The first day I cried in college, that is. There have been others, and there will be more. I cry quite easily; it’s been an embarrassment to me ever since I first started school at the age of five. People who cry easily in elementary school can get tagged with all kinds of humiliating nicknames.
You know how it is when you want so much to do well? You’re determined you’re going to do it right this time. Maybe you were always a little behind the other kids when you were younger, or behind the other moms when your kids were younger, or maybe there’s some other way in which you have always felt you didn’t quite measure up. And then you mess up anyway. Remember that? Remember how humiliating it was?
It was the third day of college. I had made a point of being early to class every single day, and after the first day I wasn’t even among the last people to be early. But before I’d finished hauling my notebook and other things out of my backpack at the beginning of this one class on the third day of college, the teacher already had her overhead projector up and running and she was starting on the first example in her lecture. By the time I was ready to take notes, she had lost me completely.
Frantically, I scrambled through the printout she had given us. I flipped through the PowerPoint lesson displayed not only on the overhead projector, but on the computer a few inches in front of my eyes. I couldn’t find the right page, and while I hunted, the teacher was rapidly moving on to the next point…and the next point…and the next point.
Well, you know I had decided before college even started this semester that I would be willing to play the fool if necessary. I knew quite well that if one person has a dumb question, it’s more than likely that others in the class secretly wonder about that very same thing, only everyone is feeling too scared and intimidated to ask for clarification right out loud. I’m the oldest in most of my classes and, socially speaking, I have the least to lose by looking stupid…but after all, when it came right down to it, I didn’t really want to look stupid. I wanted to be right up there with the best of them and prove that I could keep up with the class.
I didn’t want to ask for help; I wanted to figure out where we were on my own and then join the rest of the class quietly, never letting on that I’d been lost for a good five minutes. Then I realized what I was doing to myself, and what I had to do to resolve the situation. I raised my hand.
“Excuse me,” I said in a polite but clear and firm voice, “but where are we??”
The teacher was by my side in an instant. Along with several of the other students who turned around (or reached forward) to explain where we were, she helped me scroll down till I got to the right page. She helped me figure out what was going on. Then she said something that changed the rest of the day for me.
“I’m sorry. I guess I was going too fast. Thanks for asking. I bet there are other students who are just as lost as you were.”
She went back to her overhead projector, and I cried. Because I was humiliated by having had to ask for help? Because I’d been lost? No, it was because of what she didn’t say: “You should have been paying better attention!”
Absent-mindedness has been an issue for me for most of my life. Once, as a preschooler, I got out of the car when the family was getting ready to leave my grandmother’s house. As my parents were saying goodbye at the front door, I decided for some reason that I would just go back inside Grandma’s house, where there was a toy box, instead of sitting quietly in the car waiting for Mom and Dad to take us home. So I did. The problem was, I went back in through the wrong door – that of a record shop next to Grandma’s house. The two buildings shared a wall (it had been Grandpa’s dairy store before he passed away; Grandma subsequently rented it out to various tenants).
Suddenly there I was in an unfamiliar room with records on the wall, in front of a tall counter, surrounded by strangers. They smiled at me. I smiled back uncertainly, wondering how I had gotten here when all I wanted was to be back in Grandma’s living room. Fortunately, someone must have seen me enter the shop, because a minute later one of my parents came looking for me, explained the situation (much to everyone’s amusement) and led me back to the car.
The first few years of school were all right. I learned to read and do basic math facts without much trouble. Of course, the farther along you get in school, the more is expected of you. It was in the third grade that I got what I saw as my first negative comment on a report card: “Barbie day dreams.” I was so mortified, I didn’t know what to think. I hadn’t even been aware I was “day dreaming” and now there it was on my permanent record. This was also the year I got my first F on an assignment. Day-dreaming while the teacher gave instructions for completing a worksheet one day, I missed one essential step, and when my paper came back to me every answer had been marked wrong. I was so ashamed, I never told my parents about that F. Right or wrong, I was sure I’d be punished at home for such an academic lapse.
In the sixth grade, the day the teacher gave a lesson in how to make an outline, I missed something crucial in the first few minutes and for the rest of the class was completely lost. While all the other students appeared to be on track, asking pertinent questions, taking notes, learning this important skill our teacher had assured us we would need all through high school and college, I spent the next three-quarters of an hour frightened, confused and angry, doodling on scrap paper, getting farther and farther behind the rest of the class. I did eventually (over the next few years) sort of figure out how to outline, and people have looked at me in amazement when I confess to the trouble I had at the start. How could anyone not understand outline format? It’s so easy! It’s self-explanatory! It still isn’t my note-taking method of first choice, though.
Although school wasn’t uniformly terrible – I was, in fact, quite a good student in spite of that early, permanent-record-damaging report card note, that average-lowering F, and other fiascos such as the outline-writing lesson – it can’t be denied that I was glad when the doors of my last school closed behind me forever.
So when I realized that day in college that I was lost, my first temptation was to panic. Old, long-buried thoughts passed rapidly through my mind. Just play along; don’t let anyone know you’re lost. You’ll never make it in this class. This is only the third day of class and it’s going to be even harder after this. Remember how the teachers have been warning everyone not to fall behind? What if you just don’t have what it takes to be a college student?
I had to put a stop to this. I’m older now and I know better than to listen to every voice inside my head. Having heard from the negative ones, I decided to give the positive ones a chance to speak. These voices were quieter, but if I listened, I could hear them. Remember when you were told there was free tutoring available for every student? Remember when you were encouraged to ask for help if you were having trouble? Remember your friends and their stories about the people who helped them? This is only the third day of class. It’s too soon to give up, not before you’ve asked for help.
So I raised my hand. Help, it turned out, was available. And no one said, “It’s your fault for not paying better attention.”
I continue to learn new study skills and I may get through after all.
Old Lady with a Backpack 