12. Like an Alien
I felt like an alien when I joined my new class in January.
Needless to say, this change in my life was critical. I had understood why some children hated school. I had seen that these children were regularly treated with less regard, and I had empathized and did what I could to help. But now suddenly I too was getting a great dose of unwanted insight.
B. and I had been in different grade three classes and this had continued; but while B. seemed to be enjoying her new class, I was shattered. It was clear to me that my new teacher had decided in advance not to like me or to do anything that might make my transition any easier. In fact, she seemed bent on disliking me, something I wasn’t used to.
Talk about a major paradigm shift!
I realized that my teacher might have been opposed to my unconventional acceleration; and I could understand how she might feel. She had been teaching the same group of children for four months and she was now expected to accommodate a child who had not only missed all those lessons, but every bit of information from the last almost two-thirds of grade three as well. I suppose it would have irritated her, especially if she had voiced her opposition, and had in effect been overruled by my mother … and me.
But I hadn’t given myself the tests and I hadn’t expected special treatment. Nor had I ever asked for any kind of review of what I'd missed; I wouldn't have dared. I knew I was expected to backtrack and extrapolate from where the class was now, and to do it on my own. And I was trying my best to do that but the emotional burden was stifling. For the longest time, the other children cast me sidelong glances and seemed afraid to accept my friendship, possibly out of fear that Teacher might turn on them too, for she seemed to like the other children.
Being sensitive and logical, I could not understand why she would want to thwart me by treating me in an emotionally caustic way. If she had been kind to me, or pleasant, or if she had forgotten about me completely (but without animosity), the atmosphere would at least have been neutral. (I could have assumed without thinking about it that I was accepted, and that I belonged, rather than have to deal with unaccustomed antagonism on top of the strangeness of a brand new environment.) Instead, it often seemed as if a stream of negatively charged particles were being blasted my way, a sensation that was entirely new to me. She made irritated asides, mostly about not having to review the year for one person. (Since school officials didn’t go around openly discussing children’s IQs, my classmates knew nothing about the tests or my scores; although I remember Mrs. M. telling my fellow third-graders something about the results of my tests, to explain why I was leaving. But I don’t think that any of my new grade four classmates knew anything about it. Children often joined a class mid-way through the year simply because they moved into the area.) I certainly didn’t tell anyone about the tests, so I knew that some of her pointed comments were aimed only at me and went over my classmates’ heads. For that, I was thankful. I wanted to connect to others and fit in, not set myself farther apart than I sometimes felt already, so I never spoke about my marks, let alone boast.
I had never really thought about being liked, before. I liked everyone, naturally, for even the most troubled children possessed some trait that I could like and admire, and I knew instinctively and logically that the song my mother often sang was pretty good advice.
You've got to accentuate the positive,
Eliminate the negative,
Latch on to the affirmative and
Don't mess with Mister In-Between.*
I was a sweet and sensitive kid (if I do say so myself!). I would not have dreamed of flaunting my blessings for fear of hurting someone who was not as fortunate; and I was always thrilled for others’ triumphs and good fortune. I was definitely not accustomed to experiencing animosity. I had never been singled out and deliberately made to feel insignificant, especially about learning, but suddenly I understood what it felt like to be belittled for not coming up with the expected answer immediately. And I realized how humiliation could make a person feel stupid and diminished—how it could prevent that person from learning and becoming confident about their ability to learn. If I could feel that way, how horrible must it feel for someone who had never been given a similar intellectual ‘stamp of approval’? It’s safe to say that anyone who is made to feel foolish or thick by someone who is supposed to have authority, will close him or herself off from that person even if he or she must abide by the authority’s rules for the time being.
Teacher watched me like a perfectly coifed hawk. It seemed to me that if I appeared confident about something, she ignored me but as soon as she sensed that I was treading in unknown water, she'd swoop down upon me. When she jabbed her pointer at closed and open circles on the blackboard and the class clapped out a rhythm, I scrambled to make sense of the pattern. I knew nothing about whole notes and half-notes, quarter and eighth notes; but as I listened to the clapping of the musically confident children, I could hear that the open circle by itself was four beats (one clap and three silent beats), the open circle with the line was two beats (one clap and one silent beat) and so on. I knew that she was going to single me out and I also knew that she fully expected me to fail.
All—mostly sympathetic eyes—were on me. At first, I wasn't clapping loud enough, so she made me start again. I wanted desperately to catch up to my new classmates and to get it right for this disapproving teacher so that she'd leave me alone and let me get on with it; but even when I clapped out a perfect rhythm, she wasn’t satisfied and quizzed me on the names of the notes. My fear of her was beginning to cloud everything and when her provocation finally became too much for me to bear, I broke down in quiet and embarrassed tears—traumatized and humiliated.
It did get somewhat better after that. Teacher must have realized that I wasn’t the conceited brat she may have imagined, and allowed a couple of classmates to show me their notebooks, so I could catch up on what I had missed, but I cannot say that I ever looked at school in quite the same way as I had. While I had never felt as if I had completely fit in, now that feeling was accentuated. Being an only child, I had always enjoyed the company of adults and I accepted my place in the chronological hierarchy of my family. I was used to being the youngest. But now suddenly, I was back to being and feeling younger and less experienced than everyone else around me at school, and they were children! I missed my friends from grade three and for awhile I continued to see them at recess, but there was a space growing between us, for now they had other mutual experiences to share that did not include me, and I had experiences that didn't include them. So I worked at fitting in with the older grade fours as much as my rights and freedoms would allow.
It wasn’t my teachers’ fault that I stopped liking school around that time. (I continued to have some good teachers who knew how to grab our interest and ignite the spark of curiosity.)
