All over the world each year, there are people waking up and getting ready for school. Some are struggling to tie their shoelaces, and really worried about that spelling test that they know is coming at them. Some are spending 2 hours on their make-up and hair, and wondering if they pass that pop quiz in history. There are some who are worried that they don’t have enough gasoline to get to class, and know that their essays aren’t up to par, but will turn it in anyway, because, well, it’s due.
School has great benefits. In a structured environment, teachers are able to show their students how to focus on the tasks at hand, and give them all sorts of basic helpful tips on how to excel in their desired fields. What school does not, and cannot teach, however is patience, practice, and dedication.
Some skills that require practice are the most basic of human activities. Can you stitch a quilt-top together out of raggedy old cloths? Most people can’t, but there are a few of us, myself included, that would not only scrimp and collect 2 inch squares, or even smaller, we would also go to the trouble to thread a needle and patiently bring those shreds of material into a quilt, or an ornament, even a table runner. It takes hours and hours of patient practice to develop the hand-eye coordination that allows us to do this, and while they might teach home economics in a few schools, nothing but patience and perseverance will actually "teach" someone how to sew.
There are a select few classes in the educational system that might teach painting, to a degree. Perhaps there is a session in woodshop where one might get to paint a welcome sign, or maybe in art class they have an assignment that requires a canvas to be crafted into a glorious picture that moves everyone who sees it. There is not a class, however, that teaches someone how to stand in a 20 x 20 room and assess how to go about getting it painted. It takes a great deal of thought to determine what tools would be needed and how much paint it will require before one can even begin the task. That part of the job doesn’t even address that one would have to know how to apply the paint, how to perfect the edges, or how to clean up after the job was done. This job is learned by trial and error, not by education. Then again, what one learns from trial and error is a sort of education, I suppose.
It seems that perfection does not take nearly so much education as it does take practice. Being taught how to do something is one thing. Applying what you have learned is a whole new animal.
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