A Fun Exercise About Learning that I Used to Share With My Students

Give it a try, and see what you think...

There are only two steps in this exercise, and both are easy.

Step one: Writing your name with your dominate hand. Meaning, if you are right handed, use your right hand; if you are left handed, use your left hand. Easy enough.

Step two: Switch hands and try to write your name with the opposite hand. Whenever I gave this exercise in my classes, this step always included a number of laughs as they tried to comply.

After they were done, I would asked them to describe how their two signature differed.

They’d describe their first signatures as normal and easy to read. In fact they didn’t have much to say about them.

Not so, the descriptions of their second signatures. They’d describe their second signatures as awkward, childish, messy, and more.

It was at this point in the exercise that I made my point about the exercise.

I told them that nothing is every easy the first time around. That all new attempts felt awkward, childish, messy, and more. I told them that when they described their second signature, they were describing how they felt whenever they tried something new, so they had better get used to feeling awkward, childish, messy, and more; because those are the feeling we get whenever we’re trying to learn something new.

Try the exercise for yourself. You might find it fun, but don’t forget the point of the lesson.

The feelings you feel when you try writing with your non-dominate hand are the feelings you feel whenever you’re attempting anything new. Everything feels awkward the first time you try it.

So get used to feeling awkward, and revel in it. It just means that you are still discovering and learning.

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