In an ordinary classroom, children once considered poor students now eagerly tackle the most difficult math problems first. Another school receives criticism for being "elitist" because all of its students are gifted. But most of these students produced only average results and some were poor students before entering the "gifted school." These schools and their teachers, along with many psychologists re-discovered the fact that we can all learn well, when given the proper support and opportunities.
Examine the qualities of one of these gifted learners. She speaks a foreign language, in a local dialect, with perfect accent. She is a world class gymnast, an accomplished experimental scientist in chemistry and physics, a skilled mathematician, a powerful and influential negotiator, and a talented psychologist. Marvelous, genius qualities, wouldn't you agree? In fact, this description fits most people. Think about all of the things that you learned as a child before you ever went to school. You learned to speak, crawl, walk and run. (If you think learning to walk is easy, ask some one who lost this ability and is re-learning it how easy it is.) You could tell who got he most cookies or the biggest bowl of ice cream. You experimented with the chemistry of foods and the physics of gravity from your high chair during your meals, much to your parents dismay. You learned to influence others and negotiate with them to get what you wanted. You learned to play games with complex rules and strategies. Some psychologists now believe that we learn up to 90% of what we know before the age of six. Then we sent you to school to make sure you never did it again.
As a child, you were extremely creative, using string, sticks, paper, glue and crayons to create anything you could imagine.
You were born a creative genius and an insatiable learner. What happened? Can you regain those capabilities? Good questions that I'll examine in future blog posts.
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