This question came up in a workshop I attended on the weekend. Although it is not a new question to me, it struck me profoundly for the first time.
Most of us are raised to be fear-based. What will people think of me? Will I get this job? Will my posts be read, rated and commented upon? Why don’t people like me? Why doesn’t the person I like, like me? Will I be shunned if I’m not pretty enough, smart enough, quick enough, popular enough or go along with the crowd enough? If I don’t succeed, will I end up on the street while former friends either ignore me or throw me a quarter? The latter is a particular favourite of mine.
Fear is the unspoken lubricant of our patriarchal, consumerist, competition-based culture. We are taught from an early age to please, to win approval, and to fear the displeasure of others. Not being part of the pack is a burden few of us wish to bear.
I have always considered myself a free thinker, an outsider, and have taken no small pleasure in identifying myself as independent and beholden to no one. The circumstances of my life have contributed to this, but it is also a personality trait. It’s part of who I am. It is also a limitation. I speak my mind and pretend that I am fearless. I am not.
Like all human beings, I seek to belong, because in belonging, there is safety and trust. Someone out there has my back. And yet I continue to stubbornly take stands that are unpopular, and constantly fight the urge, not always successfully, to retreat and to apologize.
Working on our weaknesses, not our strengths
I believe in trusting my instincts. Why then, do I constantly second guess myself? I think it comes partially from a culture of believing in our weaknesses more than in our strengths. We are told from an early age to work on improving what we do poorly, not what we do well. This is supposed to make us “well-rounded.” The fact that this advice, institutionalized in our educational systems, rarely works, goes mostly unnoticed.
Yesterday I spent some time playing and colouring with my six-year-old step-granddaughter. She is preternaturally smart, pretty, poised and talented. She has picked out her own clothes since she was three, speaks her mind freely and is stubborn to a degree that frightens even me. She excels at baton, gymnastics, art and reading. But she has difficulty with numbers. Her Grade 1 teachers have told her and her mother that this is a “problem” and that she needs tutoring and/or extra help at home. This makes my blood boil just a little.
Math sucks
I have different talents than my grand-daughter, but I too perform miserably at math. Test after test I’ve done in adulthood confirmed what I already knew as a child – I do not have an aptitude for math. In Grade 7, I had straight “A”s in everything except math. That meant I had to go to summer school while students with low “C” averages got to do all the cool things that are possible in a tourist town with a lake at either end. I’ll never forget running into my favourite teacher (English) and having him exclaim, “What are you doing here? I can’t believe this!” I hung my head in shame.
The same thing happened in Grades 8 and 9 at another school. Basic math in elementary school had never been a problem; I just never got the “new” math. Tutors were unheard of, at least in my neck of the woods, and we couldn’t have afforded one anyway. Now, of course, students aren’t allowed to fail but the problem persists.
Instead of focusing on my strengths of reading, writing, history, literature, current events and communicating with others, all of which I loved, I was miserably trying to be good at algebra, geometry and trigonometry, which I came to loathe. I understand the need for many people to excel at math, but when I think about the pain I endured over it, coupled with the fact that I have rarely used what little I did learn, it makes me angry.
Hold the bar high on what you love
I don’t want this focus on weakness to affect my grand-daughter negatively. I believe that all of us need to be challenged and for the bar to be held high, and that for some of us, that means having to work a little harder than others at basic math or reading or writing. Forcing students to do it at a higher level of education when their strengths clearly lie in another direction is self-defeating and destructive.
In the end, I hugged my grand-daughter and told her that she didn’t have to be good at everything, just to work hard at her numbers, but even harder at the things she loves. She thought that was a wise idea and presented me with a picture she had been drawing of me while her mother and I were talking about her "problem." It expresses all the creativity and emotion and yes, stubbornness, that make her who she is. It is love-based, and it’s wonderful.
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It talks about focusing on strengths and minimizing weaknesses. In your profession as a life coach, you might find the perspectives in the book interesting.
I enjoyed reading this piece. I hate math too, and I don't understand why I can't master it, when people tell me I am very logical person. I'm not wired for math.
