LOL = Love Of Learning: Helping Gifted Children Succeed

Our school needs to figure out how to celebrate each child's abilities--at every level.

Oh, they talk a good game about differentiation in the classroom. But when it comes to day-to-day instruction, reality is far removed from this ideal. True, children struggling to keep up with grade-level materials are given extra help to even out the classroom ability level. But children who are well beyond grade-level materials are forced to suffer through "reinforcement" instruction, no matter how boring, in order to maintain status quo.

It's been my experience that students forced to stay with the group when they are well beyond the material let their grades slip. This may sound backward--how can a bright student fail a course they could run circles around? But let me ask you this: Have you ever had to sit through a meeting or a talk that centered around subjects you knew well, perhaps even better than the speaker? Were you bored to pieces? What did you do? Doodle in your notebook and make it look like you were taking notes? Did you text your best friend under the table about the snore-worthy performance at hand? Did you give a damn about any of it? I'm willing to bet you mentally checked out. I would. I did.

When I was high school, I wanted to take a theater arts class. But the timing conflicted with the advanced history class I was slated to take. So I took theater arts and signed up for the remedial history class that fit my schedule, instead. After two months, I was so bored I stopped taking notes. I stopped paying attention. I wrote poetry instead. And I started failing my exams.

Thankfully, I had a teacher who paid attention and called me on the carpet. You're too smart to fail this class, he said, so what's really going on, here?

Instead of admonishment, he gave me responsibilities. I was to help him grade exams and keep his record book up-to-date. He gave me a research project and discussed details of each day's lectures with me after class. And guess what? I started asking questions in class again--the kinds of questions that made the other students turn around to stare at me. But I didn't care any more. I'd tuned back in to KLOL, "Love Of Learning Radio".

It sounds stupid, but I'm watching it happen, even now. At mid-semester, my first-grade daughter's behavior marks started to drop. She's not being "a good listener" and her "citizenship" needs improvement. She tells me she lays on the floor during morning circle time, when the children gather for the beginning of the day's instruction. I ask her about the high points and low points of her day and they almost always involve recess.

Before she even started Kindergarten, I met with her principal to discuss how the school's philosophy and academic planning would help my child to succeed--and what we could do, as parents, to partner with her teachers. "We can't keep her from getting bored," he said. (Yes, that was a direct quote.) Can't keep her from getting bored? Then why are we here?

No, we can't afford a school like Nueva, where Kindergarten costs $24K. Even if I could send her there, I'd still object to the elitism that implies. Only the rich smart kids get help? Hm. Besides, we thought the Palo Alto School District, which is lauded by more than just local parents, would have the high-quality teachers who would know how to help our daughter. Surely they've dealt with children like ours, before. Surely they'd have a plan in place to help. GATE programs were on the books, which we were excited about. But in reality, these don't start until 4th grade. We have to hope her love of learning isn't crushed before then.

Honestly, I went through some of the same things. My parents had me tested before I'd even started school. And Hemlock Elementary in Vacaville, California was willing to work out a deal. My reading was the most accelerated part of my learning, so they pulled me out each day during reading time and put me with the highest reading group of the next grade up. I was analyzing Madline L'Engle's "A Wind In The Door" in third grade. And it made all the difference in the world.

I understand the need to keep children from becoming stigmatized or having their egos overly-inflated by "special" treatment. But won't they become more so by staying in the classroom with their peers, who copy off of their papers and worry that they're not good readers because one classmate is powering past them like a blur? Will the advanced math student get so bored with simple addition and subtraction that he starts acting out to call attention to his boredom and try to change a situation that he otherwise has no control over?

These are not just rhetorical questions. I've been that advanced kid. In secondary school, I was surrounded by others like me in some of my classes--and many of us had dealt with the same social and academic pressures growing up. I had a soul-crushing experience with a pissed-off girl in a Junior High math class who was under the impression I thought she was stupid (I didn't), and ostracized me because of it. The worst part was, I really admired the girl.

Don't get me wrong. I think it's important for children to learn how to work in groups of mixed abilities. When they have the emotional maturity to understand why it's important. But to do so day in and day out, with no hope of mentally flying free is frustrating. I fear my child, and other children like her, will end up using their intellects in destructive ways just to exercise them, or turn to other, physically-damaging escapes. These bright children have the capacity to do amazing things in and for this world. To say that they are doing so well we don't need to worry about them is doing them--and ourselves--a disservice.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and share what may be an unpopular opinion. I believe children who are academically gifted are special needs children, just as fully as students traditionally identified as such. Their needs are different. But in both cases, we ignore them at our peril.

