Tag: learning

It’s Just Like Riding a Bike

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“I have great respect for the past. If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going.” – Maya Angelou

Riding bikes with my kids has given me a new appreciation for the learning process. That is to say, I’ve come to see “two steps forward, one step back,” in a more growth-minded way.

I bought eight-year-old Miss O a bigger bike (24 inch wheel) with gears. She hopped on and owned it. It was like she aged five years in that one move because it was bigger and sat her up higher.

As a result, four-your old Mr. D got her old bike, a medium sized bike (18 inch wheel). I moved the training wheels over from his small bike. But even with training wheels, he got a huge boost in confidence and speed from having a bigger sprocket.

We’ve spent the week riding everywhere and in all sorts of conditions. We’ve gone round the block so many times we must have worn a groove. Then one night we rode around our local little lake to get pizza. The next night we went up the hill to get pie. All the while, I’m riding behind Mr. D watching him wobble back and forth before he gains his balance, my fingers crossed that the training wheels will hold.

Then, we got the small bike out of the garage to pass on to another kid in the neighborhood. Mr. D hopped on his old bike, now without training wheels.

I held the back of the small bike for a moment. Before any of us could really think about it, Mr. D took off – riding the bike without training wheels. So, Miss O and I took turns running up and down the block a dozen times holding the seat for the start until Mr. D mastered that too.

All this has made me think of the rhythm of growth. Sometimes you have to go back a step to see how far you’ve gone.

It makes me think of the feeling I get when I go back to the town where I went to high school. With the swirl of old memories all around, it’s easier to see where I’ve grown.

Or when I dust off an old favorite recipe and discover how I’m better at trusting the timing.

Or when I hike a familiar trail and feel the burn of my muscles within the certainty that I can make the summit.

Or when I re-read something I wrote years ago and I can discern how it’s gotten easier to put my authentic self on the page.

Sometimes we have to go back to figure out how much we’ve learned.

Going to the Next Level

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“I am convinced all of humanity is born with more gifts than we know. Most are born geniuses and just get de-geniused rapidly.” – R. Buckminster Fuller

We are coming to the end of our school year. 28 more school days in third grade for Miss O. And 50 days until Mr. D graduates from his preschool program. Do you remember that feeling as a kid? Being not only ready for summer break but also ready to ascend to that next level?

It has me thinking of what milestones we have in our lives as grown-ups that celebrate our readiness to go on to the next level. There are some big ones like becoming an empty-nester or retirement. Or we have annual ones like birthdays, anniversaries, and New Years. But often, I find myself at those moments planning on what I’m going to do next instead of commemorating what I’ve learned.

Let me suggest that we take a moment to bring back that feeling of finishing a school year. To actually name something we’ve graduated from and celebrate it. I’ll start:

I’ve come to believe that I am enough. Or at least to understand that pretending to be someone else is ineffective. So if a situation or expectations make me feel otherwise, I try to slow enough to double-down on being me long enough to get through.

And by graduating, I don’t mean being done. It brings to mind another graphic from Miss O’s 3rd grade teacher:

It seems fitting on this last day of teacher appreciation week to honor our teachers by naming what we’ve learned. Are you with me? If you are stuck, maybe visit the list from Pick Three Affirmations to find a place to start.

(featured photo from Pexels)

For a story about the circle of life, please listen to our Sharing the Heart of the Matter podcast: Episode 66: The Power of Story with Wynne and Vicki.

We are changing our format starting with this episode. Vicki Atkinson and I are big believers in the power of story – to connect us, to create intergenerational healing, and to make meaning out of the events of our lives. To set the stage, we will be starting with someone telling a story in each episode.

To listen to the podcast, Search (and subscribe!) for Sharing the Heart of the Matter on Apple, Amazon, Spotify or Pocket Casts. Or subscribe to our YouTube channel to see a video clip of each story: @SharingtheHeartoftheMatter.

Great Teachers

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“Those who know, do. Those who understand, teach.” – Aristotle

Last week when I was dropping off Mr. D at his pre-school, I heard one of the teachers in his class encouraging a little girl who was starting potty training. In a class with 20 kids aged three to five, and three teachers, it surprised me that they could tackle potty training as well. I thought all the kids did this in the younger classes before ascending. Hats off to teachers who teach skills, mold social behaviors, and tend emotions as well. And I’m not just talking about teachers for kids.

