My mom did not teach me to tie my shoes, a neighbor girl did. My mom did not teach me to sew, a book did. My mom taught me how to love, be kind and polite, and how to find the answers to my questions by myself. My dad taught me how to manage money, stand up for myself, and to always question things. Books showed me worlds beyond my own full of horses, other languages, and different people. Life experience has taught me the rest. I know what I know, be it bad or good, because someone, something, or experience has taught me the rudimentary basics.
The most important someones in my life are made up of my family: husband, mom, dad, and sister. My mom and dad, in raising me, have armed me with the skills I need to face life on my own. They have taught me everything from how to dress and feed myself to compassion to debate. Their greatest gift to me has been the example they have set in their love for one another in marriage and their unconditional love for my sister and me. I have taken what I have learned from my parents and applied it all in my life; most obviously in choosing and loving my own mate.
Inanimate objects are not commonly considered spectacular teachers. However, I know much of what I know because a book told me its story. Most recently, I bought needles and yarn, sat down with an instructional book on knitting, and taught myself the basics. When I was not entirely successful through the book’s tutelage, I turned to a video on the internet and mastered casting on. Books have explained beliefs, families, and situations to me much different than my own. Someone can convey that there is a wide, wondrous world out there, but this only became real to me through novels, biographies, and often, photographs. In addition to the written word and still frame, television has merit as a teaching instrument. Along with my husband, I’ve learned about trucks, buildings, animals, and most importantly, the dirtiest jobs found in the United States.
Experience seems something very obvious to learn from. Yet, I think I’ve learned far more from experience in retrospect. The simplicity cannot be understated for experience. Once something is put in motion and there is action and reaction, a situation, or experience is created. There are two very valuable qualities that I could not find in a book and did not find in the comfort of my family: empathy and friendship. TO be friends with another person seems easy and natural, and while it is, it also is difficult and a progression. Friendship is something that I have had to fail at and lose friends before I came to any understanding of what it is to be a friend. The more experience I gain, the more friendships I nurture, the more successful I become as a friend. Only experience has taught me this. Empathy, I now realize, is not a quality that a large number of people have. I have, through the twists and turns of this life, a heart that goes out to women especially. I am a woman and I have experienced many things that only women are able to, but empathy is so much greater than that. Women are my cause. In this country, their stories, situations, circumstances, and very lives are still marginalized and because of my experiences, I choose to empathize and speak out for those who can or will not speak out on their own behalf. I have not learned empathy or friendship from easy circumstances, but their experiences are how I know what I know.
While deceptively general, people, objects, and circumstance, have been the teachers of my learning. Lessons from each have built me up and torn me down, but were, as a whole, essential to my growth and function in the world in which we live. I do not think a single one of these teachers could be eliminated with similar results in my person. I then have to be grateful for the quality of people in my life, the abundance and availability of books, internet and television, and the depth, although painful at times, of my experience. Without these, I would not be who I am and I would not know what I know.
Written February 26, 2008 for my Master's
