… in the the next couple of weeks. Some are already in session. “Back to school sales” are all over the tube. Parents are sighing relief. And the students? Some are excited… while others are dragging their sorry asses back to school. Now, I have to admit that I belonged to the latter group while I was growing up. Sure, there were portions of the schooling experience that I enjoyed but I always felt there was so much more being offered on the outside.
I was thinking about this last night and wondering why it was so… because I’ve always enjoyed the learning process… still do. Yeah, as a result I was a B minus student for most of my schooling career. (You can all gasp collectively now.) When it came down to it… I was bored. That and an innate (and lifelong) propensity to buck conventional systems may have also contributed a bit to my less than stellar grade levels.
I remember being told on more than one occasion that I was not living up to my potential. It was true…I was not living up to at least their expectations and projections of what I should be doing. I just did not fit within the shapes of the cookie cutters they had on hand. Some gave up on me while others stood back (and though somewhat perplexed) allowed me to create my own path… at times stepping in to provide encouragement and at others suggesting a sense of structure to work within. (OK… once I had learned structure I would inevitably rearrange it… all the parts were still there but it was shaped differently. lol.) It is through this I gradually learned that you have to know the rules so that 1.) you can forget them… and 2.) you can break them.
It was only in college (which I still was only scraping by for the first 2 years) that a mentor imparted the value and virtue of discipline… and for the first time I began to think about it not as drudgery or a “limiting” pain but as a special and private joy. This was important because if one chooses an unconventional path it is only through discipline that one can hope to crack through the walls of the box… simply because the support system rarely exists within convention. Plus the concept that discipline as “being lost doing what you love even if it poses challenges” was a radical and revolutionary idea to me.
So, my wish and hope for this new school year is that teachers and counselors recognize that some are wired more differently than others. It is the individual’s potential that should be nurtured… and sometimes the best way is to step back and allow the bud to blossom on it’s own terms and pace.
PANDA LOVE
Here is the “aww” moment for your day.