Ever since I can remember, I've loved learning, just for the sake of learning.
I would look for new things to learn around my house, on television, in books. Some things were too big for me to learn, so I couldn't go there. It was like, they were greyed out, and I couldn't really comprehend them, until later. I had to learn to start where I was, and learn from there.
But I had a lot of curiosity. I don't think I was a kid who asked too many questions out loud, but I certainly asked a lot in my mind.
School as a place for learning was great. That part I loved. The dealing with the people part was really hard for me. If there had been such a thing as homeschooling when I was a kid, I would have been all over that.
English
I could read before I started kindergarten, so learning English was relatively easy for me. I listened to my family talk, and I read. A lot. The grammar came relatively easy (at least until middle school, when the English language starts doing inexplicable things - homophones anyone?).
But I've always loved my English classes. My English teachers probably had more impact on me than most other teachers, because I really got into the subject. Writing reports was a pain, but reading for those reports seldom hurt me.
Once I got to college, the English literature classes made me cry. Who cries while reading poetry for homework? I did, and I know...I'm a weirdie.
Math
I didn't dislike math as a kid - in fact, I kind of liked how consistent it was, at least in the lower levels. I just took to it more slowly than I did to English.
I remember one year in 7th grade - I took algebra that year, and I struggled and struggled to learn the concepts and do the homework. I ended up with a 'C' grade in the class. Both the teacher and I felt very frustrated, but it was truly the best I could do.
It didn't make sense to me to go on and take the next level up without really mastering the concepts of the class before, so I repeated the same algebra class in eighth grade, with a different teacher who didn't know me. I aced that class - understood everything, sailed through the assignments. My teacher, a little Asian lady, thought I was some sort of math prodigy, and encouraged me to try out for the school math team. I declined, telling her that I wasn't as good as she thought; that this was my second year at the same subject.
Geometry was a bust. Algebra II - well, that was it for me. I couldn't keep up the pace the school wanted in order to think of it as any kind of career.
I still like math. Still want to learn it, but it still comes to me very slowly.
Physical Education
The bane of my young life. I was not sports-inclined at all, so I was left behind in those embarrassing short-shorts and grey gym shirt uniform everyone had to wear, no matter how bad we looked in it, and run around the track or sit in the corner watching everyone else run around.
And the showers...I think I still need therapy for those memories. The teacher insisted we shower, so I wrapped quickly in a towel in the bathroom, ran in the shower, got my shoulders wet, ran back out, and dressed again in the bathroom...and then had to find my locker amidst the other pagan children prancing around stark naked. Two full school years of this...
Trina, Edie...I really didn't want to remember you that way...and now, what is seen, cannot be unseen...
I hated this class so much, I found a hack to get out of it. I took PE in summer school for two years just to get rid of those required high school credits. No showers required, and only a month and a half of each class and the credits were fulfilled! Brilliant! Plus, I had more room for electives!! :-)
Science
My science classes had their moments, but since I moved so much, there wasn't a lot of consistency in either my science or my math classes. I think that, if we'd stayed put, my life might have taken somewhat of a different trajectory.
I really loved science, from a very early age. My mother had lots of science books she got from her yard sales, and I would spend hours digging through those books, even though I couldn't understand everything in them. I remember once we had a physics demonstration we went to at a local college - I was very impressed with the amphitheater seating, as well as the demonstration itself. The teacher did a liquid nitrogen experiment, where he dunked a rubber ball in liquid nitrogen, and then threw it against the wall, where the ball that had bounced off the wall moments before shattered into fragments. I wanted to know more about that.
My high school frog dissection classes left a deep impression - while the other kids gagged, I wondered what was going on inside the frog and what all these parts were. My science teacher at Bonanza High School, in fact, looked like a frog himself, and I wondered in passing what he would look like dissected too. I respected the limits of curiosity, however, and didn't pursue the point.
Chemistry class was a wall full of the periodic table and inexplicable experiments that didn't make any sense.
Science fair projects were exquisite torture. I only barely knew what I was doing, and trying to get curious and make discoveries for a grade somehow sucked all the joy out of the scientific process.
The Arts
This was my first love - first music, when I got to take orchestra class. Performing as a group was frightening and thrilling. Then choir, and then drama. Somehow this was where all my curiosity and all my questioning came out in something that happened, and affected people. I couldn't get enough of it.
After high school, I was sure I was going to be an actress. However, I made the decision in a vacumn, without considering holistically what that would mean for the entirety of life. Gradually, I came to realize that an artistic career actually wouldn't suit me, and I started withdrawing from the idea.
I still love a great creative piece though, when I see it. In whatever form it comes.
No comments:
Post a Comment