Learning To Love You, Again and Again

When we are searching, the search is everything. Desperation, drama, adrenaline, trying to fill that empty brain place with hormones programmed to satisfy the want.

When we find, we explore, we exchange, we dance in ecstatic discovery. We wallow in the rush of lust and slide slickly.

And then...we learn something we didn't want to know. We find a handprint on the window. All we see is the smudge, while the view blurs behind.

Anger, hurt, confusion--betrayal. Why didn't I see that blemish before? How stupid I was! The anger turns outward to save the inside from feeling. Drop it and let it roll--I don't care! I don't care where it lands.

When it all changes, we shut down. We cry. We ignore. We move on in our hearts, whether our bodies stay or not.

The world moves in its course, magnetic north shifts--maybe reverses completely--and we find ourselves in a place unrecognizable. No, wait. I know this place. It is, essentially, where it all began. Because I am searching again.

The cycle repeats and repeats and repeats. The common denominator? It is me.

And one day I decide to stop and fight. I will NOT let that smudge distract me. That is MY life outside that window and I no longer want to bother with prints and bugs and scratches. I wipe. It smears. I shout. Shut me out? No more!

Pulling and pushing yield nothing. Locked. My fist through the glass? Pain. A chair thrown? Broken chair. That is not how I want to get out there. But I won't sit on the chair and wait. That smudge is in the way. I pace, I explore the perimeter, I plan. I growl in frustration. Head in hands, hair in fists. Wild eyes look to the ceiling for inspiration.

...slide...down...to the latch.

Slowly standing, I flick the lever upward with a quick finger and a click that echoes. A light touch, pressing away, and the glass slides aside in one smooth motion. It was that easy?

Wasted time!

No...not all. I learned that I can fight. That I can enter on my own terms and glow in the garden of a life I choose to participate in. Love was never lost--it turned chrysalis while I wriggled around inside. And when I emerged into the light, it was waiting for me.

I don't need to search. You waited. And I am here, not new, but renewed. How will you choose to enter and greet me?

Find me. I am yours. I always was. And I do need you. I had forgotten, closed in for so long. Have you?

Open with me. Let our colors comingle.

And I will learn to love you again.

Living At The Speed Of Light

We interrupt this program for a brief, important mind bender....

Here we gooooo.....!

Jumping. Mentally and bodily. Metaphysically, spiritually, philosophically. Present to past to future. Sideways to an alternate present along the same world lines. Diagonally to an other-worldly present. Sliding along the z-axis. Discovering a new axis--the hidden dimension.

And still, as my body turns to energy, silently exploding every molecule as I become bright and unreal, still some semblance, some of the essence of me is maintained and, at some distant point, reforms as matter once again. How is it I can remain the me that is the essence of my mental and emotional configuration?

I ask you to consider what dies when your "life" is over. Your body is still made up of essentially the same amount of matter at the moment of your death as it was in the moments before. But the electrodes the emergency crew pasted to your heart and brain are no longer registering an energy signal. The energy that resides in you, the energy fueled by the chemical reactions of eating and breathing, conducted by the water coursing through your cells, has been released. Where does it go? Now there's a more pertinent question.

And if it is energy that makes you alive, then wouldn't all of the matter in your body turning into pure energy make you even more alive? Turn you into a god?

Perhaps gods ride the energy waves that pass through space, electromagnetic radiation constantly on the move, bent only to the will of deep gravity wells, black holes. Ahhh. Perhaps THAT is hell. Enter, the w-axis!

E = mc2. If matter accelerated to the speed of light becomes pure energy, would pure energy slowed to the speed of molecular vibrations become matter once again? And what form does that matter take? Does the slowing energy decide for itself? The angel Maroni--from blinding light to anthropogenesis. Zeus in the form of a swan or a golden shower. Shiva and Krishna and the many forms of the Hindu "pantheon". Fairies and djinn and bunyips. An immaculate conception. The crazy diversity of religious, mythic, and fairytale forms from every culture. All of them energy, once—light that learned to slow itself down and Become.

And if that god-like energy decides to travel away from Earth, what does it become in other places? Are the forms taken limited by the physical environment in which they find themselves? Do they become bacteria under the ice on Mars? Minerals on a comet? Solar flares and sunspots? Dust and dark matter?

How does matter accelerate to the speed of light? And, more intriguingly, how does it slow down, again?

Pressing the brakes.

This is why I love geography. It is a subject that draws from every other field and looks at the world as a whole, from a spatial perspective. It is a holistic subject, by nature. And it has made me look at the interconnectedness of everything in ways I might not otherwise have considered. The philosophical underpinnings of science. The scientific basis for religion. The religious nature of household plumbing. It all fits together.

