Teach yourself

I am a substitute teacher.
You know, the person every child either dreads to see coming because of busy work or the person every child loves to see coming because of the challenge of doing as many wrong things as possible in one class.

I spent the last two weeks filling in for the same teacher.
This particular teacher taught 7th grade Life Science (I am a huge science nerd so I loved this), 6th grade Spanish (I learned some fun Spanish words) and 7th &8 grade Spanish.

7th & 8th grade Spanish is not a fun class to sub for if you don't speak or write Spanish.
They had to write paragraphs in Spanish about different topics. For all I knew they were copying the glossary from their book.

Some students spent most of their time crafting the illusion they were working, then never actually turning in a paper.
Hey, academics aren't for everyone but if you want to advance in just about anything in life you have to learn how to teach yourself.

I think the best students learn how to teach themselves.

It's like eating. You can wait for mom to spoon feed you but things go much faster and you get what you want if you lean how to do it yourself.

How do you teach yourself?

1. Read
If you want to learn more about a subject read about it. Often and much. Watching videos is another great way to take knowledge in.

2. Ask questions.
You have to be brave do this one. You have to want to learn so deeply that it overcomes your fear of "the stupid question" and drives you to root out knowledge and understanding. You have to make it okay in your mind to not know or to be ignorant. My Dad was big on repeatedly telling me that being ignorant was not a bad thing, it was just a state of not knowing. Jump in and get some "knowing",

3. Experiment
You have to try out what you are learning. Act out what you learn- on a test, in writing, behavior, etc...

4. Repeat
Again, and Again until.... you leave the Earth.