I work with a student who is brilliant. He’s equally brilliant in both math and language arts, but he loves math and computer science best. For as long as I’ve known this boy, he’s worked two hours a night twice a week at tutoring, one hour in math and one in comprehension each night. He’s ahead. He’s bored. He wants to quit, but his mother says he can only drop down to one hour.
So, I’ve been asked to weigh in on which he should study, math or language arts.
If you know me by now, you know that I love the written language. I love reading. I love writing. I love learning new words and the nuances of words I thought I knew. I’m not too bad at math, but my love resides on the other side of my brain.
So, it is with no hesitation that I plan to tell his mother that he needs to study math. He needs to study math because that’s where his brain is leading him. He needs math.
“What if Einstein didn’t have time to think about gravity?” I will ask her. “What if Stephen Hawking was made to take foreign languages instead of courses on astrophysics? We need to let your boy’s brain lead the way. It knows what it wants. It knows, innately, what its own strengths are. If I worried about his proficiency, I would argue in another direction. And yes, I would have him read a bit every day, but ultimately, I think that he should pursue his passion and learn young to live his own dreams.”
This is my advice to you as well. Read a little every day and live your own dreams.
I can’t wait to deliver my message, even to my own soul.
Thank you for listening, jules