Though there were many joys and advantages in my childhood environment, there were, of course, disadvantages and sorrow too. School was never the main thrust of my focus. My friends were. I always knew when someone was going through some sort of emotional turmoil. I could always see when people were hurt or joyful or afraid, even when others could not. I understood why many children (and adults) lashed out or were ill-behaved. I saw people who were on the receiving end of injustice, unfairness or plain old mean spiritedness, and who were then further castigated when they couldn't cope with the burden. And my heart ached when I saw wonderful people being judged as inferior by other people who I could clearly see were only pretending to be superior.
I knew there was an awful lot of ‘wrong thinking’ happening and I wanted to know why.
Since the educators themselves had provided me with proof that my logic was fully functional, I knew I could think and reason, which (I tend to believe) permitted me to feel free to strike out on my own and to learn what I wanted to know. I didn’t worry then, where this might lead me. I wanted to see what conclusions I could come to if I chose a different path and looked for my own answers in the most natural way. (In high school I felt inexplicably afraid to learn about history! I wanted to plug my ears and say, “Blah-blah-blah-I’m-not-listening. La-la-la-la-la.” It wasn’t until years later that I wondered if I had instinctively been afraid that in my inexperience and naivete, I might have believed someone’s skewed perspective and consequently might have formed a whole set of attitudes based on inadequate historical information! History is so subjective. As soon as I earned the one required history credit, that was it. No more history until years later when I felt more confident about being able to recognize and compensate for such subjectivity.
I decided that I would make use of my "IQ" my way, since as it was, everyone who knew about it, now had inflated expectations of me, and I hated that. I had my own.
Gradually, I became a secret rebel. While I scraped by in school with somewhat exaggerated indifference, I was intensely interested in what made everyone tick. I was always surveying my friends and acquaintances, finding out how they felt about life, learning about their dreams and goals and about where their real priorities lay, trying to find clues to the meaning of life. Which behaviours were necessary to adopt to ensure survival as well as the smooth running of a society, and which were merely unnecessary acts of conforming?
My conservative and reserved demeanour may have been cultured by my family, but it seemed a natural extension of my desire to get to know as many people as I happened to meet, regardless of their superficial differences, interests or opinions. In most instances, it was more rewarding to be amiable and agreeable than it was to proclaim my preferences or to assert my own opinions. My interests lay in understanding how people felt and showing them, when I could, a broader picture and a way to turn their perspective and feelings around by putting them into an undeniably logical context.
My tendency to be reserved, along with the natural circumstances of my life (being an only child who was sometimes alone) also allowed me to explore and to learn all I could about the inner workings of life – without committing myself entirely to one particular set of beliefs, or by aligning myself only with those who shared the same beliefs.
*Lyrics by Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen
Giftedness?
I never had the temerity to understand myself as a “gifted” child. I felt this would border on narcissism and so downplayed it and didn’t think about it much. I might have been better off if I had, or if someone had been able to guide me. Exceptionally gifted children have been known to master multiple languages by four or five years old, or play Beethoven on piano by 18 months (or something equally impossible-sounding). I had no burning desire to learn a different language and no resources if I had. I wasn’t a musical prodigy either. (I took guitar lessons for a while when I was twelve years old, but never stuck with it, though I took night classes again in my twenties and enjoyed writing lyrics and music and strumming along to my own little creations; but this not exactly evidence of ‘exceptional giftedness’. My guitar playing was barely mediocre!) I was always a good abstract thinker though.
Decades later, I would read a piece by clinical psychologist Deirdre V. Lovecky, whose research shows, “Exceptionally gifted children often have difficulty dealing with material other gifted children find easy. The exceptionally gifted see so many possible answers that they are not sure how to respond because no one [single] answer seems to be better than another.” For example, Zachery, age 7, “was unable to answer the question, “What does a doctor do?” The moderately gifted children answered with any of several acceptable responses and did not find this a difficult question. Zachery, however, answered that there were so many different kinds of doctors, and they all did different things. Even when encouraged, he was unable to pick on kind of doctor and name something that doctor did. Zachery obviously knew the material but was unable to focus on a simple level. His response suggests a higher level of analysis and integration than the question required.”
“The exceptionally gifted child grasps abstract material by finding the underlying pattern. Once that pattern is understood, the child knows the concept behind the material and further practice is unnecessary. In fact, the whole is comprehended so quickly and thoroughly, the child cannot break it down into component parts to show the steps used to build the concept.”
Coming across Ms. Lovecky’s work on the internet was like finding a key to an old safety deposit box I hadn’t known about. If I had been given that one reassurance back then, I would have been a lot easier on myself. Instead, I felt that I was now supposed to get everything right the first time, and I remember the near-panic I sometimes felt trying to decide if the answer the teacher was looking for could possibly be as simple as it seemed to suggest. I would think, “no way! She can’t mean, that the sky is “blue”. She must want a more precise answer. So what is it? Turquoise? Cerulean? Azure? Cobalt?” By then, my hesitation would be noted and the teacher would have asked someone else. “Blue” says someone. “Right,” says the teacher. Inside, I’m saying – and feeling, “duh”.
I knew that this was a situation and sensation that most of us were familiar with, so I did not think of it as being connected to “giftedness”, though I should have because I didn’t agree with the entire IQ test process or analysis. I had been given an early start on education and had always felt confident in my ability to understand. I was a happy, content, “pre-taught” child in a calm and self-assured mental/emotional state when I had written those tests. I knew that those variables played a large part in my ability to learn.
So I also knew that there were many, many other children whose scores were lower only because they were struggling with other concerns at the time; and others whose minds were locked by panic, fear or anxiety, and who therefore lacked confidence in their own keen intelligence.
Bio XIII
posted by Winter Child @ 6:45 a.m.
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