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What Really Counts as Learning


Learning happens in so many places and in so many ways. Maybe it is at the mall, or at home, or even in a classroom. For Russell Thomas it was in the poor town of Coney Island. In Coney Island, Russell has to learn many hard lessons in life. He learns that you can?t change everything and that life isn?t fair. Russell is forced to realize that failure is part of life and that it happens to all of us. These are all teachings that are irreplaceable and valuable. The lessons that Russell learns are ones that he will use for the rest of his life in his experiences. It is something that you can use on more than just a test for school. That is what real life learning is about and in one way or another we have all experienced it.

Russell is the main focus in Darcy Frey?s article about three basketball prodigies from Coney Island. Russell is a tremendous basketball player and hopes to get out of Coney Island on a basketball scholarship. He has the skill to get that scholarship, but even with all that talent he has a major obstacle stopping him. In order to attend college on a scholarship, a score of 700 is required on the SAT. Russell, on his first attempt, only gets a 500; when a 400 is earned just for signing your name. So in order to get that scholarship and 700, Russell dedicates large amounts of time to studying. If he wasn?t working on basketball then he was working on his academics. After all that work Russell never gets his 700, or the scholarship. So therein lies the first lesson that Russell learns; life isn?t fair. Russell tries his hardest to bring up his grades and earn that 700, but when it comes down to it he has grown up in a low class area, without many opportunities. Frey described Coney Island as a place where there are ??no stores, no trees, no police; just block after block of gray cement projects?? (Frey 38). Russell had what can hardly be called an education. It is a place where most of the good basketball players with any chance at a scholarship never make it, they either end up dead or back in Coney Island dealing drugs. No matter what he can?t fix that, it is how he has grown up. Russell is forced to realize the effects that has had on his life. He can?t change who he was born to, and where he was raised. It is terrible, and Russell is forced to face that even before he is an adult. From then on though, Russell can understand and deal with things that he can?t change.

Another lesson lies in Russell?s struggle with his SATs; everyone fails at times, but you have to keep trying. Russell himself says that ?I?m gonna get my 700 and go Division I. Trust me. You know why? I?ve come too far, worked too hard already? (Frey 45). Even with all that heart and spirit Russell doesn?t make it. He learns that failure is something that happens to everyone. Sometimes that failure is something small and minute, in other cases like Russell?s, it is a big failure. Russell had also learned that after he had a violent fight with his girlfriend, and decided to solve it by getting on the edge of Coney Island?s highest building. He almost committed suicide. Looking back on that incredible life-altering event Russell says, ?I learnt that part of success is failure, having hard times smack you in the face, having to go without having? (Frey 45). Russell experienced failure once with his suicide attempt, and again with his failed attempt at a 700. Russell learns that sometimes in life you set your standards too high. He didn?t make Division I, but he goes on to junior college and tries. It might not be what he was waiting for, but he went with what he had. Russell learns so much in a matter of two years. Not going Division I knocked him down and used it in his hurdles with college basketball. These lessons all count as learning for Russell, because every day in his life he is applying them to his experiences.

Russell and I are similar in the aspect that our experiences have shaped our learning. In my case, I take some experiences I have had with my family and use it in my life. My older sister Emily went through a phase in high school that affected our whole family. Emily wasn?t a terrible person; it?s just that she started making bad decisions with her life. She wasn?t into crack or any really heavy drugs like that, but she was getting involved with bad stuff. She started fighting constantly with my parents, especially with my dad. That hit a peak when my dad tried to admit her into a mental hospital. Eventually when Emily was still living at home my dad ?cut her off,? so to speak. It was rough; my dad ended up under a lot of stress and it lead to a few heart attacks. Emily moved out when she was 16, and she didn?t talk to my dad. She wasn?t allowed to come over to our house when my dad was home, so the only time we could see her was when my dad was at work and my mom was home. My mom and dad were also having problems through all of this because it was a ?good cop, bad cop? thing going on with them. So not only did her decisions affect her relationship with my parents, it put a strain on the marriage. Emily and my dad didn?t talk for a year, and that was hard too, because it was like my big sister wasn?t a part of the family. Eventually they started talking again, and now everything is fine. We are a pretty normal family (if that really exists anywhere).

All of those hard times, although they are over, taught me a lot of things. Emily was the oldest of the five children in my family and when she moved out that left me, the second oldest, to be the role model for the rest of my siblings. All throughout high school I was a very good role model for them. I was involved in different things at school; for the most part I got decent grades. I was always worried about things that I would do and how that might affect my parents. I know things Emily did impacted them immensely. Emily was a great role model for me in that aspect that I had the chance to learn from her mistakes. I had a chance to see what she did and the consequences of her actions. She did not have anyone to do that for her. I took the things that happened and I used them in my life, I applied them. It was something that could never be taught in any classroom, or put in any textbook. It was very unconventional learning.

Russell and I learned in the same way that we took experiences from life and made ourselves better people for having gone through it. Samuel Butler put it nicely when he said, ?life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.? For Russell and I that instrument is life. No one knows what it is going to be like or what is going to happen, but you just go with it and learn from what does happen. Russell learned that sometimes life isn?t fair, but you do what you can. He learned that failure isn?t the end of the world, and that life goes on. Russell did just that; he went to college, maybe not Division I, but he was out of Coney Island. For me it was taking my experiences and my sister?s, and using it everyday in my life. Thinking about the things I do and how it could impact others. These are all valuable learning experiences. They are so important because unlike learning about the brain in anatomy class, these lessons are used everyday. They cannot be replicated by any single teacher, the only teacher is life. Life?s students, like Russell and I, are forever impacted by its teachings.


Works Cited


Butler, Samuel. ?notebooks.? Xrefer. 8 October 2002. <http://www.xrefer.com/entry.jsp?xrefid=247857&secid=.19#s.19.->.

Frey, Darcy. ?The Last Shot.? Harper?s. (April 1993) 37 ? 57.