My preoccupation lately has been with making things rather than writing things, which isn’t entirely a bad thing, even though I’ve been thinking things that I could be writing about. But sometimes it’s just hard to put down the Sculpey, or the paintbrush; or I’ve already been sitting at the computer for what feels like a long time, and I have to jump and run do something else.
When I was growing up, my three burning ambitions were to be an artist, a veterinarian, or a writer. Or all three. Well, the vet thing was the first to crash and burn. I suck at math. But now I work at a “Learning Center,” and I have discovered the secret to my previous lack of success with math, and possibly the key to overcoming the huge sense of helplessness I feel when confronted with something like a quadratic equation. Not that I’ll be ready to tackle one of those any time in the immediate future, but I figured out why I was never even good at remembering my times tables, which I was supposed to memorize back in second or third grade. I was supposed to recite them. Out loud. Over and over. And over. And I never remembered them. I don’t learn through my ears. I learn through my eyes, and my hands. I should have been writing my times tables. Over and over. And writing out whatever additions I had to do to get past the places where I kept getting stuck, like anything greater than five, times anything greater than three. Yeah. I know.
I don’t know who figured out the different learning styles, or when, but when I was a kid, we were all expected to learn all the exact same things exactly the same way as everyone else. C’mon. Really? Who were these people who decided kids were all exactly the same? Aliens? It makes me mad that no one was enlightened enough to figure out that children, and adults, learn differently, and that I never figured out what I needed to do to make the most of my abilities. I just assumed I didn’t have those abilities. Sheesh. Just think what I could have been doing with my life.
Going on the assumption that it’s never too late, I’ve borrowed some old algebra books from the bookshelves at work, and am trying to fill in some of those gaps. It’s a pain in the butt, realizing I pretty much have to start with baby algebra and work my way up, and I practically have to copy over everything in the book. Just reading it isn’t sufficient. I have to write. I have to draw. I have to work problems. Lots of problems. I feel like I’m in third grade again. I guess that’s not so bad. I got my first puppy when I was in third grade. Something that changed my life for the better. Maybe this will, too.
