Learning everyday

Although I’ve learned to do titrations and the causes of each war, one of the most important things I’ve learned at NCSSM is why I get an education.

I remember absolutely hating NCSSM the first couple weeks. I didn’t understand anything in class and my grades were dropping everyday. I started to wondering, “why did I come to a school 300 miles away from my family just to get bad grades and not get sleep while the teachers didn’t even teach us properly?” After a few weeks I figured out that the teachers weren’t trying to pour knowledge into our brains and help us get into Ivy’s, they were trying to guide us in the right directions so we could learn for ourselves and find joy in learning.

For example, in calculus we were given a lab that told us to do these simple calculations. After a couple minutes of pointless math we started to figure out an easier method to use. I thought, “Why didn’t the teacher just tell us this in the first place?” At the end of the worksheet, we were told that the method we figured out was in fact the chain rule of derivatives. An actual rule that a mathematician had found hundreds of years ago. This gave me a great sense of accomplishment; I then realized what our teachers were doing.

This way of investigating the subject matter makes me much more eager to learn, which is, in the end, why I’m getting an education. Learning information and facts isn’t why I wake up and go to my classes every day; the pleasure I get from figuring things out and becoming more knowledgeable is.