And I'm not saying that to please you, though I have to admit I don't think I would enjoy displeasing you.
However, I have to admit that you make a good case. Why not develop your strengths, to set yourself apart and excel and also to do what you love, instead of trying to improve your weak areas just so you can fit in?
Assuming that you are not sodeficient in one area that it would affect your other areas or impact your everyday tasks (like adding up bills, multiplying costs, or understanding percentages), then I agree that you shouldn't sacrifice developing the things you're really good at and love for the sake of shoring up weaker areas.
I really enjoyed this post - rated for making me think.
--rated-
There is little that I am fearful of and, as a result, I think it actually makes me operate completely from a love based reality. What are they going to do? Kill me? Nah.
Rated for looking internally and being honest about it as you always are.
Anyway, A great think to look into: Howard Gardiner's theory of multiple intelligences. Just google it. He theorizes that there are several areas of strength and that kids can be taught what their strengths are and can use them in areas in which they are weak (for example using musical or kinesthetic intelligence to learn math concepts). I learned of this theory when I was a new teacher back in the 80's --it's expanded since then. Check it out: http://books.google.com/books?id=_vLmG9qEROgC&dq=howard+gardiner+multiple+intelligence&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=1RvtSfuoK4WwtgPvuZHoAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4
(you'd need super memory intelligence for that link!)
Poet, you are on the right track. I need to start doing what you do -- for real, and with passion.
Ben, Thank you. I don't consider myself to be "good" with children, but I am learning.
Don, I can do the basics and that's all I need. I want to focus on what I'm good at, and hire or barter with people to do what makes me crazy. My accountant is a very patient man.
After reading this I consider myself a love based person. I am motivated to love the people near and dear to me and I have profound love for the things I do in life. I am fiercely defensive for other people before myself. I have and to my detriment most likely, always put others thoughts and happiness first.
Rated
As an elementary teacher I was strengths based in a weakness based system. Parents appreciated the strengths based focus.
BTW I am love based about 75% of the time and the rest of the time I'm just trying to avoid looking like a fool or making someone mad; iIt is that 25% that gets me.
A rabbit, bird, fish, squirrel, duck and so on, all decided to start a school. Everybody sat down to write a curriculum.
The rabbit insisted that running had to be in the curriculum.
The bird insisted that flying be in the curriculum.
The fish insisted that swimming be in the curriculum.
The squirrel insisted that perpendicular tree climbing be in the curriculum.
All the other animals wanted their specialty to be in the curriculum, too, so they put everything in and then made the glorious mistake of insisting that all the animals take all the classes.
The rabbit was magnificent in running; nobody could run like the rabbit. But they insisted that it was good intellectual and emotional discipline to teach the rabbit flying. So they insisted that the rabbit learn to fly and they put him on this branch and said, "Fly, rabbit!"
And the poor old thing jumped off, broke a leg and fractured his skull. He became brain damaged and then he couldn't run very well, either.
So instead of an A in running, he got a C in running. And he got a D in flying because he was trying.
And the curriculum committee was happy.
The same way with the bird - he could fly like a freak all over the place, do loops and loops, and he was making an A. But they insisted that this bird burrow holes in the ground like a gopher.
Of course he broke his wings and his beak and everything else and then he couldn't fly. But they were perfectly happy to give him a C in flying, and so on.
And you know who the valedictorian of that class was? A mentally retarded eel, because he could do almost everything fairly well.
The owl dropped out and now votes "no" on all tax elections that have to do with schools.
We know this is wrong, yet nobody does anything about it.
You may be a genius. You may be one of the greatest writers in the world but you can't get into a university unless you can pass trigonometry. For what!
You can't get out of high school without passing this and this and this and this.
You can't get out of elementary school without doing this and this!
It isn't a matter of who you are. Look at the list of drop outs: William Faulkner, John F. Kennedy,Thomas Edison. They could 't face school. It was a bummer. " I don't want to learn perpendicular tree climbing. I'm never going to climb a tree perpendicularly. I'm a bird. I can fly to the top of the tree without having to do that."
"Never mind, it's good intellectual discipline."