In a similar way, so do we. You and your body, me and mine. You and I. After all, you’re here now, aren’t you? Sharing the interlocking pieces of life with me as I write and you read. For that, I send my thanks across the ether. Step into the sunlight and catch the vibe.

Ah, here we are. Pulling into the station. Please keep all appendages inside until the ride has come to a full and complete stop.

Thank you for riding, Lighties and Glowingmen.

And now, back to your regularly-scheduled program...

MA

The Japanese have a word
for the space between
ma
holds together
moment and moment
Emptiness
is as full as the pieces
pinning its ends
Each step on the path
is planned
to set your eye
here or there
as you move through
The grace
of each footfall
happens where
the stones are carefully placed
In the space between souls
ma
remains
as full as the emptiness
can make her

The Soloist: Channeling The Soul Of A Writer

There is a small group of people who shadow the streets of downtown Palo Alto. On Sunday mornings, one shuffles mind-numbingly slowly past the diner I've just left. Teeth missing, clothes clean but ill-fitting, he babbles in a barely-audible voice. I pass a woman who meekly asks for spare change, her wrinkled and flabby arm outstretched, styrofoam coffee cup held half-heartedly in her hand. I'm fairly certain they live in a nearby building. All of them seem to be suffering from one mental illness or another. Who are they? How did they get here? I often wonder. And, Am I really helping if I give them what they ask for?

I hadn't asked myself these questions in nearly a year, since the economy tanked and we stopped going out to eat on Sunday mornings. Now, I had begun to think about them in a whole new way.

***

With nervous breath, I approached the petite, graceful woman at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center to ask after the tickets being held in my name. It was a little late to worry that I'd forgotten to wear any jewelry or make-up. I hoped against hope that I wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb amongst the assembled cinemarati.

The theater was still largely empty. At the front were two chairs, off to the side, set there in anticipation of the Q&A after the film. It was like being at Sundance all over again. And Joe Wright, Director of Atonement and Pride and Prejudice, was in the building.

So I sat in the front row.

Because the Rafael Theater is one of only a handful of its kind operating as a not-for-profit, the theater directors often solicit donations from media companies in order to keep this lovely, down-town San Rafael treasure functioning in first-class fashion. Now in its tenth year of operation, the Rafael has hosted many special screenings and events like the one I was attending this evening. My darling friend Tammy Lelie works for TV5, a French TV station in Los Angeles, one of the media companies the Rafael targets. Tammy wasn't able to make it up to the Bay Area on a Monday night, so she RSVP'd in my name. Only, I was in no position to promise anyone anything. I'm just a lowly writer.

I was there to see The Soloist.

My brother, Mac, slid into the seat next to me. A handsome and gifted musician with an insight I've always trusted when it comes to the world of sound, he had his own reasons for wanting to be here. I grinned over at him. At least one of us looked like a movie star.

Joe Wright stepped onto the stage to explain the film, a few feet from where we sat.

For those of you who know nothing about the movie's subject, you'd do well to visit Steve Lopez's website. The man is a penetratingly inspired writer, an L.A. Times human-interest columnist and the author of the book on which the film is based. (Even better, buy the book.) On the face of it, the movie is about one homeless, schizophrenic musical genius--Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, brilliantly played by Oscar winner Jamie Foxx. Channeling Beethoven with his two-stringed violin to the accompaniment of the street sounds of Los Angeles, Ayers entrances Mr. Lopez (intimately portrayed by Robert Downey, Jr.), who ultimately befriends and tries to help him.

If you want more details or insight, you'll have to hang on. There will soon be countless reviews by experienced film critics and analysts. I am neither of those. I'm not here to tell you that the film was touching and inspiring, engaging and informative, well worth your precious time and money. (It is.) I was there to support Mr. Downey, a fellow Wing Chun student. I wanted to see him channel a writer's soul.

Though there are many layers to the story, it was the writer's journey that touched me, most. I've struggled for a lifetime with my own writing and found that the creative process of wordcraft is not a subject generally treated with any kind of realism or depth in movies. The booming assumption that the movie-goer is looking for pictures, for action, has drowned out the written experience within the medium. Yet Mr. Lopez and Oscar-winning screenwriter, Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich), manage to convey the sense of dialogue between writer and readers that Lopez reaches for in his column pieces.

It was easy to become drawn into his life--its loneliness, its humor, and its drive. And drawn into his search for the universal truths that the best writers, front-page or obscure, humble or self-obsessed, may eventually discover. While the written word can become a conduit into the human soul, sometimes it takes actors like Mr. Downey to bring them to life, give them sonorous wings, emote them and make them as real as L.A. traffic. Yet, it is the words within the script that are the genetic material from which the story springs.

