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Gifted kids don't burn out, they fade away
Feb. 7th, 2010 02:13 pmThis is one of the few places I've found that tries to discuss the self-handicapping fizzle some of us have had to wrestle with in the aftermath of being labeled smartypantses: http://www.manasclerk.com/blog/
Check out the category 'underacheivers'--this guy is a deep fan of a certain management school of thought and can get a little thick with the lingo, but the gist is that people not only have differences in the level of complexity they can deal with, but as they develop over a lifetime they also have different trajectories of development. Some people have a steep trajectory and it not only puts them at higher levels than their peers at any given age, it also presents problems in that their emotional maturity and opportunities for really engaging with the world at the level they're functioning at also lag behind. They can handle complexity of information and work, are starving for it, but they're rarely given real venues in which to actually *do* and *learn*.
Suddenly it makes sense how a brilliant kid can have serious problems with executive function. It's hard to care about the minutia of a game you can see through. School is a low-risk venue for practicing organization and detail-wrangling for most kids, but for kids who know they're doing time? They lose out on that practice and they don't jump through the hoops in ways that will earn them more meaningful opportunities.
Interesting to think about, considering how the lengths of childhood, training, apprenticeship and education have extended over the last century. Combine it with a public school system geared toward producing cogs and clerks, and one can easily slip into a dystopian coma about how the culture at large couldn't have built a leakier pipeline for creativity and brains.
Anyway, the trajectory idea is what truly lit the fire under my ass this last year. I could see where I was on the scale when I was fifteen, when I was twenty-five, where I am right now--follow the trajectory another five or twenty years and the discontent so painful in my job right now will truly kill me. I will become unemployable at my resume level. I must move into something that fits better and will grow with me, and be prepared to keep pushing myself ever after. The alternative is not a steady state of stagnation, but the frustration of inexorable growth into malignancy.
Check out the category 'underacheivers'--this guy is a deep fan of a certain management school of thought and can get a little thick with the lingo, but the gist is that people not only have differences in the level of complexity they can deal with, but as they develop over a lifetime they also have different trajectories of development. Some people have a steep trajectory and it not only puts them at higher levels than their peers at any given age, it also presents problems in that their emotional maturity and opportunities for really engaging with the world at the level they're functioning at also lag behind. They can handle complexity of information and work, are starving for it, but they're rarely given real venues in which to actually *do* and *learn*.
Suddenly it makes sense how a brilliant kid can have serious problems with executive function. It's hard to care about the minutia of a game you can see through. School is a low-risk venue for practicing organization and detail-wrangling for most kids, but for kids who know they're doing time? They lose out on that practice and they don't jump through the hoops in ways that will earn them more meaningful opportunities.
Interesting to think about, considering how the lengths of childhood, training, apprenticeship and education have extended over the last century. Combine it with a public school system geared toward producing cogs and clerks, and one can easily slip into a dystopian coma about how the culture at large couldn't have built a leakier pipeline for creativity and brains.
Anyway, the trajectory idea is what truly lit the fire under my ass this last year. I could see where I was on the scale when I was fifteen, when I was twenty-five, where I am right now--follow the trajectory another five or twenty years and the discontent so painful in my job right now will truly kill me. I will become unemployable at my resume level. I must move into something that fits better and will grow with me, and be prepared to keep pushing myself ever after. The alternative is not a steady state of stagnation, but the frustration of inexorable growth into malignancy.
