kid brain, it was the pen licence that would lawfully ensure my transition from child to adult, living a life of inky permanence that a pencil could not afford. It would also give myself bragging rights on the playground.
I’d spent my few schooling years leading up to this moment, tracing the alphabet on dotted lines with commitment, precision and dedication to the cursive craft. I’d cross my t’s and dot my i’s, beads of sweat forming along my hairline, tongue poked out to one side. Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger may as well have played in the background; this was serious business and my neat handwriting had quickly become my identity.
It’s no surprise, then, that I have a vivid memory of the assembly in which I was awarded that illustrious pen licence, in all its laminated glory. Unlike the majority of my schooling years (which I’ve seemingly repressed) I have fond memories of that afternoon, standing up in front of the school, certificate in hand, with the confidence of a kid who needed to be seriously humbled.
I’ve made it, I thought to myself. I’ve achieved all there is to achieve in this world. This is it. It’s all downhill from here.
Gone were the days of the eraser. If I made a spelling error, I’d simply cross it out and leave the crossed out mess right there on the page. It didn’t matter to me: after all, it was in pen! What a marvel! (Wite-Out was a gamechanger, but I’ll save that conversation for a later date).
And not only that, but I’d done it before anyone else. In a dog-eat-dog world, I was momentarily top dog.
I remembered this integral chapter of my life while I was on the way to the gym last week. It seemed like an achievement that was too good to be kept to myself, so, naturally, I immediately headed to Instagram to boast to my followers. “Have I ever told you that I was the first kid in my class to get their pen licence?” I posted to my Stories, alongside a nonchalant selfie in the car. “I feel like this is important information for you to know.”
My trusty followers subsequently replied with their own journeys to obtain pen licences, and how it influenced their current-day selves. Take Zayla, 27, for example, who was also the first pupil in her class to get a pen licence: “I absolutely have a God complex.” Or Phoebe, who was one of the last, and admits she’s never truly recovered: “I think it’s why I’m single at 29.”
And then there were the sentiments of those who, for whatever reason, missed out on the tradition. Hana, 28, remembers moving to Japan with her family the very year her class received pen licences, only to return the year after, bypassing the experience altogether: “I never got it and have an existential crisis every time I pick up a pen.”
Although my followers’ responses varied, one thing did ring true: every anecdote was passionate. A cacophony of devastated recollections or superiority complexes, all caused by the prepubescent pursuit to use a pen.
And it’s this very passion that sheds light on the way in which certain seemingly-trivial practices throughout tweenhood – like the pen licence – linger on into adulthood, impacting us in more ways that we could have anticipated.
That, or maybe we just love to be a little dramatic when it comes to our nostalgic schooling memories.
In the age of the iPad kid and handwriting arguably becoming redundant in classrooms, we may very well reach a point when pen licences, too, are rendered obsolete. But for now, it remains a polarising rite-of-passage, causing Aussies to both celebrate or shudder well into their adult years.
So next time you’re at a dinner party, I implore you to mention pen licences; I guarantee there’ll be a portion of the table cheersing to the good times and a few unfortunate folk weeping into their sauvignon blancs.
• Louis Hanson is a writer, comedian and presenter
