5/29/2007 Genius, I

5/29/2007 Genius, I

When I was younger, I used to get good grades. One of the things that set me apart is that I did so without studying. I never did my homework, never read the text. But I aced every test.

That made things interesting. Some of my teachers hated me. My science teacher told me straight to my face he hated me. “It's so obvious you're the smartest student in this class and yet you won't put forth an ounce of effort.” He was right. But, I would add, there was little incentive to do so. Sometimes it was downright funny. One of my English teachers read off two grades one year; the homework grade and the test average. My homework grade was 8 out of 100. My test average was 98. Since homework was 25% of the final grade, it was going to be a -C-. My eighth grade French teacher tried shouting at me for like ten minutes in the middle of class. That was funny since I never said anything in class, so it came out of nowhere. I was just sitting there and then she's screaming at me. That one even had popular jock types who normally disdained me patting me on the back and telling me, 'She's a psycho.” Of course, I made it a point not to do any of the next two assignments, just to let her know that I won't be manipulated.

But it was no mystery to me how I could get those grades without doing homework. I didn't have any friends in school (you can imagine how relieved I was) and therefore had no reason to ever be late for class. Nor did I ever have a reason not to pay attention during class. I do attribute it to good genetics that I understood everything as it was being explained and never had to ask questions. (That actually can make it hard to pay attention as the teacher tends to try to explain everything three or four times.) But I didn't need to do the homework.

One day, when I was very young and still had friends, there was a teacher who overheard me talking to two other kids. They were making fun of me because I never did my homework. When the teacher overheard this, he asked me for a meeting a week later. He talked with some of my teachers and then we met. I was nervous because, well, I was not above mischief. Mostly dumb kid stuff like throwing rocks at buses, taking trash bags from the dumpster and throwing them on the roof, or throwing books out the window during class when the teacher wasn't looking. But the meeting wasn't about that. He offered to put me into an after school group for gifted students. Usually such an honor was handed out according to grades. But this teacher had determined that I was not being challenged (no kidding) and this might help. I asked him what I would be doing after school, and he said basically school assignments that were more challenging and mostly from the fields of math and science. Math and science? I hate both subjects. Why would I want to do that? He said well, if you don't want to be challenged...this guy's way of calling me chicken. I turned him down. Now I wish I could have recalled his name, because I think he deserves recognition. I think I heard he got fired over some controversy, relations with a student or something nefarious like that. I wish I could give him credit for taking an interest in me that he didn't have to take. Most of my teachers just resented me.

But that brings me to the final subject for today. What is the difference between genius and passion? If you know something about something, chances are you put in the time to learn about it. But what do teachers do? So they tell you to pursue your passions? No. If you tell them you want to be a baseball player, do they tell you to pursue it with everything you got? No, they tell you to study your math because that's what you'll be doing when you stop dreaming. They are there to crush your spirit more than anything. I wanted to be an artist. Put me in an after school program for painters, that I would have signed up for. But in school today, it's just math and science, math and science. That's what the corporations need, that's where they put you.

When I was in a therapy group, I met two people with master's degrees. One was working as a data analyst for like $16 an hour and hated her job. The other didn't hate her job much, but enough to go back to school to switch career paths. Neither made enough to live on their own. Listen to me: a degree doesn't mean shit. It's job training now, it's not what the Greeks had conceived of; a citizen who was educated enough to be a leader and work for the betterment of humanity. Today education is about taking the financial burden of training off of the corporations. Every person that walks down that graduation isle does so specifically so that the employers can offer less money. The reason people who have degrees make more than people who don't is that many of the people who have degrees also have the ambition, greed, and creativity to constantly be developing new streams of income. They are the ones that don't settle for an ordinary life. They don't want to just get a degree and then get married and work nine to five in a job they hate and then go home and watch football. They are the ones that throw the numbers off. If you think that you're gonna get your degree and then relax because you're set for life, you might as well drop out and start working now. Your degree will not do shit for you.

I believe I heard this one from Anthony Robbins: if you're not living your own dream, you're living someone else's. Grammar not perfect, but the point gets across. I think most kids go to school out of fear. School chews you up and spits you out. Where is there room for genius in all of this? There isn't. Are we all geniuses, and then settle for less out of fear? Fear that we'll make a mistake? Fear that we'll be called arrogant? A degree is usually about fear, isn't it? Fear of working at pumping gas the rest of your life. A degree is proof, an affirmation from society that you are worthy. But of what? I think you could write “conformist” under every degree. “I need this piece of paper to prove I am a smart person.” I need this degree to prove I can't think for myself, that I do what I am told. Where are the geniuses today? Are they recognized as such, or are they called arrogant? Are they playing guitars in coffee shops, singing songs no one understands? Are they sidewalk prophets? Politicians? Are they sitting at their chairs, trying to sit up straight, typing out a blog entry?

Doubtful...