Many of us believe ourselves to be especially lackluster in a specific subject, this being the one that causes us trouble and takes extra special effort to get through. Often times in childhood we begin to build our own mantras as boundaries for success. While some may say "I can't play sports," "I'm not good at karate," "I can't even swim," all symptomatic of the feeling of CAN'T.
This discouraging disease plagues many youth throughout their childhood only to fester in adulthood. The things you don't perform well in become "I can't's" and the things you believe you can't become "I don't's." I dealt with this experience academically as I transitioned into high school. While I had always done exceptionally well in most subjects, I developed an expectation of ease. I thought that subjects were supposed to come easy to me, and I did not know the experience of genuine academic failure.
I remember being mentally stumped for the first time in my freshman Geometry class, unable to solve a problem. I literally didn't know what to do. Confusion covered my face, followed by the disgruntled flush of shame. I was afraid to ask my friends for help out of fear of looking as stupid as I felt. When I called upon my teacher, she hastily explained things to me, giving me a nod as if to confirm my own understanding. I stared blankly at her serious face and begrudgingly returned her nod.
After going through consistent struggles, I would ask my teachers questions, yet their answers would often leave me still confused. Though I was still able to do well in that class, the experience of not knowing, and being unable to accept the help I was given led me to believe that I was simply bad at the subject. As time progressed and I had similar experiences, I simply concluded that I was bad at math.
Over time, this became my one weakness. Where I did well in other subjects that I knew myself to be good at and applied extra attention to, I often held low expectation for my math classes because I knew that they were my given difficulty. Even today, I often maintain the mantra, "math is my least favorite subject."
As I gear up to take several math-related classes, I began to wonder, "Am I really bad at this?" I thought back to my childhood. I used to love math! That was the subject of numbers and symbols, a welcome respite from long blanketed paragraphs and monotonous exercises. If I saw a problem, I could solve it. I used to have quite a confidence in my ability to understand a math problem, as there was always a specific answer. I realized that my mindset was also quite different back then.
I truly believed myself to be good at the subject based on the ease that I had with it. Now, as I take a step back to look at my learning process, I have realized the error in my thought process. I went into each question with a chip of doubt on my shoulder. Slowly I am beginning to alter my thought process when it comes to difficult subjects. I'm reframing how I think of myself and my ability. I want to change the way I think of my mind's capacity. As much as people study this "difficult" subject, there should be no reason for why I can't understand it. While I may continue to struggle at many moments, I believe that I CAN learn.