It’s teacher appreciation week in our schools this week. So I am pulling together some lessons I’ve learned from the amazing teachers in my life.

Call and Response

In Mr. D’s preschool classroom, whenever a teacher says, “Holy Moly,” the kids answer, “Guacamole” and it gets their attention. It makes me think of how effective it is to train some automatic responses.

Fall! Or Falling! is called in climbing when someone is falling and others need to try to anchor a fall. It’s intended to get an immediate reaction to drop down and arrest. When trained well, no one stops to look around to find out what’s happening before they act – it’s action first and assessment after.

It’s Going to Be Great is a phrase my dad used to say when we were early on in the envisioning and creation stages of a project. When I say this to myself like he used to say to me, especially when working on a project, it gives me a shot of confidence to overcome the self-doubt.

Calm the Body to Facilitate Learning

My friend, Katie, does some specialized tutoring with kids. In her teaching space, she has a wobbly chair that allows kids to bounce, stuffies for hiding, and games. Her thoughtful approach gives a nod to the conditions in which we learn as much as the content.

It reminds me of the classes I’ve taken from my meditation teacher, Deirdre. We never go straight to sitting in meditation, it’s a series of exercises to help us drop-in to a calm and receptive state.

Vicki Atkinson has written about the snacks she kept when she was a professor. Minds can’t learn when the body is screaming for something.

Nonetheless, I often forget this when I sit down to learn a new technology. I’m on the clock and then get right to it as if I can just think myself ready. But soon enough, I’ll find myself frustrated and pacing. The body wins sooner or later to get its part in learning.

Portable Lessons

My dad liked to talk about making his sermons portable. Something people could take away with them as they walked through life and unpack when needed. I can think of several examples that are take-aways from great teachers:

Keep small things small: Miss O’s second grade teacher had this catch phrase to remind kids not to let mistakes or distractions take away from the bigger point.

Is it a window or a mirror?: This question from Miss O’s third grade teacher is a writing lesson. Writing can be a window for experiences others haven’t shared. Or it can be a mirror when we write about something familiar that is an opportunity for readers’ self-reflection.

Parked in my small space: This phrase from my meditation teacher, Deirdre, has transformed my awareness of when I’m feeling small and closed. When I’m working from my small space, my reactions are often guarded, judgmental, or defensive. Awareness has given me the choice to stop, take a deep breath, and try to shift into my more expansive and curious mode.

So hats off to all the teachers in this world. Thank you for bringing your mind, body, and spirit to the job so all of us can grow and learn!

(featured photo from Pexels)

Failing Well

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“Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.” – Mary Tyler Moore

Last weekend when we were in Leavenworth, WA, we went to an adventure park to ride a roller coaster. Or maybe I should say a roller-coaster-ish kind of ride because the cars were individual and the driver could apply the brakes as much as they wanted. Another clarification: by “we” I meant my kids rode with my dear friend, Doug, because I’m an endurance person, not a speed person.

Now that I have all those caveats in place, on with the story.

Eight-year-old Miss O had no hesitation and climbed right in to ride with Doug. Talking with four-year-old Mr. D about it, he was clearly torn. He didn’t want to do it. And then he did. He flip flopped a couple of times. Since I was pretty sure he’d like it, I was trying to figure out how to nudge him in the direction of trying it.

But even though Miss O didn’t hesitate on this challenge, she and I had just been having a conversation about failing when it came to learning to ride her hoverboard. She asserted that life was easier for me because I never failed. I told her I fail all the time which is why is doesn’t faze me much any more. In fact, I rarely think of it as failing but just as a step towards the next thing I need to do.

On the drive to Leavenworth, I’d been listening to the Ten Percent Happier podcast, The Science of Failing Well where Dan Harris was talking with Amy Edmonson, a professor of leadership and management at the Harvard Business School. She had three points that stuck with me about taking risks:

  • Make the risk as small as possible: This point reminded me of gambling – make a bet but don’t put all your chips in.
  • Have a hypothesis: Know what you are trying to test or prove
  • Learn from the attempt: Use the experience and hypothesis to extract information for the next thing you might try.

