A different way I’ve encountered that question is: How are you a beginner today? That’s paraphrased from a conversation just moments ago with a great designer friend (Emily Callaghan) who asked it of me. I know it’s a designer’s skill to ask questions when in design mode, but isn’t it also awesome when people (designers or otherwise) ask questions of you… and listen? There’s a Harvard study that links demonstrating escalating inquiry with likability within groups. (h/t to Margaret Pan here on Medium for sharing that.) Who knew?
When this beginning question was asked of me, it felt like I didn’t even have to come up with a clever or layered answer. I am beginning Japanese. I enrolled in a Japanese class at the community college down the street from me. I am now (formally) a beginner at learning to speak and read Japanese. I am a beginner as a student at a community college. I am a beginner at sitting next to other beginners less than half my age. I am a beginner as a professor-(re)turned-to-student. I am a beginner at listening to assignments. I am a beginner at sensing actual excitement from learners, including myself. I am a beginner at experiencing familiar situations of being around people in person again.
Back to Japanese: I am a beginner at seeing an alphabet not as 26 letters or even as “one” alphabet. I’m now new to connecting shapes and sounds in my head for the first time. I’ve been to Japan many times and it’s been illuminating each time, and this is yet a new beginning.
(I am delighted at something familiar, too, and maybe even anachronistic: learning vocabulary with flash cards and the 3-column method. A thanks sent heavenly to Mary Ella Boyle, an unassuming Latin teacher, whose lasting impact includes teaching me both of those techniques.)