Tell the world and they will listen, Lopez says. Ask, and they will respond. We are each of us desperate for connection, for exchange. As folk societies give way to popular culture, we invent ways to create new communities, even as the old ones crumble around us. We feel a sense of belonging, of purpose, of gratification, when we know that we've helped one another. Lopez himself finds a renewal of purpose in the emotional journey into Ayer's life, fueled by the love/hate relationship between he and his ever-present estranged wife and Editor, played with well-seasoned tenderness by Catherine Keener. (Many liberties were taken with this particular character, in the name of both story arc and privacy. The real Mrs. Lopez was not his boss, nor were they ever estranged, as far as I was able to discover.)

Imagery of Los Angeles from a distance punctuated the film. Such scenery usually pulls me out of the moment, as it generally serves up a feeling of alienation and anonymity. In this particular case, however, the pull-backs were done in such a way that I felt the interconnectedness of every element of the city, from a single pigeon to the interwoven tapestry of streets and highways and the buildings set between them. The form and function of a complex whole, the sprawled body of the city, relies on each person like my own body relies on its cells to survive.

As writers, we often wonder, Who is out there? Are they hearing me? Am I merely keeping myself occupied, putting food on the table? Or am I making a substantive difference? Having only just begun my public entry back into the written medium, I felt relief to know that words can indeed form connections like those Mr. Lopez has made between people who will likely never meet outside of his column. With hard work and a dose of courage, I can only hope that someday I will make that same sort of difference.

Lopez's journey begins amidst the backdrop of layoffs at the L.A. Times. At the end-of-film Q&A, one audience member asked the Director whether he decried the demise of print media that made such layoffs necessary. Mr. Wright responded that print could never completely disappear, but he "fear[ed] that less and less money will be spent on investigative reporters...searching the darker corners and not coming up with anything for years and years--until they discover Watergate."

I believe very deeply in the need for pioneers of all sorts. I am not brave. I am not willing to risk much when it comes to bodily safety. And I know I'm not alone. I need people like Steve Lopez in my life, people who can explore the cracks and shadowed corners of the world and come back with treasures to share. Stories of the human spirit, faded but glittering, magical in their uniqueness, and redemptive in their sharing.

Ultimately, the message is that each of us is our own person, no matter how flawed. I'm sorry. Did you hear that? Let me repeat: No matter how flawed.

Lopez eventually discovers what Ayers and many of the authentic cast themselves deeply understand: that no one has the right, nor, I daresay, the ability to change another. It must come from within--or not at all. The dignity and humanity of each and every human being, regardless of their mental state, is inalienable. The best we can do is foster the good in one another and be there for whatever lies in store.

In the filmmaking tradition of British Realism, well established in places like India, Mr. Wright drew twenty cast members from the Lamp Community facility that is shown in the film. All diagnosed with mental illness, "The Lamp Chorus", as Wright referred to them, spent four months in workshops before rehearsals began and worked closely with both principal actors and the Director throughout the film. Wright commented on the many misconceptions surrounding mental illness and homelessness, especially amongst the lawyers involved in the project. They generally felt, according to Wright, "that mental illness equals mental stupidity." And yet, he said, "These people understood better than the lawyers what sort of film we were making." One person apparently went so far as to claim that the Lamp Chorus members should be replaced with professional actors because "it was morally reprehensible to reward these people for the choices they had made."

As a body, the audience gasped at such a comment. Yet I wondered how far many of them would carry their new understanding after the film was over. How will I see those same people wandering town on Sunday mornings? How will the practical application of this new insight take shape?

Mr. Wright discussed at length his concern over the general agreement that medication will "cure" the mentally ill, without the understanding of what those medications do and how they alter not just one's state of mind, but one's entire personality. In one scene, a member of the Lamp Chorus explains in her own words why she wrestles with taking the Lithium prescribed to her. It takes away the voices in her head, she says--voices that comfort her and help her feel safe. As Lopez tries to find a way to put Ayers on medication that he feels would help his friend, he slowly comes to realize that medications aren't the only, or even the right, answer. While I personally do believe that medications are warranted in some cases, there needs to be a more realistic assessment of every individual. For Mr. Ayers, there is no cure--only a dignified acceptance of who he is.

