one month check-in

I hadn't originally intended that this entry be a one month status report, but it just seemed at a certain point like that was a good way to describe it.
One of the things I said in my first entry was that I hoped this class would encourage me to figure things out on my own, even if it meant that the answer would be longer in coming and that I was making myself vulnerable by allowing my discovery process to be visible. Honestly, I wasn't optimistic that this would happen. On the one hand, I had read some of ED's writing over the summer and I was excited by the accounts of learning, especially those following mid-career teachers through Duckworth-style activities. But on the other hand, I have a huge amount of educational baggage. My upbringing placed a lot of importance on getting things right, and right in the best way. There always has to be an expert to substantiate a claim. I have always had a lot of difficultly "putting myself out there" as a learner and have consequently avoided letting people see me do things that I'm not good at.
This Monday I was biking to school and I thought about how I never have known what gears on my bike are better for going uphill than others. I never want to ask someone, because I think of it as one of those things you should know by the time you are an adult. So I decided I would look it up online when I got home. Then it occurred to me--I should Duckworth this! So I started messing with my gears to see how biking in a different configuration would feel. It was fun! But that night, when I proudly told my boyfriend about my research and its findings, he told me that they were not correct. Respectful, though, of the excitement I felt with this exploration, he was quick to add that there might be some other factor playing into this (eg since the bike is old, there might be some physical abrasion giving some gears more resistance.) Perplexed and disappointed, I have spent the rest of the week continuing my research (it is a bit difficult because the route involves different terrains, so it isn't very controlled.) I am starting to think that there are two different types of work going on and that I haven't yet gotten a refined distinction between which I am doing when. In other words, sometimes it feels like less work because there is less resistance to the pedaling, but when this happens, it seems like I am pedaling more.
I am still investigating this, not strictly because I don't now the answer--I know I could get it easily. I am still working on it because I haven't figured it out. It reminds me of a professor in college who was telling us about over- and underexposing film from what your meter indicates. Because light meters want to expose everything for 18% gray, you have to make adjustments based on your subject. His example was photographing a white cat in snow. He told us this as a cute little way of remembering the rule, but no one ever remembered it. Many of us eventually figured it out, and at that point, we could remember, but although the charming phrase of photographing a white cat in snow sticks with me, the rule as a rule doesn't.
Also, though, I am sticking to figuring the gears out on my own because it is fun. I have been talking about it with other people (no one seems to think it odd that a 25 year old had never before shifted gears on a bike, or at least, it isn't visible. Or maybe I don't care, so I don't even see it?) It reminds me of being little and playing with small motors and wires. I had many "Gears of My Childhood" moments as a kid, and this class has made me wonder what happened to the lessons I learned there. I think the pressures of adolescent schooling, always looking toward being a successful adult, negate the value of figuring out.