So, the subject of children's education weighs on me a lot. The conversation of what kids should and shouldn't do or see has been a big arguing topic for generations. Heck, I grew up pretty much sheltered from anything non-Christian. Unfortunately, I wasn't a good listener and went behind my grandmother's back far more times that she knows. I think I get so animated and into the subject of children is because I'm scared they'll go through what I went through.
The video we watched today about the child growing up and having information fed to him through a funnel really spoke to me. Like, so much that I could pin-point times in my life where that video described them to a T. Particularly, when the child started giving the numbers and letters personalities reminded me of when I used to draw little mice interacting with the words on my worksheets at school. In the school I went to in Atlanta 9 years ago, that earned me a pretty bad rap as "gifted". Yeah, did anyone else get the "gifted" title? It sounds all good and cool, but it's an excuse for teachers to treat you like you're 4 years old.
The old teachers I had were very: "You can't learn the way I teach? Well, then there's something wrong with you!" I had teachers like that all the way up 'till high school. It took me until middle school to remind myself that I'm not stupid and I just learn a different way.
My twin brother, Spencer, did all the right things. He was really technically skilled and learned really fast and all his teachers made sure to hammer it into me and my parents that "Spencer is smart, Shelby is 'gifted'". None of that is my brother's fault, but I was angry that I was always compared to him. I was never Shelby, I was "Spencer's 'gifted' twin sister".
Fast forward to now, where Spencer is at Purdue for Computer Engineering and I'm here for Animation, I'm very much myself and only myself. I learned that people can't judge me for my lack of computer knowledge, nor can Spencer be judged because he can't draw.
Anyway, my point is that I don't ever, EVER, want any child to feel bad because they don't absolutely excel in school. I don't want them to be defined by "smart" and "gifted", but by who they are as an individual. I don't want them to be what I was, I want them to be them an no one else.
When I assistant taught at my town's primary school, I wanted to indirectly let all of them know that.
So, the video we saw stuck me hard. Since my experiences, I learned how to take my anger towards my past teachers and turn it into love an compassion for the kids that are at risk of getting hurt like I was. I know what it's like to be alienated from your peers because you didn't understand your teacher and what it's like to be constantly put down by authority because you didn't get their instructions the first time. We attribute so much worth to the mold of "smart" we've built that we fail to see how it hurts people.
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