Earning vs Learning

I know you haven't heard from me in a very long time! We are having a snow day and a chance to take a breather so I thought I would share something I discussed in one of my classes yesterday. I felt if I made a difference for just one student, it was worth the message.
Here goes:

Over the weekend I kept coming back to what Jesse asked in class last Friday. To paraphrase, Jesse asked, ‘what does a 3 on a practice assignment really mean anyway if practice doesn’t count in the grade book?’ I gave the easy answer: to keep track of what you are doing and not doing so I know how prepared you will be for a test. But what I really want to say is something you will likely not hear often, especially from a math teacher:

It’s Not About The Number!
It has nothing to do with number and everything to do with LEARNING.

Let me tell you something about me. I grew up knowing I would likely never go to college. Only one of my 4 brothers went and he worked his way through. He even lost his financial aid when my mom moved out of state. Never did my parents encourage me to even try to further my education. But I graduated # 7 in my class of 200 students. Why? Because it wasn’t about the numbers I achieved along the way but all about what I could learn.

How do I know the numbers didn’t matter? You see, my husband graduated # 1 in his class but his education couldn’t have been more different than mine. He grew knowing he was going to college. His high school classes consisted of Physics, Calculus, three years of a foreign language. My high school classes consisted of bookkeeping, accounting, horticulture and the closest I got to a foreign language was stenography. But I knew I had to leave school with skill I could use to work, as that was going to be my life.

When I was in high school I didn’t have much time for homework because when I left school I had another life. If I wanted to eat or needed to see the doctor I had to work. During my junior year of high school I went to work at McDonalds three nights a week and worked until 1 am. Then I got up at 5 am and delivered newspapers in my car. (This was before we had regulations on how long a high school student could work each week.)

But when I was at school I never asked the question, “When will I ever need or use this?” All that mattered to me was that I learned it. It was the only chance I was going to get and at that time the easiest part of my life. Working was way harder than learning, and certainly not as rewarding. Sure, I was earning money, but getting smarter seemed more valuable to me.

As a forty-five year old who went to college in her twenties and again in her late thirties, I can still say learning is the easy part; working is much harder. If there was a job to be a career student I would be the first to sign up. Just think: show up to class, turn on my brain, practice new skills, and walk out the door with something more valuable than money. And boy did I need money in high school. But I did not let that stop me from getting the most from the education I was freely given.

Learning is really all about attitude. When you walk in the door do you ask yourself, “Why am I here?”, or do you ask yourself, “What can I learn today?”