Literacies Profile!

Literacies Profile

            When I reflect on what it means to be literate, I would usually associate the term with being able to read and write. After my first SED 407 class, I learned that being literate doesn’t necessarily have to relate to academics, but it can be used as a way to describe a skill one has mastered. Although I would naturally refer myself as being first and foremost literate in reading, because it has always been a passion of mine, outside of academics, I am literate in playing the acoustic guitar.

            Growing up, I had always carried within me a love for the guitar. Although by the age of five my mother had different plans for me, such as playing the violin, there was always something about the guitar that fascinated me. From the age of five to eighteen, I mastered the art of playing the violin—however, it was every Friday after school that I dreaded, for I had violin lessons and everything inside of me detested the drive to the lessons. Violin, to me, sparked no interest in me and when I don’t have a passion for something, it is very hard for me to find enjoyment in learning about it. Every Friday after my violin lessons I would walk by a room that held a private lesson between a student, the instructor and their guitars. I remember sitting in the lobby area waiting for the ride to take me home, and becoming immersed into the musical notes between the teacher and student. Although violin is a beautiful instrument, I wanted to feel what the student appeared to be feeling. I remember seeing his eyes closed, and his fingers gracefully yet sporadically plucking at each string, entranced in his instrument while singing his own lyrics that he had written himself. That was the day I knew I was meant to play the guitar.

            In playing the violin, sure there can be moments when one is lost within the music—yet I couldn’t get myself to feel what one feels that is passionate towards the violin, because for some reason I was certain that I could find that sensation with the guitar. It was on my eighteenth birthday that my sister bought me an acoustic guitar for Christmas. As soon as I unwrapped my gift, I started playing (although not very well). The day after Christmas, I had made an appointment with a guitar instructor.

            After three months of practicing guitar, my instructor had expressed how he found it so strange that I picked up on the guitar so easily. My three months of playing had sounded like I had played the guitar for a year, apparently. I believe my natural skill in playing guitar came from the many years of playing Violin. My fingers were used to switching between strings, and my mind had already become accustomed to the memorization of music notes and strings.

            This literacy practice has had such an impact on my life because playing the guitar is cathartic for me. In admiring the student who played the guitar the next room from me, I learned patience. I couldn’t quite step out of my mother’s expectations when I was in high school, yet as soon as my eighteenth birthday arrived, I made the executive decision to finally go after what I truly desired. Learning a new instrument can be tedious—especially if one turns to the playing of an instrument to release built up tension. If I were to have a bad day, it would be doubly frustrating if I couldn’t express my emotions through the guitar because I lacked in the mastery of playing it at that time. I believe patience and resilience are crucial traits that a teacher must carry, and playing the guitar had taught me that. Each and every student will face different challenges and I believe that as a teacher, one must have patience to learn each student’s strengths and weaknesses while possessing the resilience to be able to identify these strengths and weaknesses and effectively help one’s students learn and grow.