SCIENCE
Tony Stark does SCIENCE. Bruce Banner does SCIENCE. I... I do not do SCIENCE. I do ohgodwhatisthismybrainhurtsSTAHP. This is what I did tonight during my Chemistry test.I want to clarify. I do not follow the stereotype of English majors who hate math. I do not hate math or science. I was actually pretty good at math in high school. By a miracle of unknown origins, I managed to walk into my university with 9 credits of math and haven't taken a math class since high school. I recently decided that I wanted a little bit of a challenge in my life and
decided to use my last required science credit for General Chemistry I.
This was a mistake.
I recently sat in a lecture hall with a hundred other college students as we were told to leave bags, jackets, wallets, cell phones, and even the covers to our calculators along the walls of the lecture room. For 30 questions we were given two hours. There were instructions in bold about cheating. We had to alternate pink tests and yellow tests down the rows. We were only allowed the clothing we were wearing with no visible papers in pockets, a pencil, and one of two very specific calculators. When I finished I had to turn in a cover letter with a signature on it saying I hadn't cheated as well as my scantron. They had to check both my cover letter and my scantron against my college ID.
I'm fairly certain I signed away my soul.You see, despite the fact that I may have given my soul to my chemistry professor, I don't hate chemistry. If I get a C or a D, I will still not hate chemistry.
I have this belief that hatred cannot occur with a specific intellectual subject until you've tried your hardest to understand and to make yourself better at it.
Did I study as much as I should have? No. Will I do all the homework when it is assigned instead of the day before its due? Yes. Have I really tried to understand? No. Have I gone to get help for the concepts that stumped me? No.
I have not tried my hardest to master chemistry despite what I'd promised myself when I'd signed up for the class. While I've done all of the assigned homework, I have not done the extra practice problems, and that bit me it the ass today.
You can't hate something because you don't understand it. You can't hate something until you've mastered it. The same thing applies to reading. I hear it constantly from not just kids, but adults too.
"Oh, I hate reading."
"I always fall asleep when I read."
"Reading is so boring."
"It takes me months to read a book."
I always respond with different variations of the same thing: "I'm going to tell you a fact then I'm going to ask you a question. Reading is not programmed into our brains. It is an unnatural thing for our brains to do because we are better equipped at birth for math than we are words. So when you say you hate reading, is it because you aren't good at it yet or because you've mastered it and still discovered a dislike for it?"
Some stay silent. Some only nod in agreement, refusing to answer my question. And some answer. They usually tell me they aren't good at it. Reading is slow going for them and the words don't form pictures in their heads. They often don't understand the vocabulary, or they cannot connect the ideas from passage to passage in their heads.
I recently read the book When Kids Can't Read by Kayleen Beers. There are ways to identify dependent readers and this is often the category that people who say they hate to read fall under.
I genuinely believe that as a teacher or a person, you have to identify the problem and then do everything you can to fix it before you can make such a harsh declaration of hatred.
So no, I don't hate chemistry because I haven't mastered it. I haven't given it my best shot and practiced and practiced at something that I'm not good at.
After you've tried your absolute best and mastered the skill, only then do you have the right to say, "I definitely know the difference between an ionic and covalent bond, and it makes me vomit in my mouth a little bit. I hate chemistry."
This is great! I definitely fall under the stereotype of English majors who hate math/science, so I am impressed by your ability to not hate math and science. You have made me think critically about the line between hatred and misunderstanding. If we don't take enough time to understand something (a subject, a person, a concept), it is easy to say we hate it. However, it takes significantly more effort and hard work to completely "master the skill." I will certainly keep what you have said in my mind for when I am dealing with students who say they hate reading.
ReplyDelete