10 times

On this day in Rey Curre, I passed the afternoon under the hot sun practicing soccer, or bola, as it is often called here. My ten years of competitive swimming taught me discipline, perseverance, and teamwork, but it did not teach me how to juggle a soccer ball or assist a goal with a head ball. Little did I know then how much I would covet these skills. And, now that all my high school, soccer-playing friends have gotten a good laugh at picturing me trying to guard against my Tican students, half my size and not wearing shoes, I'll persist with the value of this Sunday afternoon solitary practice session.

I want to learn. I want to learn the steps to the Latin dances. I want to learn how to teach English. I want to learn the Spanish language. I want to learn more of the beauty of Costa Rica as evidenced by this picture taken while visiting my friend in Chirripo. I want to learn how to play soccer. But, most importantly, I want to learn because it enriches my life and it informs my teaching. I already know how to speak English, so I can't really relate when my students struggle to understand how to conjugate in the past tense. And, I've studied Spanish for quite a few years, so I'm far past square one. But, when it comes to soccer, I have very little intuition. So, I set a goal. On my way to the soccer field, I had it in my mind to do 10. 10 laps up and down the field with the ball. 10 minutes of juggling the ball. I0 sets of push-ups and sit-ups. Yet, justifiably, I predicted that I may be interrupted by a student who wants me to watch them climb a tree or a member of the community who wants to ask me if I've taken a liking to Curre.

But then, a lesson that I learned in my Senior year Calculus class surfaced in my mind. We sat in our desks, watching one of our classmates try to reach his destination: the door. The problem was that the teacher told him that in order to reach the door, he would have to walk half of the distance first. With the remaining half of the distance between the student and the door, the teacher broke the news to him that yet again he would have to walk half the distance before he could reach the door. And so on and so forth so that he was never actually able to make it to the door. It's called Zeno's paradox, and it's an attempt at showing that motion is impossible. Of course, we know this is not true, and there are reasonable explanations to be found. Nevertheless, my classmates and I walked out of class that day with a valuable lesson learned. If we want to reach our goals, we ought to set them higher than we think possible and, if we don't reach them, it doesn't mean we've failed. It just means we need to set them higher.

I didn't get to finish all 10 minutes of practice with juggling the ball, but I did practice. Next time, I will try again. More importantly, I gained the inspiration for my Wednesday afternoon high school classes. I'm not going to give them homework because I'm not their teacher. But, I'm going to give them challenges. Practice the pronunciation exercise 10 times. Or, write 10 verbs that you use every day and look for their translation. Or, write 10 sentences using the new vocabulary that we learned. What's so special about 10? Nothing, except that it's the goal. If they reach it, great! If they don't, maybe we just need to make it higher.

Let's set our goals high, and rise up to meet them!