Learning how to Learn

It was not my intention to create a non-disney friendly family environment. It wasn't really an ethical, anti-corporate greed stance or anything so lofty. It was more out of my personal dislike and annoyance of the disney-fication of EVERYTHING child related. I did make a conscious effort to not encourage it. If she fell in love with Snow White or Poohbear it would be an obsession of her own making, not because it was all she knew. I wanted her to know that there is more in this world to obsess about than princesses and Barbies. Perhaps it is the feminist in me. I don't know I haven't really thought too much about it.

Sure she's received disney stuff and barbies for birthdays and Christmases, even indulging in minor infatuations from time to time with Dora and the Little Einsteins. By and large, however, her interests lie in stuffed animals, drawing, and nature.

Mornings like today tell me I've done the right thing. She woke me this morning (letting me sleep until 9 - thanks Ella) to say, "Mama, when you come down stairs I have a surprise for you. I made an exhibit!" An exhibit. She's 6. Yes, she's a little bit of a brainiac, though its not really showing itself in school yet. It is only the first grade and I think she is already bored. She's always been kind of a late bloomer, never wanting to do anything until she was sure she could do it right. She gathers all of the information, examines it and turns it over in her brain until she's figured it out and then dives in. This is the EXACT opposite of me. She gets this from her father. I dive in thinking I'll figure it out along the way. Luckily I am good under pressure and typically excel in this kind of by the seat of my pants approach. Just as I can't imagine thinking the way they do, I am sure my way is odd to them.

Her intelligence is something that is not easy to discern with a standardized test. Her vocabulary - off the charts, her imagination - beyond anything I've ever seen in a child her age, and she asks the most probing questions that just leave me thinking, "WOW." And I am not all that easily impressed. When people say to me you need to advocate and get her in a GT program, I say I'll let the school sort that out. I KNOW she is gifted and talented and creative and will excel. I don't need her 1st grade teacher to tell me that. Though, she has already referred to Ella as Einstein and made the statement that she thinks she can't challenge her enough. Though I am insistent, brilliance aside reading and writing are fundamental and thus whether they bore her or not, she must master them. But I know her. I know what makes her tick. How she works. She is doing what she's told to get by all the while thinking and overthinking it in her head. One day she'll look around her little school table and see that the other 3 kids write more legibly or quickly and she'll step it up. She may not excel at what is on the lesson plan for that day, but she will excel in a true, honest intellectual curiosity kind of way. I am ok with this, in fact, I prefer it. I will ask for nothing more.

When her teacher said to me Ella's strongest aspect is her creativity and thought process I was proud. You can teach someone a mulitiplication table, but you can't teach creativity. You have to set the right environment and hope it flourishes. With Ella, I think the last 6 years have been about that process. Not telling her what to be interested in and signing her up for soccer and dance because that's what all the other kids are doing, but asking and listening when she says what it is that she is interested in pursuing.

I was in GT, I was a GREAT test taker. A pleaser. I had very few teachers who actually challenged me. I got straight As through all of high school. Maybe a B here or there but never anything less than an A for a final grade. I never felt particularly smart though, I knew I wasn't dumb but I also knew I was coasting. My skills served me well and I ended up 2nd in my high school class and was able to get into William and Mary because of it. It wasn't until I got to W&M did I truly begin to realize what true learning was. Studying, memorizing, replaying was no longer enough and it was a huge adjustment for me. At first leaving me feeling completely overwhelmed and out of my element.

It was in the depths of my feelings of "I am not cutting it here" thoughts that I remembered the one teacher, Mrs. Soucek, in 9th grade who made me work for a grade. Really work. She was the first teacher who ever told me something specific about me in an academic sense that stuck in my mind. She said I was a great writer and that I was able to say more in 3 sentences than many can say in 3 paragraphs. (Not that this is evident in my blog ... which is far more a stream of consciousness, messy and rambling entity).

For me, it is far mpre important that Ella is really learning, not just learning to churn out what is expected of her. That she is learning how to learn. I am not sure what that says about me or the way we are raising her, but for now I am pleased with the results.