Lairderg, I tend to agree, but it is up to enlightened people to resist these tendencies rather than wallow in them. Not that I think you are wallowing.
WalkAway, I'm not even sure what sine and cosine mean and I've reached the point where I will look them up, but not worry about it any more.
Mr. Mustard, You must be inside my head. Math has always made fun of me, too. But you have a healthy attitude about it.
cartouche, You are the smartest person I know and you never do what you don't feel comfortable doing. Thanks for everything else, too.
WithoutAPaddle, It's like you are speaking a foreign language but I will look up the multiple intelligence link. I can teach you to paint your toenails -- it's easy!
Verbal I love that story :) I'll have to cut and paste it somewhere.
I've always been a math cripple. I'm not a number person. I'm and alphabet person. And I'm a procrastinator and dreamer. I've really, really trained myself not to be afraid and to realize that when 'fear' happens it's only a test from the Universe to prepare us for what good lies ahead.
Fear is a by-product of our Biblically-based society. I think of numbers as being masculine and war-like and the alphabet as being feminine and life-giving.
I love the way you phrase this. My granddaughter is hesitant to try sometimes because she is afraid of being wrong. We made some progress with "Bridge to Terabithia's" "keep your mind wide open to see all the possibilities". I think your phrasing will resonate well with her too. Thank you.
Sometimes, your self-descriptions absolutely startle me. It's like looking in a mirror and seeing someone else:
"I have always considered myself a free thinker, an outsider, and have taken no small pleasure in identifying myself as independent and beholden to no one. The circumstances of my life have contributed to this, but it is also a personality trait. It’s part of who I am. It is also a limitation. I speak my mind and pretend that I am fearless. I am not.
Rated.
I don't think Math and logic are necessarily related, incidentally. Writing requires manipulation of abstract symbols (letters) which represent somewhat abstract concepts (words) to represent thoughts. It requires an enormous amount of logic to make that process comprehensible to another person (the reader).
Part of my major was philosophy. Without a doubt, the philosophy courses and all the papers we wrote helped me learn more about writing and getting thoughts down clearly than any other courses I took. Now, the logic course we were required to have really threw me. The medication that is required to keep me mostly seizure-free sometimes really keeps me from understanding what people are saying to me. I stayed in jobs that really were unsuitable for decades, out of fear, and not knowing any better.
Self-compassion, leading to self-love. This is mostly a new state of being, the last few years. As I am leaving a fear-based life, I am experiencing MANY changes, which can easily trigger other fears....
Personally, I've always focused on what I do well to compensate for my inadequacies. Love or fear? I don't honestly know. I don't so much expect or need to please others, but I'm often hell on myself to meet my own standards.
Incidentally, I get numbers, but I am possibly the world's worst typist...and yet incredibly good on a number keypad. It's a mystery.
Loved the Animal School story from Verbal.
Here is a link to a wonderful lecture from Ken Robinson on this topic. If you haven't already heard this, I think you'll find it extremely interesting and entertaining.
*
* http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
ps. I never did get math, never will.
Love only intensifies it. Love breeds the need to protect. Maybe I'm love/fear-based. I honestly can't separate the two.
Can you imagine if we were talking about little boys not doing well in math? Would there fathers tell them this?
I don't want to take anything away from your premise emma, a very valid one, but I think it is vital to recognize that poor performance does not necessarily indicate poor aptitude.
I like to garden with seeds. I have a special satisfaction when I plant seeds and see them emerge from the soil. Some people think there is not much to it, poke a seed in the dirt, give it some water and it will grow. It does not work like that at all! Seeds must be planted at a certain depth, some deeper than others. Some seeds must be nicked to breech the hard shell before they are covered with soil.
Many girls who would be excellent math students but did not thrive needed a nick in their shell. A more proper placement in the garden or even a better gardener who might understand how to help them thrive.
The math and science issue as it relates to women is very near and dear to my heart. Young girls should be encouraged as much as possible to exploit this learning center of their brain. Master this part of themselves and then they can decide if they like it or not.
Make any sense?
Liked this a lot.
Your loving response to your granddaughter may just prove to be the key that enables her to move beyond fear to fully realise her potential. She is lucky to have you as a grandmother.
