Response to Waterloo

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.