(17, NV, USA) Anonymous - Non-Conventional Learning

I took dance classes throughout my childhood, and I always questioned whether they actually helped me learn how to dance. In school, I was taught that I had to be taught the traditional way to learn how to do things. But then again, who would quiz you on how to do a perfect heel-toe-change move with absolute precision and accuracy? This frustrated me because I had no idea what to do with what I was being taught. Should I save it for my mind vault to help me study, should I continue doing the moves, or should I just forget about them entirely after the session ended? After one particular class, I asked my teacher, “What is the meaning of these classes?” She answered with a quick “To teach you how to dance,” but I replied almost immediately with a sentence I regretted almost immediately: “I’m not learning anything.” After that day, she always made sure to single me out, make me center for recitals, assign speaking roles, even make acting roles work. After a while of training hard to be the best in my class, she asked me again one day, “Do you get it now?” Slightly confused, I asked, “Get what, Miss?” She said, “Learning isn’t about repetition. It’s about making mistakes. If you never make mistakes, how will you ever learn?” That day, I learned the importance of learning in non-conventional settings and locations. It is important that we make mistakes in order to learn from them.