Learning as performance art
Apr. 2nd, 2014 03:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberettI have dealt for a very long time with perfectionism: judging myself by my (perceived) failures and discounting my successes; struggling to ask for help or admit lack of understanding; in short, being terrified of being seen to learn.
In my first year at university I hit the point where I said, to a demonstrator in a practical, "I don't understand this." The demonstrator reasonably responded, "Okay, what don't you understand?" "Any of it," I replied. "I have no idea what I am supposed to be doing. I do not understand the problem that has been set. I do not understand any of the things." (I get slightly approximate in that last bit of transcription.)
We got me sorted out. The demonstrator left. I started working my way through the problem sheet.
The lecturer walked over and thanked me.
He thanked me because, he said, it was incredibly refreshing to hear somebody admit to not understanding. I had done so in frustration and in misery -- but I was told it was okay, and I was thanked.
So: visibly learning in public is something I consider important activism. Especially now that I seem to be in some senses "cool" and definitely respected (weird and uncomfortable to say, but I think true), I'm very aware that it is not only good for me.
It is good for me - learning that the world won't end if I do; I get your insight - but e.g. responses to the Things I've Learned From Counselling posts makes clear it's got broader value, in terms of both concrete information and a sense of possibility (cf possibly the best compliment I've ever received: "you make things seem more possible").
But I'm a perfectionist.
So I look at the list of ways in which learning in public can be good for people, and I think about how important it obviously is, and then decide that this means I have to do it right.
"Learning wrong" is different to "getting the answer wrong" in several obvious respects, not least of which is that in learning "the right way" (klaxons should be going off at that phrasing) it's okay to say "I don't know" or "huh, I messed up there". But still... I want to model it correctly. I want to demonstrate that it's okay to say "I don't know"; I want to show the process from confused beginnings to nice pat conclusions, with dead ends along the way; and always, always, always, I bring with me this awareness, this self-consciousness that pulls and tweaks at what I've written until it provides a clear narrative.
I alluded to this sideways and wryly in a recent post (
), in part because that series of posts is a fairly rare example of me stream-of-consciousness-ing all over the shop: the particular instance linked is the moment of realisation & precipitous conclusion where I suddenly work out what's been going on in my head, and the extent to which previous discussion was focussing on the "wrong" things (useful, to be sure, but nonetheless a slantwise approach that wasn't the one to help me find my way to the middle of the maze). And yet even with realtime display of the wild goose chase, I was carefully and consciously curating the things I said -- as I am now, for all that this is a topic on which I still don't have a neat conclusion.
I envy & am awestruck by & fear & admire the people who not only learn in public but do so without looking over their shoulder. My heart is tugging in the direction of an idea of authenticity, but I think even that's a smoke screen: to trust enough to make mistakes without needing to wrap oneself in the belief that doing so has value to others - to be able to just do it - is something that, well, I want to learn to do.
In my first year at university I hit the point where I said, to a demonstrator in a practical, "I don't understand this." The demonstrator reasonably responded, "Okay, what don't you understand?" "Any of it," I replied. "I have no idea what I am supposed to be doing. I do not understand the problem that has been set. I do not understand any of the things." (I get slightly approximate in that last bit of transcription.)
We got me sorted out. The demonstrator left. I started working my way through the problem sheet.
The lecturer walked over and thanked me.
He thanked me because, he said, it was incredibly refreshing to hear somebody admit to not understanding. I had done so in frustration and in misery -- but I was told it was okay, and I was thanked.
So: visibly learning in public is something I consider important activism. Especially now that I seem to be in some senses "cool" and definitely respected (weird and uncomfortable to say, but I think true), I'm very aware that it is not only good for me.
It is good for me - learning that the world won't end if I do; I get your insight - but e.g. responses to the Things I've Learned From Counselling posts makes clear it's got broader value, in terms of both concrete information and a sense of possibility (cf possibly the best compliment I've ever received: "you make things seem more possible").
But I'm a perfectionist.
So I look at the list of ways in which learning in public can be good for people, and I think about how important it obviously is, and then decide that this means I have to do it right.
"Learning wrong" is different to "getting the answer wrong" in several obvious respects, not least of which is that in learning "the right way" (klaxons should be going off at that phrasing) it's okay to say "I don't know" or "huh, I messed up there". But still... I want to model it correctly. I want to demonstrate that it's okay to say "I don't know"; I want to show the process from confused beginnings to nice pat conclusions, with dead ends along the way; and always, always, always, I bring with me this awareness, this self-consciousness that pulls and tweaks at what I've written until it provides a clear narrative.
I alluded to this sideways and wryly in a recent post (
), in part because that series of posts is a fairly rare example of me stream-of-consciousness-ing all over the shop: the particular instance linked is the moment of realisation & precipitous conclusion where I suddenly work out what's been going on in my head, and the extent to which previous discussion was focussing on the "wrong" things (useful, to be sure, but nonetheless a slantwise approach that wasn't the one to help me find my way to the middle of the maze). And yet even with realtime display of the wild goose chase, I was carefully and consciously curating the things I said -- as I am now, for all that this is a topic on which I still don't have a neat conclusion.I envy & am awestruck by & fear & admire the people who not only learn in public but do so without looking over their shoulder. My heart is tugging in the direction of an idea of authenticity, but I think even that's a smoke screen: to trust enough to make mistakes without needing to wrap oneself in the belief that doing so has value to others - to be able to just do it - is something that, well, I want to learn to do.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-04-02 07:56 pm (UTC)Oh, the curiousness of falling for those who embody the traits we wish we were better at. *shakes head, little to add on that one*