He Was Happy, Which Is To Say, Motivated

I once had a three-year-old in my class who taught himself the Periodic Table of the Elements, including the atomic numbers. I didn't teach it to him. His parents swore they hadn't taught it to him. And his grandfather, who was his day-to-day caretaker, found it amusing, but otherwise barely worthy of notice, just as he hadn't been particularly impressed when his grandson taught himself to read as a two-year-old.

The boy's parents felt pressure from friends and society at large to place the boy in some sort of program for gifted children. But, as his mother told me, "He's happy here, so we're happy here. Besides, he seems to be learning just fine as it is. Why would we mess with that?"

Of course, the word "happy" in this context was used to mean something more along the lines of "motivated," because he wasn't always happy at school. In fact, at school his primary project was making friends, a notoriously fraught field of study. As a two-year-old he had been primarily focused on "the ABCs." If he couldn't find an alphabet themed puzzle or book, he would begin to shape letters from play dough or paint them at the easel. Sometimes he would cry until we helped him discover some kind of alphabet-based activity. And even though he continued his "academic" pursuits on his own time, as he grew older, his main focus of study at school became the other people in the room.

He found this kind of learning far more difficult than chemistry or literacy. He was often confused to the point of tears by the behaviors of these children with whom he sought connection. Yet, each day he arrived curious and motivated to figure things out, even if these social-emotional pursuits remained complex and unpredictable. In a world that tends to elevate children like him above the hoi polloi, he wanted, more than anything else, to fit in, to be one of the guys. Sometimes he sought to lead, but most of the time his strategy was to fawn, follow, and befriend. It left him vulnerable, but time and again he bounced back. By the time he was four, he spent most of his days at school in the midst of a pack of children playing classic preschool games of pretend and adventure. He was still interested in things like the solar system (he was upset that "some picky scientists" had demoted Pluto), presidential politics (he knew every President, their Vice Presidents, and First Ladies), and reading (well above his so-called "grade level"), but at school he didn't have time for those things.

The last time I saw him was as a fifth grader performing in a public school production of Shakespeare's The Tempest, one of a cast of dozens. He was happy, which is to say, motivated.

By now, he's approaching high school. I'm sure that he and his family are feeling pressure to "accelerate" his learning, to separate him from his average classmates in the name of his obvious intellectual gifts. To do that to the boy I know, would be the equivalent of depriving him of oxygen. Self-motivation is what he breathes. I've not spoken with the family for a few years now, but I have no doubt that he is feeling no pressure from them to do anything other than follow his curiosity because, at the end of the day, that is the only way any of us will ever truly live a "happy" life. If there is any single thing I want parents to know, it's this.

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"I recommend these books to everyone concerned with children and the future of humanity." ~Peter Gray, Ph.D. If you want to see what Dr. Gray is talking about you can find Teacher Tom's First Book and Teacher Tom's Second Book right here. 

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