My daughter starts school full-time and all day on Wednesday. A big step and I’m proud that she’s so eager to go. (I never was.)
I see her enthusiasm as we pack her crayons, bottles of glue, and watercolor paints and I think to myself “I hope it lasts.” I hope her excitement for learning lasts for her entire lifetime. And also that it doesn’t just start early – but stays with her as well. Because I discovered what it means to really study and learn MUCH later than I should have. And in hindsight of course that was a big mistake.
I hated going to school. HATED it. Yeah, yeah I know I teach at a college now so what’s the deal. Well here’s the deal. All I ever wanted as a kid was to find ways to avoid school, homework, book reports, all of it. I only wanted to do what I loved, which was:
1.) Watch TV and Movies (I can still tell you more about who was in what and when it was made than anyone I know.)
and
2.) Play with my toys. Specifically Legos. Even more specifically, space Legos.
Sure that may seem pretty normal, but I wish I had striven a bit to learn and take advantage of school a bit more. My teachers were fine, my classmates were great, I just didn’t want to sit still to be honest. It was the desk that bugged me the most. (Full disclosure, I still can’t sit at a desk too long. Luckily my chosen profession doesn’t require that.)
It did finally happen of course. That desire to learn I mean. For me it took going off to college. Actually going away to a school and relying only on me. It didn’t happen overnight and it certainly wasn’t smooth, but when I got ‘there’ my life changed so much for the better. I was able to (and for the first time wanted to) learn on my own. No teachers prodding me, no laziness on the task, I set my mind to it and studied what I needed or wanted to. And not just classes for my major but all of them. Gen Eds too. When I finally learned what it took to study it was never a chore anymore. Never. It was engaging and interesting and hell, actually fun.
That self-discipline and eagerness to learn allowed me to excel in the rest of my college career and throughout my professional career. I quickly got the jobs and projects I wanted because I studied and worked hard on them. I am now doing exactly what I want in life because of it and that is a treasure. So many people, including students I’ve worked with first hand, have yet to even think about what it means to really study. To see how all the classes, assignments, and other projects are not just about the answers they’re told to pursue. The answer is as much about the process itself.
And so is life right? As they say “the answers we seem to seek and look for in life aren’t a destination.” They really do tend to happen right under our noses. Like being there as your little girl goes off to school for the first time. To learn all these answers and truths for herself, one lesson at a time.
I just hope she can deal with sitting at a desk.
I was always the good student, right up until my high school calculus class when I realized I would never, ever use calculus. What a struggle the rest of that year was! I could see how my stats classes would be important when I got to college because my major was very heavily research driven, but I never got back into math like I had when I was younger. Then a funny thing happened- I was applying for grad schools while in chiropractic college and all of them required Calc 1 as a co-req or pre-req, and I hadn’t taken it for college credit. I ended up enrolling in the local community college and that one teacher made me fall in love with the entire community college system. My grandfather sat on the board of directors for Western Iowa Tech and I knew about vocational training and the CC system, but I didn’t really appreciate it until that course. When you can teach someone in a way that they can see how it applies, it unlocks everything. That’s what she did for me- showed me how I would like to know the rate of change for something, or demonstrate that the Coke bottle I was drinking of had to be designed by someone who knew calculus to figure out how to make that shape with the least amount of material, hold exactly 12 oz, and fit into a crate to ship from Atlanta to Davenport. She got me curious again and from that moment on, I’ve been in love with the practicality of this line of education. That’s the reason I felt so comfortable jumping in to video production at Rock Valley- from that experience I felt comfortable that I would learn exactly what I needed to produce the result I was looking for.
Reading this I thought instantly of my Dad, who was the same way- brilliant guy, hated school, but when he found something (in his case, the psychological game of sales) that really resonated with him, there wasn’t a book he left unread or anyone who achieved more. I miss Calvin and Hobbes.