WyzAnt Wants To Know: How did you go about mastering a challenging subject in school?

When I was in high school, I was fairly skilled at most subjects. One that always seemed to be an effort, though, was French language classes. They just seemed to have a lot of little parts to memorize and drill, so many irregular verbs, so many special cases. I held on, but it always seemed like a lot of work.

That is, until my senior year. Due to my ballet training, the IB-level French class that I should have been in didn’t fit into my schedule. As a compromise, the IB 2 French professor agreed to give me an independent study in French, which would be a self-guided project. I decided I wanted to read a selection of plays by the French playwright Moliere, in their original French, and write a paper about each play, also in French. Over the course of that year, I learned more about the ins and outs of French as a language than any number of irregular verb drills would have taught me, and I chalk it up largely to the addition of context.

I find context to be a very powerful tool to enhance your understanding of a subject. In math class, if you know what you’re doing in a broader sense, and why, and how it fits into related math topics, you’ll be better able to understand the concepts. In history classes, if you explore the ramifications of a piece of legislation in the context of an economic or political situation as well as in the context of the nation’s place on the world stage, you’ll have a better understanding of the full scope of the topic itself. And with me and French, reading my way through a play written in the language in question gave me a broader sense of how the language came together and was used. By reading something with a plot, that native French speakers might read and laugh at (I mostly read his comedies), I began to see the context for all of those grammar specifics we’d worked on in previous years, and that random assortment of rules became a natural way of composing thoughts. I got used to thinking in French, which goes a long way towards being able to converse in another language.

Having context for the work you’re doing can connect that work to its proper place in the world and give you a more thorough understanding of it as a result. Next time you’re struggling with a subject, take a step back and ask yourself “Why am I learning this? How can it help me in the future, and how does this subject affect other subjects I’m learning or have learned?” You might find that subject is more fun than you thought.