My earliest learning experience

Our first class assignment was to write about a time where we learned something. In my group everyone had a completely different learning experience which occured at different ages and places. I learned a lot from this exercise because I realize how little learning actually occurs in schools. In class we tried to find themes that cut through all of our little learning vignettes and found that it was almost never driven by grades, there was a sense of discovery or exploration. And as Oprah Winfrey calls it, "an AHA! moment."

Here's mine:

Learning my mother’s language

The greatest teacher I have ever had is my mother. By the title of this vignette, you are probably thinking that this is going to be a short story about a language lesson taught by my mom. However the lessons were much more than that for me. This is about a time in my life where I learned to have humility. Not only did I learn language I learned about learning itself. To me, a good learner is someone who is open to new information, and the cause they have taken up to learn.

My grandfather died when I was five years old. As my father was the eldest son in his family, he had to return to his homeland of Bangladesh to look after the family business. My mom and I followed him a few months later. I was excited to go because I had cousins there my age that I could play with. Unfortunately, reality hit a few hours after we landed in Zia International Airport. I spoke fluent English and yet I spoke just four phrases in Bengali. “Amar kheeda peyechey” (I am hungry), “Amar bathroom peyechey” (I have to go to the bathroom), “Tumi kemon aacho?” (How are you?), and “Tomar naam ki?” (What is your name?). My cousin Monti, who only spoke Bengali, literally cried when he learned that he couldn’t communicate with me.

Since my parents had to enroll me in school in Bangladesh within a few weeks: my mom decided to teach me Bengali herself. She told the whole family to only speak to me in Bengali and only respond if I spoke in Bengali to them. I remember watching Bengali television programs with my cousins and catching on quickly in speaking and understanding the language. The reading and writing part was going to be more difficult. My mom bought a selection of Bengali alphabet books, poetry books and comic books to help me.

I clearly remember my first writing lesson with my mom. She nailed a scroll made out of jute with the Bengali alphabet painted on it next to our study desk. Since the Bengali alphabet starts with the vowels, she first taught me shorrey oh (the ‘O’ sound).

“First you have to draw a roshogolla, and then the juice drips from the roshogolla and falls in a downward loop before you bring it back up. So its like you are making the letter ‘O’ but you don’t close it up. Then you draw a stick that goes down diagonally from the side, and then straight up. Finally, you give it a “roof” and draw another stick on top of the roshogolla and sticks.”

Right. Got it mom. I grew over-confident in my new skill. I enjoyed practicing writing my letters and copying the print from newspapers and felt ready to go to school. I expected it to be like school in Philadelphia. My school that I went to in Philadelphia was more of a playgroup compared to what I was about to step into at Little Flower Primary School in Dhaka, Bangladesh. I heard the name and imagined walls covered in lots of colorful posters and maybe a beautiful pond with lily pads and flowers and ducks in it. There would be little tables and chairs that were my height and friends who I can talk to and create wonderful things with using play dough. Oh, and my teacher would love me and always smile. Instead, Little Flower was a dark place with strict rules, unsmiling teachers, and big rows of large tables where the boys sat on one side and girls sat on the other. We weren’t allowed to talk. I remember the teacher would say something and the whole class would repeat her in unison. I copied the other kids. Repeating, but not really understanding anything. Sometimes when the teacher called on me I stared at her blankly…. She used vocabulary that I never heard before and her Bengali was spoken much more quickly than what I was used to hearing at home.

I’m not sure how much time went by before I had my first test. This was my first test not only in Bangladesh, but ever. Five year olds didn’t get tests in Philadelphia. Honestly, I don’t even remember what the test was about, but when I received my results I was so happy I ran home after school flailing my test in hand and screaming “Ma! Ma! I got a roshogolla! I got a roshogolla!”

My mom took the test from me, looked at it, rolled it up and smacked me across the head with it. Shocked by her reaction, I asked her what was the matter.

“That’s not a roshogolla silly. That’s a zero!”