Lifelong Learning

Let’s take a break from Henry this week, as adorable as he is. Let’s discuss my love of learning and books, and an interesting theory I’ve been bouncing around. 

I was a pretty smart kid. I was reading before kindergarten – my mom had been a teacher before she got married, so she made sure we developed that skill early.

It quickly became clear early on in grade school that I was one of the smarter kids. I recently found out that they wanted to have me skip a grade, but my mom wouldn’t sign on. Ruth tells me it’s because our mom had skipped a grade and I guess didn’t have the best experience.  I think my teachers, most of them anyway, did the best they could but they just couldn’t figure out how to handle me. I was smart, bored, and I think probably a little bit obnoxious about it. 

I was also fat. The smart-fat combo was not a good one in my school, so I was bullied incessantly. There wasn’t much an 8-year old could do about being fat, but I could turn down the smart. I stopped raising my hand in class, I did the bare minimum work that I needed to get by. Anything to keep my head down and not become a target. 

That approach continued so long that it just became a habit, all the way through high school. I don’t remember ever having homework. I got everything done in class or during my spares. At least done well enough to get by.  Striving for better grades and opportunities never felt like a safe option. 

This attitude remained with me in university. I had become so used to just floating through that I struggled in my classes first year – I hadn’t developed the skills to dig deep and work harder. I was a Physics and Calculus major that first year, and by February, I knew that wasn’t my future. Second year found me back in the Humanities, where I could skate by. 

Somewhere in my final year, something clicked and I realized that I had squandered the opportunities I had. If you can’t be safely smart in university, where is it safe?  Grade school really messed me up. With classes winding down, I felt like I wasn’t ready to graduate – I hadn’t learned everything!  There was still so much to learn!  This couldn’t be it, could it?

When I finally left school, I was focused on finding my footing and starting my life. But something was missing. That something was books. I got my Toronto library card sometime in the mid-90s, and never looked back. 

I’ve always liked non-fiction, but I initially mixed it up with the top fiction titles. Over the past few years, though, I’m almost exclusively non-fiction. 

And here’s where my new theory comes into play: I think I’m trying to make up for all that lost time where I was trying to not be a victim. Imagine all that I could have learned if I hadn’t been too afraid to raise my hand, and ask questions, and do the extra work. I definitely missed out because I didn’t have a safe space, so now I’m trying to cram as much into my brain as I can. Maybe even more than will fit!  I’ll never learn everything there is to learn, but I’m giving it a heck of an attempt!