Thinking About the Gifted (and not the Xmas kind)

I was pondering today about something that happened when I was but a wee lad of seven years. I was thinking about it, because someone had created a thread over on The School Survival Forums about dissing a teacher you hated. I immediately thought of my second grade teacher, Mrs. Hull. She was this mean, middle-aged lady. I hated her class. And she seemed to hate me.

What you should probably understand about the situation before I continue this story is that my folks got divorced when I was about five. I'd gone to a bunch of different schools, but was a bit... let's call it "undersocialized." Okay, I guess I should tell the truth. I was kind of a social retard with other kids. I didn't really talk to a lot of people, and I kind of had a hard time doing things like staying on task, following directions, and generally all the stuff that students are supposed to do. I wasn't disruptive or anything, but I was kind of paying attention to stuff besides what I was supposed to. I had a pretty vivid imagination, and I loved cartoons, so sometimes I'd just draw. I wasn't very good at it, but I had a lot of fun doing it. Mentally, I'm not really sure where I was at that point. I think I was a pretty smart kid. I had an active social life in my neighborhood for the most part, but my focus was fairly narrow, and kind of limited. I just didn't pay much attention to things that didn't seem relevant to me in my own little kid way.

So, here's what happened. There used to be this cartoon on Saturday mornings called, "Jabberjaw," which was about a great white shark by that name, who more or less acted and talked like Rodney Dangerfield. I guess I liked it, because one day during English I started drawing pictures of sharks on my paper. I was supposed to be doing something like diagramming sentences or writing them out longhand or something equally (to me) tedious and boring. So, instead, I was cartooning. Well, I was into about my third shark and down swoops Mrs. Hull. She saw what I was doing, snatched away my paper, and wrote a nasty note home to my mother. It said something like, "This is what I caught your son doing today. Instead of doing his lessons all he does it piddle." I guess that's how mean old ladies say "fuck around." So, I was in trouble. Note to mommy.

Funny thing happened though. I brought the note to my mom and more or less explained what had happened. She looked at the note, then at my drawing, and said, "well I think it's pretty good." No freakout, no scolding, nothing like that. Mom, I think, had some experience with bitchy teachers from Catholic school. Her mom was no treat, either, for that matter. And that pretty much was the end of it. School went on, but I don't remember getting in that much trouble again. I actually didn't attend school there the next year, moving on to another school, where I ended up getting busted for weed (at age nine). That's a story for another time, if ever. Before that happened, though, we took some tests. Standardized tests. I think it was the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills (CTBS). I think a lot of kids took that in the second grade back then. Come third grade, the results of that test would come back in an unexpected way.

So, summer came and went and I started the new school year at Inman, in Atlanta. Let's just say it served predominantly lower class students. It was a rough place, and many of the teachers and students weren't exactly the cream of the crop. I arrived there, and shortly after was put in their gifted program, which wasn't really much to speak of, but it allowed students quite a bit of freedom to learn and explore different areas of knowledge in a small-class format. It was only one period a day, not a completely self-contained school within a school kind of thing. I don't know as I really worked much harder, but I had more fun. The only thing that had changed was a stupid test had shown them that I wasn't some kind of moron. In fact, I was "gifted." But was I? I'm not so sure. I was a different sort of learner to be sure, but even at my new school I had similar problems in my larger class sessions as I had in my old school. I had a hell of a time learning long division, for example. I just wasn't paying attention when the material was introduced, and I didn't ask questions, so I got lost. I went home and told my stepdad, who was working on a degree in math. He sat down with me, and drew out a set of instructions, showing exactly what to do and why, and put them in a little folder for me. I probably had to use them about two or three times to work through some problems, but not after that. Oddly enough, I was considered to be pretty good at math after that, at least until high school, when I quit working at it so hard.

One more thing happened while I was at Inman that deserves attention. During lunch one day I decided to go into the library. I'm not sure why. Maybe I was bored. Maybe I was lonely. Maybe we'd been shown it before and I was curious to find out more. I can't remember. Anyway, I went in and started looking around. I must have looked kind of lost, because a librarian came over and asked what I was looking for. I, of course, had no clue. She must have asked, though I'm not certain of this, what I was interested in. Maybe she just saw a little boy, and asked herself, "Now what do little boys like?" In any case, this saintly woman, unlike that bitch Mrs. Hull, introduced me to something valuable. Instead of, for example, teaching me grammar (language as tedium) she found me some cool books. I remember one was called Trumpet of the Swanand was about a swan who moved to New York to play jazz, lived in the Ritz-Carlton, and some odd stuff. You know, language as something fun and cool and just plain nice. I have no idea who that lady was, but she changed my life in just five minutes of her precious time; just like my stepdad did in about ten. I started reading constantly. I even began to try to write sometimes. Books have been something I've loved ever since.

Okay, Doc, nice stories. So what?

Well, I'm glad you asked. The moral of these here stories is simple: Different children may need different things to learn well. They all need time. They all need space. Some may need a little guidance, and some may need a lot. Some may work best if left to their own devices, and some may require more input and coaxing. Some may learn by rote quite easily, and some may need to approach things in more creative and complex ways. All children need to learn, and there are a lot of ways for them to do it. Why would we convince ourselves that these differences are good or bad? Did it matter than I never learned how to diagram sentences in Mrs. Hull's class? Probably not. Hell, I've already read more books in my life than she probably did in the entirety of hers. I suppose it may have mattered if I hadn't had someone to help me learn to do long division. I was lucky in that regard, just as I was lucky to meet that librarian that fateful day. But through it all, I was the same little kid. I was still needing some help with some things, but then I was more or less able to cope on my own. I did less well with large classes, and better with smaller ones. I didn't learn well in anonymous situations, but did quite well in personal ones.

I wonder how many kids out there have been found "gifted" or "in need of remediation" simply because of a set of coincidences like the ones I've described above? Could it be that, with the correct mix of instruction, resources, and freedom, that any "normal," "remedial," or otherwise fucked up kid could be "gifted"? I wonder sometimes when I think about my own history as a student. I know I learn differently than many "normal" people, but I get to and beyond some of the places they get to by their own processes. I've been extremely fortunate in that I've been in situations, when it counted, where I was able to exercise some freedom, to have some space to experiment, some time to meander, and more or less to do things my way. I cases where that was not the case, I wasn't as successful. Marine Corps tech school is a good example of that. I found it very difficult to achieve at a high level due to the mechanical nature of instruction and evaluation. I did pretty well anyway, but not as well as I could have.

I also wonder what might have happened if Mrs. Hull had known about, oh, maybe Ritalin. Would I have been "fixed," only to remain broken in ways no one could ever have imagined?

Sela (pause and reflect)