I think a lot about what creates confidence. What my parents did to create kids who are willing to try hard things because for all the differences between my siblings and me, we are all game to take on new challenges. So I’ve tried to figure out how I can do the same for my kids. While there’s much that remains a mystery to me, what I’ve identified is that my willingness to try and fail might be the single most defining characteristic in the arc of my life.

So, I told Mr. D he didn’t have to do it. But if he did, he only had to try one ride, Doug could go as slow as he wanted, and that I thought he’d like riding in a car on a track. When it came to his turn, Mr. D was a little nervous but resolutely game. Until I greeted him at the exit ramp, that is. He rolled back in with a huge grin on his face!

He had so much fun that he learned he wanted to do it again. And the second time he went up with his hands in the air.

Life is a roller coaster and I’m glad that I continue to ride. The metaphorical kind at least.

(featured photo is mine)

(quote is from Real Life of MSW blog: Being Brave)

Schools of Thought and Feeling

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“A teacher is never a giver of truth; he is a guide, a pointer to the truth that each student must find for himself.” – Bruce Lee

I once had a client tell me, with a hint of irritation in his voice, that he believed the schools of today in America were teaching kids to become socialists. There was so much in that sentence to unpack that I didn’t even touch it. But I remembered thinking at the time, that it probably had more to do with his relationship with his kids than anything else.

My kids weren’t school age when my client said that but now that eight-year-old Miss O has a few years in the public school system, it is interesting to notice what has and hasn’t changed since I was a kid. What hasn’t changed is the great teachers and administrators who are dedicated, imaginative, and delightful and somehow make it all work.

What I’ve noticed that has changed since I was young is how much social emotional learning they include. The kids get to school and do their mood meters and they talk about feelings, inclusion, and helping.

My kids seem to love way-back-when stories so the other day I was telling them that I remember when not-littering became a campaign and something punishable by fines. My two delightful young ones were amazed that people thought it was okay to just throw things out a car window when they were done with it.

Four-year-old Mr. D, who is not yet in the public school system, has gone on “garbage walks” since he was two-years-old. The kids would point out garbage and a teacher would pick it up with gloved hands.

So the other day when there was a piece of garbage on the ground, Mr. D pointed it out to me and said, ”It’s not healthy for the earth to eat.”

The other day, Miss O was struggling with what to do next with a project and she suggested, “Instead of erasing unfairness, I could draw fairness.”

All this makes me think that what kids these days are learning in school today, in addition to the three R’s, is to be stewards. Stewards of themselves, the environment, and of others.

(featured image from Pexels)

Everything I Needed To Know About Socialization I Learned In Puppy Kindergarten

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“Ancora Imparo. I’m still learning.” – Michaelangelo

Okay, not everything but a few key things. Cooper has started puppy kindergarten and has been kind enough to take us along with him. Here are some of the things I learned.

It takes training to become best friends.

We listen better when treats are involved.

Gifted dog people are not necessarily people people or business people
If you’re good enough at what you do, the people who love their dogs will pay you anyway.

Enthusiasm can’t be fenced in.

We come in all shapes and sizes, colors and combinations.

There are some breeds that will be judged harshly based on their appearance. The people that love them feel that they have to train them to be perfect to overcome bias.

We can learn things through positive reinforcement, but it takes a plan and a lot of practice.

Learning is exhausting. Set aside time to nap afterwards.

Our attention goes where the treats are; this can be used to great effect.

It’s great to practice for emergency situations. But preparing for it all the time is counter-productive.

Be consistent and those around you will benefit from knowing your cues.

Use your words. Even non-verbal beings can’t tell what you want without words.

Tell people to take their sh!t home with them.

Suggesting what we SHOULD do is more effective than just telling others what NOT to do.

Our natural desire to please and be social will drive a lot of behavior, good and bad.

Loyalty is a two-way street. When you find a creature that will turn to you upon hearing their name, treasure it.

This fits well with the post I wrote for Heart of the Matter today. I think we all deserve a Congratulations for Staying In the Game.

Room for More Learning

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“That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you’ve understood all your life, but in a new way.” – Doris Lessing

The other day I went to help four-year-old Mr. D with his shoes, and he said, “I can do it. I’m an es-pert!”

