Final Draft- Educational Narrative

     I guess the first question I asked myself when I was reading the directions for this essay was- “what kind of learner am I?” If you think about, it is extremely important to understand what kind of learning style suits your personality the best, or else you will never completely understand anything that you learn. In my opinion, there are three ways of learning - by hearing, by seeing, or by touching. Any of these three are effective, but one or two of them may work better than the other depending on the person. For myself, I know that visual and audible methods of teaching are my favorite ways to learn. I like to have pictures and videos explain to me what’s being taught, and then practice them for myself afterwards.  I know when it comes to mastering a skill of any type, whether it is sports, or computer skills, I must diligently practice before I am close to perfect at it. I believe that I learn by hearing, seeing and doing, but I can learn the best by combining all of them together.

     Sports have never really been my specialty in life; I have never been into sports as much as my peers. I would much rather get outside and go for hike to see new things than sit on a sofa to watch a football game. One thing I have noticed about myself is I am not at all into team sports. Sure, I was on a soccer team, Swim team, and a running team but I feel as if I’m a little too introverted to be on a team. Being on a team includes being able to communicate well, but I would be too busy trying to make sure what I am doing is right before I do anything else.

     One sport that I have enjoyed all of my life is snow skiing. I started skiing at the age of two, and I’ve never really stopped since then. My mom, dad, and sister are all pretty good skiers, so I obviously had standards to meet. Of course when you are first learning to ski, you go and take a few runs on the easiest slope you can find to start out. Since I was only two years old when I started skiing, it wasn’t like I already knew what to do; I had to learn it completely fresh. One of the first things I learned to do is keep control of my balance when I was going down the hill. The first time we went up to Whistler Mountain in Canada, my dad had me ski with no poles in between his two skis, and he held my hands coming down the slope. Whenever I fell down, he would just pick me up and wait for me to straighten my skis out until he would put me back down. Really, this is probably one of the best ways to teach your kid how to balance on his skis!

     Most of my time would be spent in ski school when my family and I went up to the mountains so I skied with kids that were more on my level. Skiing with groups of kids my own age made it a better experience for me. I could make good friends during the day, and then reconnect with my parents and the afternoon, often wowing them with my new found skills. I think the one lesson I distinctively remember is the one my parents and I ended up doing together. We were in Winter Park, Colorado spending a week shredding up the slopes. I got a little curious one day and ended up signing up for an intermediate ski lesson. Since I was the only one that signed up for the class he let my parents come along and we pretty much got a full on private lesson. I think one of the most valuable things he ended up teaching us is how to carve our skis into the snow when we are trying to go faster downhill, and putting all of your weight on to one ski or the other when you want to turn sharply. Everything he taught us made all three of us more capable skiers, and we started trying slopes that were much harder.

     Of course skiing is something I've learned over the course of many years, so it is kind of hard to talk about one specific event. I think the most memorable times of skiing for me were throughout high school and college.  These are the times of getting a license and being on your own more. Having my own car and my own set of skis led to my friends and I venturing up to the mountains quite a bit. I really started to make friends by talking about skiing. All of the skiers at my school could sit there for hours and name off all of their favorite slopes. The best part was actually going up and skiing with all of my friends from school. Like I said before, skiing is a lot more fun when you ski with someone your own age.  

     About the only obstacle that stood in between me and my favorite sport was one of the most important aspects of skiing, money. Money was a major issue especially throughout high school because I didn’t have an income of any kind. I would work during the summer, but since I went to school in Seattle there wasn’t a chance of me working any of the rest of the year. My parents would give me some spending money occasionally, but other than that I was basically on my own when it came to paying for extra things like that. This really limited my ski time. Not only was it about $85 just for a lift ticket, I wasn’t getting as much practice as I used to. Even though I only ended up going to the mountains a few times in college I’ll never forget going up to Schweitzer Mountain in Sandpoint, Idaho with my friends Courtney and Dillon. We were all about the same skill level, so we basically spent all day racing each other down the slopes; throwing walls of powdery snow at each other as we skidded full speed trying to compete. I remember going down a pretty advanced slope and thinking to myself ‘am I going to break my ankles? We were going so fast that I thought for sure I would leave Idaho injured. Fortunately I didn’t, but skiing with my friends my own skill level made me push myself and improve for the better.

     The thing skiing taught me about learning is to keep practicing until you are near perfect. Sure, I consider myself a good skier now, but that’s because I have seventeen years of practice under my belt. I got to be a really good piano player, but that’s because I practiced for six years. I’m really good at washing cars, but that’s because I was a detailer for five years.  In order to get any better at whatever you do, you must practice until you are perfect. That is a philosophy I live by. Skiing has kept me active, and in good shape all of my life. I have made many friends and many good memories over the years skiing. I hope to continue skiing for the rest of my life and continue to learn more about the sport and more about myself each time I go up to the slopes.