When Students Struggle

I'm trying to change the valves in my sprinkler system right now. I have no grades for my work, no pressure to pass, nothing in my future riding on it (besides a green lawn). But I'm anxious and I'm angry and a few times I came close to crying. See, I live in a world that plays to my strengths. As a dad, my knowledge of human development and relationships work well. As a teacher, my content knowledge and pedagogy plays well to someone with a relational/social/academic bent. I love to write and to draw and for that I'm doing surprisingly well in writing and illustrating a book for my kids. But sprinklers are different. Here, hands on literally means hands on. My hands are dirty. The pipes are stuck. It takes a certain level of hand-eye coordination and strength that doesn't come easily for me. I'm learning new vocabulary. Manifold this and male and female fittings (had no idea that pipes had gender assignments) and it's overwhelming. And that's why I do something like this at least once a year. I need to know, not just in theory, but in practice, what it means to struggle to learn. I need know the anger and the sadness and the shame and the way that it can cut to my identity (honestly, I've felt like less of a man because I'm screwing up on sprinklers), because this next year I'm going to have students who feel about reading and writing the way that I feel about pipes and sprinklers. Suddenly angry outbursts or giving up and saying, "I don't get it," makes a little more sense. I can forget that when I'm learning out of my strength. But it's much more memorable when I'm learning out of my weakness.