Try New Things

I didn't plan for it to be, but this week inadvertently became the week of trying new things.  Monday's was actually planned.  I've been taking spin classes since March, but until this week, I had not tried peddling while standing up.  Tuesday, my spin instructor was out and had a sub who isn't my cup of tea, so I took a class called Group Power, which is a weightlifting class.  Wednesday, I had dinner with friends at a restaurant I had been curious about for years.  That's when I realized what this week had become, so I had to try and think of things that were new (a few things related to the senior prank and buying things from Dick's Sporting Goods - If I had been planning it, I could have done better.).

People are often resistant to trying new things.  It can be scary because you don't know what to expect or because you risk failure.  Students resist it because they worry they will embarrass themselves.  And sometimes, you do fail.  Sometimes, you do embarrass yourself.  But sometimes, you find a source of joy you didn't previously know. I will be taking Group Power every week now because it turned out I was better at it than I thought I would be (to be fair, I thought I would be atrocious, so it wasn't hard to be better than that).  I can't wait to take people to the restaurant I went to because it was delicious.  I will try to stand up more while peddling because it works different muscles than seated peddling does.

Students think they already know what they like and often don't think they need to try anything else.  When I encourage them to take art, they will sometimes say they aren't good at it.  It seems odd to them to think you could enjoy something even if you aren't good at it.  They have trouble believing they could get better at it.  They can't imagine that there are things they do not know and don't believe me when I say I regret that I didn't take art and that I would take Latin if I could go back to school and do it over.  By their middle school years, they have bought into the idea that they should only have to learn things that will get them a job, and since I teach physics, they don't understand how I might want those other things in my life.  By the way, I didn't know I liked physics until I took it in my senior year either, so even that thing that became my job was a new thing to me at one point.

I recently wrote a scholarship recommendation letter for one of my juniors.  I made a lot of observations about her in that letter, but the one I spent the most time on was how much I admire her willingness to take on new challenges.  She started acting in middle school and joined the swim team as a sophomore just to try something new.  I wish this quality weren't so rare.

If you are an adult in the life of a child (whether that is a parent, a teacher, a coach, or a camp counselor), please encourage them to try new things - new foods, new sports, new musical instruments, new classes, new friendships.  You may help them find a career, but you may just increase the amount of joy they have in their lives.