On Learning Something New

I always prided myself on my ability to learn things on my own.

Growing up homeschooled, I had the privilege of discovering things in the world around me for myself, investigating things that interested me, and staying away from things that didn't (with the exception of math, which I was still required to do).

Weekly trips to the library afforded me the opportunity to play educational games with research components, as well as to read a variety of books on multiple subjects. It was these library trips that began my love of Sherlock Holmes, The Count of Monte Cristo, and myths.

This translated well into college, where I had to manage my time to both study on my own and have time for extracurriculars. In my journalism classes, I started with the directions from the instructors and textbooks and figured out the rest of the software on my own - sometimes I learn best from trial and error. Besides the classes for my degrees in undergrad, I learned ballroom dancing, how to passably read music, and the art of theatre, from all sides.

One summer, when I was working as assistant director and stage manager for the children's show at the community theatre and my brother was the lighting and sound tech, he and I (the day that the show opened) figured out how to program the light and sound boards to have them show-ready for me to call cues with only a few notes from the director. (My brother, like me, likes to figure things out on his own - he once took a vacuum apart and then put it back together just to understand how it worked).

My first year of teaching, I learned several different types of technology that I had never heard of before, but I played around with them, studied them, and made use of them in my classroom. I was even able to teach them to my fellow teachers.

At each successive school, I would learn and incorporate new kinds of technology that I would share with my colleagues. I became the troubleshooter when someone couldn't log into a website, get their projector working, or couldn't figure out the grading platform.

This served me especially well during the pandemic when we were given lackluster training (granted, we were all kind of thrown in there) and told to teach virtually. The different learning platforms made sense to me, and I would google and watch youtube videos and ask fellow teachers to understand what didn't and to learn new tricks and shortcuts. Then I would turn around and share what I'd learned with my team.

All of this to say that learning has never really been something that I struggled with.

Which is why my current journey in earning my Google Career Certificate in data analytics has completely thrown me for a loop.

When I looked up the program, I thought it felt tailor-made for me. It overlapped with what I do as a teacher - gathering data, analyzing it, reporting the findings to others, and adjusting based on the findings. There were just a few more bells and whistles, which I would learn over the course of the program.

In addition, the program was self-paced; the predicted six months that it would take was only an estimate; if you finished sooner, it would benefit you. A perfect fit for a former self-guided homeschooler.

You will, I hope, be able to understand my surprise when I struggled with parts of the program.

I had assumed that it would have been a breeze. Don't get me wrong, there were some parts that were a breeze, that clicked easily and I got through them with minimal strain. But there were a few things that I hadn't reckoned on.

1. Exhaustion. When I was in grade school and college, the only thing that I had to worry about was my classes. (At least until my first job in the costume shop, which generally felt more like a fun hobby until nearing show time). But as a teacher? The exhaustion was there tenfold, causing me to have a nightly fight with myself about not napping, or napping for a shorter time so that I could eat dinner, pack lunch, clean the kitchen, shower, pick clothes for the next day, maybe get some exercise in there, and work on my course. Some days I could barely manage to get a few lessons in before it was already almost ten.

2. Mental/Physical Health. Did I have anxiety in college? Some, but it was more social anxiety, speaking in front of people, performing, things like that. But as I worked my way through a school year filled with health problems that were unexpected, I found myself fighting through bouts of depression and anxiety in ways that I never had before. There were days when all that I could manage was to come home and shower before laying in bed for hours, either dealing with anxiety or pain - generally, both. I'd try to convince myself that I would do more on the weekend, but even then was a struggle, torn between the need for rest and the need for progress.

3. Getting Older. My final realization, and the one it took me the longest to come to grips with, was that my brain doesn't learn the same way it used to. I can't spend hours on a task without getting tired of it like I used to. Even reading, still my favorite pastime, goes through ebbs and flows where I either read furiously or can't focus long enough to pick up a book. And sometimes I have to stop reading for a few minutes every hour to stretch my legs or get on my phone. It really didn't dawn on me fully until I texted my friend, frustrated that I took so long to understand a concept and complete the activity. He reminded me that I wasn't in college anymore, so I shouldn't expect myself to be able to learn and figure things out the way that I used to.

It honestly was a hard pill to swallow, for some reason. It didn't mean that I couldn't learn anything at all; on the contrary, I was still able to learn new things on my own. But the speed with which I learn, and the amount that I can learn at once, have changed.

Surprisingly, that revelation helped me to get through one of the harder parts of the course. I stopped trying to keep pushing through; gave myself smaller goals for daily completion, forced myself to take breaks when I was frustrated (or nap, that was always good), and generally stopped putting so much pressure on myself to cram so many things into my head at once. Now I'm confident that I'll be able to effectively and efficiently use what I've learned once I've completed the course.

I never expected to have needed to adjust so sharply at the ripe old age of almost 32, but I suppose that's just another way that turning 30 has affected me. Forcing me to slow down and smell the flowers, as it were.

The important thing is that I'm still learning, both about the world around me and myself. And after all, isn't that one of the best parts of life?