September 24, 2010

Patience

Written by: Shannon Keegan, Chemistry Teacher, Bartlett High School

In 1994, I joined the Peace Corps and was sent to Cameroon in West Africa. I was fully prepared to immerse myself in the local culture and thought that all I needed was the will and the desire and everything would come naturally. Not everything did. I quickly discovered that I didn’t have a knack for learning a new language.

I went through 3 months of training and lived with a local family who spoke only French. Learning usually came easy for me but this did not. My progress was so slow that I was told I might be removed from the program and sent home. The pressure to learn French was intense but the harder I tried the more futile my efforts became. It just didn’t happen.

Then several months into this experience, after very little headway, I woke up one morning and realized that I had been dreaming in French. Even better, I understood what was being said in this dream. For the first time I was not translating everything into French, I was actually thinking in it.

On that day the flood gates opened and I became fluent enough to get by. I graduated from training and was honored as most improved language learner. Then I was sent to live in the English-speaking region of the country where I rarely needed French again.

I remind myself of this experience when I am teaching students a new concept. Sometimes things don’t come quickly or as easily as we wish and it may take more than one try to understand. In the case of learning French, my brain took its own time working through this new experience and when it was ready, I got it.

There was a saying in Cameroon that still sticks with me. “Softly, softly, catch monkey. Hurry, hurry, break trouser.” Whether it’s learning a new skill or trying to reach a personal goal, we need to remember to have patience with ourselves.

This is a story about patience as I experienced it in the 1990’s in West Africa.