Homework

Image by ConnectIrmeli via FlickrToday, my back-to-school venture feels like a wrong-sized coat. Everything about it is annoying. The bureaucracy. The school game. The investment of time with no weekly paycheck.


At 3 p.m. I look at the course schedule for Medical Terminology. It's in calendar format. I have looked at it more than once and things just didn't register. I have suspected there was something was due today, but what? What I'm looking for, and don't see, is each requirement in language I understand. It says homework is to be collected next Wednesday. Fine. But it says it's "due" tonight. What is the difference?

Well, it's like this. There are learning objectives that somebody came up with that entail repetition - the acts of reading, then re-reading, writing answers to review questions, and then regurgitating said answers on quizzes and exams. My own brand of reinforcement is different. Mine is flipping to the review questions while I read,  and working them out in my head, associating them with what I might already know, or what's in the illustrations or diagrams or text boxes in the book. Normally, I would go through again and type out the answers to the review questions.

But we are supposed to read the chapters and write the answers in the book before each class. Well, frankly, my handwriting is nearly illegible, even to me. I hate looking at it anymore. If I had my druthers, which yes, I know - I don't because I am paying the educators for their druthers - I'd leave the book pristine. I'd type pages that would be nice, neat, legible and easy to review and impressive enough to hand in.

But that is NOT what we're doing here. And, never mind I have the answers. In fact, my mouth is one of the happiest flappers in the class every time the instructor queries us.

In short. I didn't do my homework.

Well, I mean, I didn't complete my homework. The instructor checks to see who's done it and who hasn't. She gives a mock gasp when she sees most my pages are empty. Somehow, this feels like high school. NO, grade school. She's kindhearted. It's not like I'm mad at her, but this system seems weird to me. There are plenty of others who didn't do the homework. Who knows why. The instructor gives us a friendly warning and resumes her lecture and drills. The homework is worth points. Points are worth grades. I want an "A," natch.

On the drive home, a chilling thought occurs to me. These courses are designed to prepare for professions where you follow directions and make few decisions of your own. Good reason for that. You could accidentally kill or maim somebody.  I start getting anxious again. I've spent a lifetime learning to be ultra-self reliant and to think (often creatively) on my feet  -- just to survive. Am I in the right place? Okay. Okay. Maybe this is just an adjustment period and I'll adapt, toe the line, ultimately get the piece of paper and this phase will be long forgotten.  I've somehow felt swept along into this back-to-school current. Trust. Gotta trust. There is a reason for being where I am. Someplace, there is room for strength, divergent thinking, innovation.

Deep breath. Exhale.

Now I remember. The purpose of this first semester is exploration.

There is other homework for me to do, obviously.

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