Why I'm Terrible at Playing a Guitar and Why I Love It!

The title of this blog is misleading because I only have two days of guitar lessons under my belt and I should be terrible. The music that is emanating from my guitar, if I may be so bold to call it music, sounds like two alley cats fighting in a burlap bag. My fingers hurt from practicing my E Minor and A Major chords and I'm convinced that my sausage fingers were not meant to fit in the frets of my guitar. I've watched about 3 hours of video tutorials and have been practicing for hours because I know that when school starts up for the second semester, I am going to see my practice time dwindle.

The question I keep asking myself as I struggle to learn is, "Why are you trying to learn an instrument at 38 years of age?" The answer is pretty simple to me. No, I don't have aspirations of being Jimmy Page or Jimi Hendrix. Yes, I promised my middle school daughter that I would learn alongside her. Those, however, are not the reasons. The reason I am doing this is because I need to practice what I preach.

I have written often about failing and the importance of it for personal growth. I can honestly say that I am failing miserably at playing the guitar right now and I have never been so energized in my life. I am seeking out knowledge regarding something I am interested in, putting that knowledge in to practice, and learning from my failures. Why is this important? Because this is where our educational models need to improve. This is the way our students learn today and we need to provide them schools that teach in this fashion.

Schools today are not the same as what your mother, father, and politicians experienced. Gone are the days where the keeper of all the knowledge (teachers) was the sage on the stage and kept students engaged by imparting wisdom to them. Gone are the days where students complied with every expectation given to them because if they didn't, mom and dad would be at home to crack the whip. We live in exponential times where learning is different and family dynamics have changed dramatically. We can sit around and debate the causes of this, but that typically ends up be a reactive approach rather than proactive.

There is no silver bullet here. We need to try and try again to find ways for our students to be engaged and learn from their mistakes. We need to stop making failure out to be something that is terrible. We need to provide environments (schools) where students can find their passion, explore it in depth, and learn by doing. We need to challenge our leaders who think that standardized testing is the way our country is going to retake the lead in the world. Instead of pouring billions of dollars in to an antiquated system that doesn't work, we should be using that money to develop new models that work. It's called being proactive instead of reactive.

My hope is that someday my own children will view failure as a badge of honor and not a disease. They will understand that anything worth learning is going to require work, effort, time, setbacks, and successes. They will look at their father's guitar playing as a perfect example of this and wonder why the cats haven't escaped the burlap bag yet.