Think about it, most little girls love science in elementary school (or at least I did). Okay, for some it's math, but I was raised having been told that I was born to be bad at math because my mother was bad at math. I diverge, what I mean is, we grow out of it. We are told over and over again that science is for boys, that diseases and anatomy are "boy" things, and that girls aren't as good at the "gross" stuff. Yes, gender rolls have been smudged effectively as of late, but that's no longer the issue. Standardized testing, large classes being moved through the basics just to get everyone to graduate, the school system in general has beat the fun out of science.
In college I took a one credit science lab. Previously this had not been required of general studies associates degree-seekers, so I had not taken it with the actual science class that it was supposed to accompany. This was a class that I didn't care about, especially since I had already passed the class that had originally been required of me. It was a 6am class, so I missed two or three classes, as a lot of students do. Then there were two required field trips (inconvenient for a girl taking 19 credits and working a part-time job). On top of that, there were tests every week, requiring me to memorize things like the name of each rock, the name of the parent rocks, the hardness scale, the acidity levels, etc. You never knew what questions would be asked of which rocks, and I'll be honest, I just didn't give a shit. Who cares? I'm not majoring in this. It's a one credit coarse. I passed the 4 credit class. Give me a break. You're getting paid for this nonsense one credit class. So... I failed. I'm awful at names, so memorizing names was hell for me. Then random numbers connected to those names, and required field trips... who the hell has that much time? I didn't. So, yes, I failed. And I hated science after that.
Not that I had liked science before that. There were times in high school where I loved science. Dissecting frogs and pigs was awesome, and I loved learning about diseases and viruses and how they spread. I lost interest when I had a boring teacher who rambled on about cells and how they were built and the periodic table of elements. Yes, a rambler really is the one that put me off to science. From there it just got worse, and then one day I woke up realizing... I hate science. Mostly because of those teachers and professors who just wanted me to memorize scientific names for stuff they had barely covered. They were bored with the material, and I became uninterested. I learned to think that all science was was memorization of long words that were hard to associate with what they actually were. So, thank you, teachers who slammed books in my face and told me I was stupid because I couldn't tell you the acidity, hardness level, and parent rocks of a specific rock. Thank you for making me feel like science was a hopeless cause for me, and that I should never pursue it, even though I loved it in elementary school.
Sorry for my long drawn-out rambling. My point is that we are taught to give up on things because we don't test well in specific ways. I suck at memorization, i.e. I suck at tests that require me to have memorized things that are so incredibly specific and uninteresting. We are taught to think of ourselves as hopeless cases, so we become uninterested in things we might otherwise work hard at, seek out, and maybe even enjoy, and we convince ourselves that we suck. We say, "Well I'm no good at ____, so it's hopeless for me to ____." We learn to hope less; to dream less; to stop seeking out those things that are a little beyond our reach in the moment, but that through hard work we might otherwise achieve.
So don't fall for it. Don't be hopeless. Don't let them tell you that you suck at something. Find a way to make it interesting to you. Hell, go find a book at the library, or an article on the internet, that's written in a way that captivates you and draws you to whatever it is you've found hopeless. Find an angle, because everything has an angle. Seek after whatever it is as though it's a hobby. Learn it for fun, and ignore the teachers, the classes, the tests. If you find a way to love whatever it is you're doing, nothing is hopeless. You are not hopeless. Don't hope less; hope more! Dream bigger, go farther, be better than they will let you be. It's okay to go against the grain. Learning is a wonderful thing. Seek it. Go after it. Hunger for it. Never ever give in. Don't give up on something. Try the things you have given up on over again, and see how you honestly feel about it. What could it hurt? You might realize you love something you thought you hated. It's like your taste buds. You have to try the things you thought you didn't like as a kid over and over again as an adult because your taste buds change, and you never know what you'll end up liking.
No comments:
Post a Comment