Foxx's portrayal of Ayers is absorbing and humanizing, all the more so because he spent time both clandestinely observing and conversing face-to-face with the real Mr. Ayers, who often played throughout the day on the streets of Los Angeles, not far from where filming was taking place. Jamie Foxx has a strong classical training in piano, and is himself a gifted musical performer--learning to play the cello for The Soloist was not a difficult a stretch. He also claims to have had a childhood fear of mental illness, exacerbated by a college prank in which someone apparently slipped him a drug that caused him to believe he had indeed gone mad. The experience has enabled him to deeply tap into some of the same feelings and fears Ayers nearly drowns in.

Joe Wright's next film, Indian Summer, begins production next January. It's subject matter? The partition of India and Pakistan. Just a fluff piece, he jokes, at the audience's audible reaction. "I was wanting to learn something."

I stepped out of the Aroma coffee shop next door to the Rafael, still affected by the images and events of The Soloist. I was thinking about that man on the streets of Palo Alto. It's not my job to fix him. But it is my responsibility to respect him. He is as worthy as any of us. And he doesn't need a musical instrument to prove it.

We forget, sometimes, that it's okay to be ourselves. The rest of the world be damned. Write the words or play the cello or run the race that is yours to run. The world will catch on when its ready.

Note: All rights to the photo above are reserved by their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.

This is an original post. When she isn't following Steve Lopez on Twitter, Angela also writes for the Silicon Valley Mom's Blog, Basic Training To Black Sash: A Mother's Wing Chun Journey, and her Twitter followers.

Filling In The Blanks

Staring at a blank page.

My nemesis.

It began in high school, having to write using someone else's pattern. Every English teacher wanted something different and it took 3/4 of the semester to figure out exactly how to please them. Or maybe it was the history teacher who misunderstood me to the point I grew to hate him and flat-out refused to write. I'd rather take the F, I told him. I can't give you what you want from me. I don't know how.

But there was one teacher...really only one...who DID understand. Who listened to the valedictorian describe his recurrent nightmare of taking a test he knew nothing about. And she didn't laugh. Who nodded and let us get it all out when we told her what it was like to be smart, to have so much expectation piled upon us that we were literally paralyzed by the fear of failure. Of disappointing our parents. Of having our teachers write, one more time, "You're not living up to your potential." Of being teased or hated--or worse--because the other kids, and even some of the adults, had no idea what we were saying when we pulled out our mental thesauri to find the RIGHT word instead of, "Like, you know."

Some of us tried not to care. We turned it inward like the spikes of an iron maiden. Or we acted as different as they seemed to see us, trying to express ourselves in creative ways, with hair dyes or wild clothes, or acting out...because they certainly wouldn't listen to what we really wanted to say. They had their own problems. We knew they were struggling, too, but we still couldn't understand why they lashed out at us or ignored us or dismissed us as useless, ugly, complete enigmas. Were we really that strange? Maybe we were.

What we couldn't see then, and perhaps some of us still struggle with now, is that we allowed ourselves to see what they saw--and sometimes we believed them. Like the ghost image burnt into a computer screen left too long on a single page, even a single word could follow us for years. Become part of who we were. Are.

An extra finger getting in the way of my writing. After a while of trying to figure out how to get around it while I type, I give up.

That blank page again.

Or is it the finger that I'm staring at?

Wait. Why get around it at all? Make it type that exclamation point I can never seem to reach with my pinkie without looking. Make it hold my key ring while I dig for change with thumb and forefinger. Make it hold that strand that always gets away when I try to braid my daughter's hair. Even the worst thing said can become the best weapon against our own ennui, our stagnating fears, our nemeses. The art of embracing my past. Pitting my opponent against himself--or me against myself.

The blank page is just a blank page. I seem determined to fill it with nothing. I suppose it was me all along.

Mrs. Huenink said to write. Just write. Stop thinking, get it out, set it free. There will be time to operate on that hand, later. For now, it is a part of you. USE IT.

Not so blank any more, is it, Angela?

My God. Where did all of these words come from...?

ON THE SPOT

my children eat paste and playdough
in their happy corner
while i struggle to keep from eating shit

instead listening to avoid
as a smoke-filled voice in my ears some nights
sends me looking inward
his music so familiar after hundreds of plays
i long to ask the deeper whys of composition
he's as close as hours
as distant as century's turn
the lead elbow of queries pinned
neatly tied with a white sash

the children are sleeping, now
sweating in their dreams
the peace i've ached for all day
and i can barely keep from nuzzling them awake with kisses
as i wander back from the bathroom

this wooden chair threatens
to grow roots
and draws me back
dimming the screen and swaying
heavy-lidded
until the moments blend
and darkness can no longer be held at bay
by podcasts and YouTube
distraction upon distraction disrupting
this inner life

a life that could surely use a taste of paste
maybe once
in a while