It reminded me of a story I had just re-read in Mark Nepo’s Book of Awakening. He credits it to Leroy Little Bear:

“Two scientists traveled halfway round the world to ask a Hindu sage what he thought about their theories. When they arrived, he kindly brought them into his garden and poured them tea. Though the two small cups were full, the sage kept pouring.

Tea kept overflowing and the scientists politely but awkwardly said, ‘Your holiness, the cups can hold no more.’

The sage stopped pouring and said, ‘Your minds are like the cups. You know too much. Empty your minds and come back. Then we’ll talk.’”

Leroy Little Bear

This is my invitation when I think I know something, to stop, empty my mind, and fill my heart.

I went to the memorial service of the father of one of my childhood friends this weekend. He was a psychologist by vocation and long before I knew what that was, I understood that he had a healing presence.

One of the phrases that stuck out to me in the eulogies was one from his grandson. He said that this man “led by listening.” Ah yes, that’s it exactly.

Which brings me back to my four-year-old es-pert at shoes. I am so grateful for his help with the routine by getting his own shoes on. But anytime I’m feeling expert at anything, I remember that most of the time Mr. D, the es-pert, wears his shoes on the wrong feet. There’s always room for more listening and more learning.

For more about lifelong learning, please see my Heart of the Matter Post: Learning the Easy Way or the Hard Way

(featured photo from Pexels)

(quote from Reflections on Learning on the Real Life of an MSW blog)

The Price of Learning

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“Living is the art of getting used to what we didn’t expect.” – Eleanor C. Wood

The other day my friend Katie asked Miss O what she’s been learning in second grade. Miss O said that she’s been learning a lot about coins. Not only the value of each one but adding them up – they are doing a lot of math using coins.

This reminded me of the experiment I tried with Miss O based on a beautiful post written by Chaya Sheela. In the post, When my children were rewarded with the Westminster family, she recounted how her kids learned to save and the bank awarded them with new ceramic pig figurines. Chaya is an experienced and talented teacher as well as beautiful writer so she inspired me to try something new with my kids.

Drawing from her wonderful story, I thought I’d try to create a similar lesson for Miss O about making buying decisions when we went clothes shopping. At the store I told her she had $100 for buying the clothes and shoes she needed. Anything that she didn’t spend of that money was hers to keep and save. My estimate was that she’d spend about $45 on a good pair of sneakers and $45 on clothes and have about $10 left over.

We went through the clothing and it worked. After we calculated the prices out, instead of buying six items, two of which were very similar to things she already had, Miss O decided to buy only four. It reduced the total to about $30 instead of $45.

But then we looked and looked for a pair of sneakers that would fit her narrow foot. And with all the choices, we never found a pair that was just right. I loved that she was being responsible about finding a pair of shoes that would really work and last for the year.

But it meant when we went through checkout and she paid for everything, she pocketed $70. I reminded her many times that she’d have to use that money to buy sneakers when we found a good pair that fit.

Eventually we went to multiple stores, found the right pair and she used the money to pay for them. But she’s been telling people that she pays for her own shoes even since. 😊

So I’d say she’s doing fine in the money and math department. If that’s all they teach in second grade she’s going to do fine and I’m grateful that it’s the school teaching, not me.

However, Mr. D swallowed a penny yesterday so it seems like we are all learning about coins, one way or another.

The Whisper of My Failures

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“Never let your failures go to your heart or your successes go to your head.” – unknown

Last Friday, as I sat at my desk trying to will my way through a client problem where my solution wasn’t working (see featured photo), I felt a heaviness settle over me. It was more than a week work of trying to solve a troublesome technical problem, it was the pounding of my sore heart worried about others and the physical discomfort in my body from a UTI and the feeling like everything was stacking up.

I was in a funk. A funk as I typically do them, is usually not observable on the surface but is roiling around just below, making steadiness harder to come by.

As an inveterate “try-er,” I often work right at the edge of my abilities, both personal and professional and say “yes” to whatever comes. While that works for me a lot of the time, I also have to get used to failure and psyching myself up to try again. Sometimes, as was the case last week, multiple failures stack up at the same time and then I feel the gut punch.

My go-to mantra has always been to work harder and try again. I come from a long line of people who jump right up after falling off the horse, ready to get back on. Wallowing about falling off the horse, reviewing the best way to ride the horse or talking about which horse to ride are not allowed – we just jump right back on.

