I found the Waterloo narrative very
interesting and the entire time I was reading it I couldn't help but notice the
similarities between her situation as a child and are school system today.
In the
narrative she describes the way her father taught her and her cousins how to
swim; he would explain how you did it and then try to have you execute it,
however this did not work for her. As she says, “I had never actually let go of
my father in the pool, preferring instead to cling to him like a koala on a
eucalyptus branch during an earthquake.” She was too scared to let go. All she
need was reassurance, though. She says in paragraph six, “I've never been
interested in why exactly an airplane can fly, I want to know if the pilot has
had enough sleep. In learning to swim, I just wanted to know I wasn't going to
die.” Unfortunately, her father did not think of this possibility and he was
pretty set in his way of teaching as it had worked with all of her cousins, so
he continued his usual way of teaching which continued to be unsuccessful. He
began insulting and yelling at her in either the hopes it would make her do
better or just out of pure frustration. Finally, he gave up on her completely.
Her
Aunt wanted to try to teach Firoozeh to swim as well so one afternoon they left
Firoozeh with her Aunt. Her Aunt thought that if she threw Firoozeh in the pool
her survival instincts would kick in and she would start swimming but this was
not the case. Firoozeh's Aunt gave up after one try. One good thing did come of
this, though. Her father had stopped insulting her and started treating her
with pity instead. So for years she
collected toys that she received from her father then one day she decided she would try to
swim, by herself, when her family went to the Caspian Sea as they did every
year. Her father laughed at this thought but Firoozeh tried anyway and succeeded.
Swimming became a very big part of her life after that.
The way her father and Aunt tried
to teach shows some striking similarities in the teachers of today’s public
schools. They believe there is one way for a child to learn when in reality
there are many different ways. Most children can adapt to the pace and the way
in which they are being taught but others can’t and they fail like Firoozeh
did. Although, most teachers won’t yell or insult them the problem is reflected
in their grades. Granted, some kids get bad grades because they don’t care but
not all the kids that are getting bad grades are getting them for that reason.
This is why I left to homeschool. I wasn't getting bad grades but they were
dropping and it was because the pace was too slow and the way they were
teaching was too boring and I began to lose interest. When I started
homeschooling I was able to explore my own way of learning instead of copying
answers out of a book and rewriting them on a worksheet. I began reading and
taking notes then writing about what I learned and now I don’t forget what I
learned right after the unit is complete. I am a lot like Firoozeh in this way.
She didn't need someone to tell her, she needed to discover it herself in her
own way, but this is not an option at public schools and it wasn't an option
with her father.
Ultimately,
she and I both flourished when left alone to discover things ourselves in our
own way and in our own time.
