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Friday, October 14, 2016

Back To School, Again

Rewind to grade school, again. If you're anywhere near my age, the rewind mechanism could break down doing this exercise but try anyway. Which subject consistently gave you the most difficulty? What lingering effects of your struggle with that subject - if any - do you detect now? Or, did your grasp or mastery of whatever be-deviled you early in life later improve?

Next question is for regular readers of my blog only. What grade school subject would you guess was Pat's bugbear? Hint: PCs made my nemesis largely irrelevant. That's right, it was handwriting. I'm still unsure what most contributed to my difficulty and/or resistance to penmanship and the resulting abysmal grades. Impatience? Poor hand-eye motor skills as a youngster? Requiring a clear auditory learner to continually drill an almost exclusively visual skill?  Or, given penmanship's subsequent elimination from school curricula, was soothsaying one of my hidden talents? What can you pinpoint as major contributing factors for your grade school white whale?

As long as I print - and don't try speaking at the same time - my still horrendous handwriting has no ill effect on my life. It's mildly intriguing that my best grade school subject - spelling, which also is no longer taught - has similarly had little discernible benefit for me. So my worst subject and my best made no difference and both are no longer taught. Hmm.

Is your worst subject still taught? How about your best?

2 comments:

  1. If it's any consolation, after almost 20 years of working with kids, I find the kids who struggle with dysgraphia (doubt the term existed when you were in grade school!) are, by far, my most creative students... No hard evidence. Just all anecdotal.

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  2. Anonymous; I guess I'm "dysgraphic" huh? Oh well. Thanks for the comment.

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