It's important to regularly remind myself where I fall on the bell curve, intelligence-wise. Last week's entry detailing a brief history of physics in "Smarter By Sunday: 52 Weekends Of Essential Knowledge For The Curious Mind" was such a reminder.
Of the ten pages, perhaps 10% of the content was at all familiar to me. Of the remaining 90%, I understood little. Just five days later, my retention of new information gleaned from the entry is marginal at best. And though it was written for non-physicists, my paragraph-to-paragraph struggle was still humbling.
I realize there are many kinds of intelligence. I haven't struggled as much with other entries in this book. So, if I remember how I felt trying to absorb this entry whenever arrogance grabs me, at least I've learned something.
About Me
- Pat Barton
- My most recent single release - "My True North" - is now available on Bandcamp. Open my profile and click on "audio clip".
I've been experiencing a humbling experience since I have become a Home Instructor for kids who are not succeeding in the public school setting. I have students ranging from 6 years old to 16. Each has been expelled from public school and is awaiting out of district placement due to violent or aggressive behaviors. And while most people would find the behaviors that are keeping them from mainstream success to be the challenging part of this experience, it is actually the academics that are putting me in my place. The 16 year old's workload has helped to remind me that I don't know much. As I prepare each night to teach him the next Algebra lesson, and I need to ask my 13 year old to help me graph quadratic functions and use the quadratic equation to locate x-intercepts, I am completely humbled. I won't even go into details on the student's Latin lessons! But I will tell you that he is able to conquer the Latin lessons completely on his own as I sit and attempt to absorb anything he can teach me about the language.
ReplyDeleteHumbling, yes...yet truly enjoyable at the same time. Dealing with their behaviors is second nature for me. I have endeared each child to myself, and each is willing to work with me despite how they were behaving in school. But the academics have clarified that I truly don't know much about much. How wonderful to realize! d.
d; I love your optimism - how wonderful to realize, indeed. And your comment brought back my daughter's high school AP math - yikes! I'm very glad her mother could assist her because I certainly couldn't have.
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