But the older I get, the more I realize that pushing through isn’t always either smart or effective. If I don’t acknowledge the failure or maybe even better said, listen to the learning, before moving on, then I wake at 3am and then watch the highlight reel of my recent failures stream through my head.

Then I have to make peace. I repeat a mantra I learned from a very smart pastor, “My God is bigger than my worries” until my heart settles and I can breathe again. And when calm, I have to find the source of which failure I haven’t yet come to terms with. I lie on my back and focus on the seven Chakras, the Sanskrit word for “disc” or “wheel” which line up with energy centers in our bodies. Starting with the red chakra of my tailbone, I try to identify if I feel safe, then I move to the orange chakra of my pelvis to scan for creativity. Next yellow – solar plexus – power, green – heart – love, blue – throat – communication, indigo – third eye – awareness, purple – top of the head – spirituality.

Somewhere in that scan, I find where exactly I am most troubled and then I can sit with that lesson for enough moments to truly hold it. Even when I don’t yet understand what I’m supposed to learn, I can appreciate that I know where I’m growing.

The pain of failure is not always comfortable. But it’s always instructive and if I don’t want to have to learn the lesson twice, I find I need to sit with it. It’s often kinder than I thought, a signal trying to break through my stubborn insistence to keep moving, trying and problem solving so that it can whisper it’s message, “Listen down deep to where you’ve been opened and find how you can see things differently through the crack. That’s all you have to do and then leave the rest to Me.”

After I spent a few hours with my failures in the middle of Saturday night, I’m happy to report, I solved the client’s problem. More than that, my body is all better too and I lifted the heaviness of heart that came with not spending the time to look.

What do you do when you wake up at 3am?

Growth Mind-Set

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“Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.” – Mahatma Gandhi

My mom, who will turn 83-years-old in a few weeks, just put on a piano concert for her senior living residence. It’s something she’s done since the pandemic started, trying to fill in the entertainment schedule especially for those who can’t readily leave their apartments. She has to do three performances to keep the audiences small, they performances have been broadcast over the in-house tv and she learns new music for each one.

All that is to say, my mom is a pretty confidence and very capable person. She still practices speaking Russian, a second language she learned in college and even typing out messages to her Russian friends in her What’s App phone application.

But when something goes wrong on her phone and computer, she brings it to me. Often she’s already figured out the solution but she just wants me to confirm it. Which I am more than happy to do. But it always amazes me and amuses me that she has a blind spot in her confidence.

According to Katty Kay and Claire Shipman in their book, The Confidence Code, this is not at all unusual, especially with women. Drawing on the research of Stanford professor, Carol Dweck, they describe:

“Most women think their abilities are fixed, Dweck told us. They’re either good at math or bad at math. The same goes for a host of other challenges that women tend to take on less often than men do: leadership, entrepreneurship, public speaking, asking for raises, financial investment, even parking the car. Many women think, in these areas, that their talents are determined, finite, and immutable. Men, says Dweck, think they can learn almost anything.”

The Confidence Code by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman

And the way past that fixed assessment of abilities is to adopt a growth mind-set according to Dweck. It ties with confidence because “Confidence requires a growth mind-set because believing that skills can be learned leads to doing new things. It encourages risk, and it supports resilience when we fail.”

When I first had children, I remember reading several articles about not praising your child for being smart but instead to focus on praising them for their efforts. It turns out that this is exactly the thing for building our own growth mind-set as well. When our internal dialogue is focused on effort and improvement, we reinforce the internal story that we can learn.

Sometimes we have blind spots in our abilities on purpose. We don’t learn things because our partner, friend or child can do it for us. It works fine for us as long as when life requires us to do those tasks, we adopt that growth mind-set, believe we can and then support that with the patience and praise for our efforts as we learn.

I’ve seen my mom do that in these seven years after my dad passed in the many things that were his specialties like taxes and car maintenance. Either through nature or nurture, I think my mom has a growth mind-set. I’m happy to be her computer help but notice that when I do it, she usually looks over my shoulder to see what I’m doing. Maybe by the time she’s in her mid-eighties, she’ll no longer need me for tech support.

This is my third post in the series delving into confidence. The first was I Can and the second was Fear and Confidence.

(featured photo from Pexels)