“If you spent as much time practicing your saber techniques as you did your wit, you’d rival Master Yoda as a swordsman.” Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones
Yes, this phrase gets bandied around here occasionally. More often than I’d like to admit. The only difference being that my Padawan Learner’s saber techniques are quite well practiced, thank you very much. It’s the academic skills that sometimes take a little longer to master than I’m comfortable with. Although many things seem so obvious to me now, such as multiplying and dividing by factors of 10 or the 7′s, 8′s & 12′s multiplication facts, I know that they weren’t always so clear or automatic. I know how hard it is to learn something new when someone is heavy sighing at your mistakes, so I try not to do that but sometimes I fail to be patient and have to apologize.
I wonder if all people struggle with things that, for one reason or another, seem beyond our reach - only to have it fall *kerplunk* into place for no apparent reason. It was that way for me in 11th grade when I learned to type. I could not learn the placement of the keys. I watched myself type gibberish instead of words. I studied keyboard diagrams on the weekend. I made a faux keyboard out of cardboard to practice on in my spare time. I used a piece of paper to hide my hands when I was at a typewriter (yes, back in the day…) so that I would have to learn to feel where each letter sat on the home row. I pulled out my keyboard chart at every possible moment: between classes, at the lunch table and on the bus to and from school. I even dreamed about typing sometimes. Still, nothing sensible ever showed up on those bright white pages. Until it did. It just all fell into place one afternoon and I could type, not perfectly or quickly but it was definitely touch typing. I’ve been a decent typist ever since. My business ed. teacher never scolded me during my months of non-progress (although there was an occasional sigh) and she didn’t whoop and sing when I suddenly started typing. She just said, “Huh. Interesting isn’t it?”
I try to keep that in mind when I start thinking, “How can he not get this?” because ultimately he always does.
Throw me a bone, is there anything that you’ve struggled with, something that you just couldn’t figure out, remember or learn…until you did?
