It still haunts me today…I wake up in a panic…worried,
stressed, and nervous.
The test.
Last night, it happened again...The dream about the big
test…
The big test that I haven’t studied for…
The big test that I might fail…
Most of us grew up in schools where we were often “tested”.
Questions were asked of you and you were supposed to
know the answer.
Most of the time, I was one of the quiet kids, who
only raised her hand when I knew for sure that I would get the answer right.
So, because I was nervous about my answer not being
right, I didn’t often raise my hand.
Luckily, I had some teachers who just wanted to
start a conversation during class.
Most
of the time, these were my Literature/Language Arts teachers.
They didn't seem to be asking questions where they
already knew the answer…
They asked questions that were interesting and
questions that simply required my opinion.
As a young child or adolescent, these kinds of
questions helped me to identify who I was, what I believed, and these types of
questions made me feel important. I
learned that it was ok to have an opinion.
These teachers didn’t correct me or tell me I was
wrong.
Some of us probably grew up with parents who often “quizzed”
us.
Often, these quizzes might have happened in front of
our parent’s friends or our extended families.
What’s the capital of Alabama?
Who was the 16th president?
How do you say table in Spanish?
When I answered correctly, credit was not always given
to me, I sometimes heard, “I taught her that.” or "She learned that from her teacher at school."
If I behaved politely or was kind to someone else,
instead of, “Wow, that was so kind, I’m proud of you.” I heard, “You know why
you did that? Because, I taught you to
do that.”
While, these comments were well meaning … it made me
feel as though I wasn’t making my own decisions, it made me feel like I wasn’t
capable of learning on my own.
And now, sometimes, I catch myself doing the same
thing with my own children.
At 2 years old, “Artie, what color is this?” “Ava, What word do you think this says?”
Most of the time, when I notice that I’m asking
questions of my children that I already know the answer to, I get a look from
them as if to say, “Why are you asking me that?”
But…I justify it with…I ask because I’m curious to
see what they know, how they are learning, and if I’m doing a good job as a
parent.
It boils down to… “Am I a good Mom?”
As a child, and now even as an adult, I am so amazed
by children who learn to play instruments “By ear”. Meaning, no one taught them how to play, they
taught themselves. They play around with
their instrument, practicing over and over and listening to the different
sounds and learn how to put it all together to create melody.
This was a foreign concept to me when I was
younger. I thought that adults taught
you everything.
I so soooo wanted to learn “By ear”. I wanted to understand what that meant.
At first, I thought it only applied to music. And sadly, I wasn’t able to teach myself to
play the piano “By ear.” However, I was
able to teach myself to play piano from a book.
I learned “By eye.”
My 5 year old daughter just learned how to swim last
month. Believe me, we did lessons at 1,
2, 3, (skipped 4, 5) years old. I decided against doing any more lessons
because it just seemed as though she wasn’t ready. At the lessons, she didn’t excel like the
other kids. She cried A LOT.
She didn’t want to go.
And the worst thing was, I kept feeling disappointed
in my little girl.
And, I thought to myself, why do I keep taking her
somewhere that makes me compare her to other children, and also makes me feel
like she’s failing.
We moved into a house that had a pool and now I felt
A LOT of pressure for her to learn.
But, in the end, I decided NOT to teach her.
I decided just to follow her lead and trust that she would learn if we
just kept getting in that pool every day.
We had her friends come over and I noticed her “Watching”
them a lot!
And then one day, she swam.
And if you ask her, “Who taught you how to swim?”
She may look at you like, “What are you talking about?”
No one taught her…as a matter of fact, when I did
ask her this very question last week, she said, “I put my body under water and I
learned it felt good.”
“I learned it felt good.”
In my opinion...
Learning should feel good…and learning should begin
with “I”.
