A couple weeks ago I headed out to complete one of the last things on my things-to-do-in-my-30's. Learning to dive. I love the water, and I believe if I were not meant to walk on land I would have been a fish. I can sit by the ocean all day and for many days and never tire. So, I assumed that diving would be second nature to me. I could not have been more wrong.
I first needed to do 5 chapters of theory which involved a tonne of reading, mini revision tests and a final test, in which, I had to score 75% or above. Many told me not to take this seriously and to Google and chat GPT answers but I genuinely wanted to learn. But this was so incredibly hard, the reading took so much longer than I anticipated, and I struggled with understanding many concepts around buoyancy, working on calculating my air at various depths. I got this all done by the skin of my teeth before I left for my confined water (skills practice in a pool or in a lagoon) which was part of the trip and felt very confident that what I didn't understand in theory would all be much easier when I was in the water and just doing what I needed to do. Again! I could not have been more wrong.
Day 1: involved much excitement and adrenaline and we entered the water to find that it was incredibly rough, we struggled with wet suits, the cylinder, visibility was nill, masks were coming off and standing up was impossible and we had to abandon our first confined water — shaking all our confidence. We tried again in the afternoon in a clearer slightly deeper part of the ocean but with more of a lagoon feel and I panicked, I was nearly in tears, begging the instructor to take me back to the boat (which thankfully, he didn’t listen to), I barely finished my day 1 skills and got back to the hotel and slept. I panicked and had dreams all night about what lay ahead.
Day 2 : I woke up in the morning wondering who does this to themselves, what kind of self-imposed 40th gift was this, and why at this age I think I needed to put myself through this. I spoke to my husband and cried alone on the beach that morning, then got on the boat and put up a brave front. Panicking inside the whole time, Day 2 was easier. I worked on articulating my fears to my instructor but also asked him for what I needed to gain confidence. I felt more confident at the end of Day 2 and the fact that I had a fabulous instructor whose personality and approach worked for me, took my experience to a whole different level.
At the end of day 2, I found myself reflecting and comparing my experience of learning something for the first time to those of our learners (our children at the Papagoya Micro-School) and how their learning journey evolves. What fears do they have when they are learning things in school for the first time I found myself with some thoughts I’d like to share.
Knowing the applicability of the skills I am learning:
While I was doing the theory and working on these emergency underwater skills, no one could articulate to me how many times I may need this skill, or what eventualities I would need to use these in. What were situations I needed to use these skills in? For eg why would I ever find myself in a situation where I needed to remove all my equipment and put it on again underwater? The answers to this I got only when I asked or as conversations with the dive group continued, but had it been part of the instruction my buy-in to doing this skill and my fear of it would have been far reduced. I also imagined I needed to do this in every dive or at a high frequency.
I wondered, how would it change a child’s learning experience if they knew the various situations they were working towards when doing math, or giving them real-world application and reasoning? If something was hard would it help to know that I would only need to use this in one-off scenarios versus every day? Would my approach to accepting and learning this challenging task be different? Would that change the period within which I had to know? Would knowing I had a while to master this skill and keep practising it, build confidence and allow me to better at it?
Different Learning Styles and our ability as educators to adapt to our learners:
My first instructor viewed these skills I needed to learn as simple, easy, “get it done and out of the way and get into the diving”. The rush for him to get me to complete these worked me up and made me panic, react and not do them even more. He kept saying ‘Tell me what's happening’ and I couldn’t articulate my fear. The next day I had a change in instructor (And I never let go of him for the rest of the trip). He was incredibly calm, didn’t talk too much, allowed to me share my fears, allowed me to explain how I would like him to teach me and listened. He didn’t push me more than I was ready.
I reflected on how many times we do this as practitioners. If we get to know our learners’ personalities, how they learn, the inner workings of their personalities, and create opportunities to talk about their fears — would this change the way we manage learning and instruct? How could this change the learner’s experience and willingness to learn — versus a very typical one-size-fits-all approach?
Repetition and Practice and How That Helps Grow Confidence:
As I introspected on my fears, I realised one of them was losing my regulator underwater or it coming out of my mouth and how would I react many many meters down. Panicking at that point was not an option at all. So I spoke to my instructor about this and said I wanted to practice this many times underwater but only when he was around. As I knew in the worst case he could guide me / save me. And we did that, with every skill I built and practised he made sure I did this a couple of times. My confidence grew to the point where I knew this was not a panic or fear moment anymore.
In a school environment, how can we create “Safe to fail” spaces? We can’t expect our learners to all learn at the same pace and each of their fears will be different. We need to create practices that allow learners to articulate their fears and then ‘safe to fail opportunities’ that allow them to {practice → fail → practice → get it →practice → master}. And the most important ingredient is a space without judgement and comparison to another learner.
Positive Reinforcement & Motivation that you are doing OK!
Truly the one thing that kept me afloat was the constant validation, acknowledgement and motivation I received from my friend and fellow companions on the trip. The fact that I was doing OK and that they had all faced similar struggles during their certification made me feel less alone. But the one that mattered the most was my instructor telling me I was good and I was progressing well.
As educators, facilitators and parents of learners, validating our learner's journeys is so important — at the end of the day, our opinion matters the most to them. Focusing on their successes and wins is a crucial part of them buying into their learning journey and staying motivated. We are innately very aware of the areas we need to work on, but calling out our learners' strengths intrinsically motivates them to channel that validation into working on areas that they know need focus.
Day 3 , 4 and 5 only got better and better, I grew more confident as my skills built, I got thrills from going to a new depth each day, knocking off each fear one by one.
I ended my 5-day trip getting certified — the high was incredible, the memory strong, my understanding of the underwater world grew leaps and bounds, and the want to keep doing this clear. It took me back to being a student and forced me to feel and reflect on what our learners feel daily.
As adults who participate in children’s learning journeys, I fear we have forgotten what it's like to learn something for the first time: my only recommendation is to try learning something for the first time … OFTEN. Use that to reflect and understand your learning patterns and how the education system you went through helped or didn't work for you. How might this positively contribute to understanding your children and learners around you? How might you be wrong about your assumptions about what you expect from young learners.
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