My education was definitely love based, as I had teachers who were passionate about what they taught and their passion was infectious. I'm a freak that actually loves math as well as writing. But I was fortunate to grow up in Massachusetts where education is a priority. And I had several female math teachers from a very young age. Hmmmmm........
Thank you everyone for commenting. I read them all but I am too tired to comment on them individually right now. Tomorrow is another day.
I simply tell people, "I don't DO Math," as if it's a concious choice. I'm very lucky that all the cash registers I work on tell me precisely what change I have to give the customer and I speak aloud during the transactions. "Out of twenty. You're change will be seven dollars and eighty cents, and I literally say to my self "...seven dollars and...sixty, seventy, eighty..." I repeat it again when I hand it to them. Nobody likes their money screwed with, so I have to be extra careful. It works. But if I mess up and input the wrong amount, I simply look at the customer with a blank face and THEY manage to figure out what is owed. Hey, it's their money!
I read two books a week, at least. I had an accountant figure out that I owed the government money, and the building's management always writes out the exact amount I owe every month. I'm set!
You are teaching your grand-daughter the absoluetely proper priorties. But I wouldn't have expected less from you, Miz Peel.
I think a lot of schools struggle with how to educate students of differing abilities and end up (a) teaching to the lower middle so as not to leave everyone behind and (b) requiring an across-the-board jack-of-all trades curriculum so as to get a little of everything into everyone. That's why I try to focus, with my own children, on what they are naturally interested in and what they won't get in school.
I think you gave your granddaughter a gift, and us as well. Rated highly. Now if you'll excuse me, I should go stop my son and daughter from painting their arms with tempera paint and make him do his writing homework.
Or not.
I hate math also, but I love music and have a (small, only partially trained) gift for it. I do believe there's a connection between math and music, and it's just about using that connection to help students who struggle. And not condemning them for their weaknesses.
BTW I love your story, Verbal.
I am both fear and love based. The fear based, I think, comes from a fear filled childhood with a mother who was a tyrant. The love based part comes for later learnings and later actual experiences that proved that love based was possible. Like Lea, the longer I go down this path of life I become more love based, especially since 1990 when I decided to go to seminary.
Excellent post. Clear. Compelling and well written.
Monte
btw, there's a whole field of psychology around "attachment style" that sort of relates to this post. Apparently everyone has an attachment style--somewhere between securely and insecurely attached--and it comes from early parental/adult responses to needy behavior. It's super complicated and revolves around a combination of evolutionary structures in our brain in combination with environment, but the gist of it is that some people are more exploratory while others are more fearful. Anyway, just another topic to clutter your blog with! Thanks for the interesting post :)
sigh. I don't mean to vent, but teachers are notoriously horrible at spotting giftedness and my neighbor, a psychologist doing a study right now in a school, found that parents and students themselves recognized an important connection (can't say it here b/c her study is not published yet) but the teachers did not. Totally par for the course. (I can say all this b/c I'm a teacher. As a group, they really aren't the brightest. All OS teachers being exceptions of course :)
and that's why i agree with part of what you're saying, but i still think math is important. if a person never learned to read, they might be talented in many other respects (and very successful), but they'll still miss out on large swathes of human knowledge. that to me, is the predominant reason to learn to read.
that's how i feel about making kids learn a bit more than basic math. it is the key to the universe, and the more minds we have turning it, the further we can peer collectively.
but that's not to say that we're teaching it well to everyone. imagine how horrible it would be to study grammar for 10 years without ever getting a chance to read literature or write poetry?
i will post something tonight about a dichotomy i observed, and i hope you will take the time to comment.
It pains me when intelligent people who have been exposed to bad teachers decide that they're just incapable of understanding a subject. When I was teaching, I started every class with the statement, "Nobody in here is stupid. If you don't understand something, it's because *I* didn't communicate clearly enough."
The sigh of relief and relaxation in the room was always palpable.
Boy, we're really piling on the pressure for the kids to succeed in all areas these days. I could not pass my daughter's 8th grade math TAKS test (our required state exam). I passed math in college either because the prof graded on an extreme curve or made an auspicious grading error. I certainly wasn't going to ask questions!
