Just Play

Gyra's blog post about different kinds of intelligences really got me thinking. I posted a comment on it, but still couldn't really get it out of my head and needed a little more room to think about it so I decided to write a post on it myself. It made me think of Good Will Hunting, not sure if you have all seen this movie but if you haven't you should because it is amazing. Matt Damon or Will in the movie is a genius who has never gone to college or had any really good education but is just naturally smart especially in regards to math. He is trying to explain his intelligence to his girlfriend as the conversation goes like this:

Will: Beethoven, okay. He looked at a piano and it just made sense to him. He could just play.
Skylar: So what are you saying? You play the piano?
Will: No, not a lick. I mean, I look at a piano, I see a bunch of keys, three pedals and a box of wood. But Beethoven, Mozart, they saw it, they could just play. I couldn't paint you a picture, I probably can't hit the ball out of Fenway, and I can't play the piano.
Skylar: But you can do my O-chem paper in under an hour.
Will: Right, well I mean when it came to stuff like that... I could always just play.

When I read Gyra's post about different kinds of intelligence this popped into my head immediately. I think that in the way that Matt Damon describes in this movie, some people can just play certain things. I could never just understand math the way some of my friends do, but when it comes to reading and writing, as Matt Damon puts it, "I could always just play." So, I guess my point in bringing this up is coming to the realization that when it comes to reading and writing, other people can't necessarily just play the way that I do. I think to be a writing tutor it is important to understand this. To be a teacher of any kind really it is important to understand this. Teaching someone something that you have never really had to try at, something that you are just sort of naturally good at, is really hard! When I help people with papers sometimes I find myself giving advice and when the writer asks me "Well, why is it that I should do that?" I have absolutely no idea how to respond. This, to me, is the biggest challenge in being a writing tutor. The majority of us are a part of this program because we have a natural talent for writing and English, so how can we really help those who don't have this natural talent? It has always been difficult for me to tell someone how to approach writing and reading because I don't even know how I approach it. I just do it. When I started this class at the beginning of the semester this seemed to be my biggest hurdle, figuring out how to help someone improve their writing when I wasn't even really sure if there were concrete things that made good writing. To me, good writing has never been simply the sum of a bunch of mechanical aspects of "good writing" but instead is in the essence of the writing, in the flow of it. Now I have learned that while writing may still be something that comes naturally to some and maybe never will come easily to others, there are things that we as writing tutors can do to make this process a little easier for other people. Maybe we will never be able to teach people to "just play" when it comes to writing the way that we always have, but I do feel confident that with the skills we have learned in this class we can do something to help those whose natural talents fall outside of the realm of writing and reading. And maybe in the meantime they could help me with that whole math and science thing? Because I am very far from being able to "just play" when it comes to those things. Honestly...I am very far from even knowing the rules when it comes to those things.