Like you, it was when the New Math came in (when I was in 3rd Grade) that befuddled me. I excelled at everything else, but my mother had to help me with the New Math every day after school. You know, I am a very visual person. Before the New Math came in, we worked with coloured rods of different lengths. I loved those rods and their muted colours! There were marigold yellow rods, teal rods, grass green rods, and cherry coloured rods. I really missed them when we had to give them up cold turkey.
Algebra... I just never got it. Incidentally, though, I sucked at Math until Grades 11 and 12 when I took trigonometry. This is a much more visual Math (and it wasn't the harder calculus Math that the kids going into sciences took). Believe it or not, I won an award in Math in Grade 12 for highest mark. I was stunned!
Oh, just one more point as to the absurdity of concentrating on one's weaknesses: My nephew, now 19, has always struggled with language and reading comprehension. At age 4, he wasn't really speaking, and the words that did come out only my sister could make sense of. When tested, he had no hearing impairments, but they felt both his language and his speech were at the 'severe' impairment level. (There was one level worse, which is 'profound' impairment). Three times a week, for 4 years, he had both speech and language therapy, and my sister also practised these games with him at home.
Anyhow, he could read, but he could not necessarily comprehend what he was reading. He hated school and really struggled with it and wanted to drop out at 8 years old. A mix-up meant the school incorrectly assumed he was an 'ESL' student for the first couple of years, so he wasn't properly assessed and given extra help until Grade 3.
This is what was absurd: taking French was mandatory and part of the curriculum. French was incredibly frustrating for him and at home he would explode into rages. Now, I am all for a bilingual education for most children and think it is wonderful to learn another language. But for heaven's sake, this child struggled with his native tongue, English; would get his pronouns all mixed up; and being forced to learn another language was just torture for him. (sorry for the length).
This was a very insightful post and very well written and told. Awesome post.!!
Many of you mentioned that you would like me to post the drawing my step-grand-daughter made of me. I would dearly love to post it, but in light of my ongoing harassment and the malicious use of my personal information by a couple of bloggers at OS, I do not feel comfortable doing so.
I hope that s0me day this situation will resolve, but I am not optimistic at this point. I won't be posting much of a personal nature in the future. I will continue to write commentaries, perhaps the odd review, and maybe some rants. I am going to pursue writing about my past, but it won't be here.
Joe.
It made me think of the ways my schooling still affects me - and frankly, what a can of worms that opens! It wasn't until I discovered Dan Carlin (whom you should all check out - he does a podcast called Hardcore History. Just do a search) that I realized I actually like history.
But a history teacher threw my desk across a classroom once when I wasn't paying attention. From that point forward, I distanced myself from history...and that's just one story.
Sad are the many who were told they can't sing, for instance, only to never try again. So many people say that can't sing and I KNOW there's some lousy, talentless teacher who told them that a long, long time ago.
I'm late to this conversation too. Thanks for posting this. I think that if children can withstand their 13 years of primary and elementary school education they can get to a place where they can be love based. Unless, as a child, you're perfectly rounded and good at everything, and learn well through reading and lectures, well you're going to come out of the experience being somewhat fear based. Parents who don't know any better overly react to teacher's comments about their children and the 'problems' become the focus. I am relieved that my last child is leaving high school this year, but now, after hearing about your granddaughter's experience I realize I will have my grandchildren to worry about. .
Just as an aside, a very good thing is resulting from our current budget crisis at the Big University down the street. They are "merging" 8 departments, fortunately two are our school of social work and the school of education. I believe that the synergy between the two schools can produce better teachers. SWs focus on strengths, and protective factors, rather than weaknesses and risk factors.
And, WHAT about you not being able to post personal stuff here?
denese
I will write no more of those kinds of posts at OS, even though that is what I think will be of most value to me as a writer. If those individuals should leave, I may try again.
I'm not normally a coward, but what happened hurt me deeply and the level of trust I once had here is gone.
Shame on nasty spirited people. Let me know if they go.
denese
And I still can't make change~