Perhaps we should stop trying to put square pegs in round holes. Both parents and teachers feel very frustrated by intelligent students who do not perform in school. They assume that the kids are just plain lazy or that the school personnel are not trying hard enough. We label these students gifted underachievers. Instead of everyone casting blame, perhaps we should look at this dilemma in a different way.

I recently ran into the former teacher of one such student. Ms. Dignan said that Thomas was obviously very smart and a nice boy, but was not a producer.

 

Thomas is now in his early 30s, very much a producer, and very successful at his job. Ms. Dignan was right—Thomas was and still is very smart. But I don’t think he had problems because he was lazy or because school personnel were not trying. I think it was because he has a style of learning that cannot be readily taught. He was, and still is, extremely visual-spatial and learns through experimentation. (I tried to find a good link to explain visual-spatial learners, but every Web site I found placed people in neat little boxes again. I find that neat little boxes are only useful in theory and close off our minds too much.)

 

I had a conversation with Thomas last week. He said that the way he learns is so visually oriented that he is not able to explain to others how his mind works. Though he is a happy and content person now, it is obvious that this used to trouble him, and he has given all of this a great deal of thought over the years. In fact, that’s one of his real strengths. He is able to analyze situations very thoroughly (both at work and in his personal life) and problem solve more effectively than most.

 

Rather than beat our heads against the wall trying to fit this type of student into a system that we feel is necessary for life, we should consider alternatives. What is the young person interested in, academic or nonacademic? There are many valuable careers that do not use traditionally academic subjects. As a young person, Thomas’s interests were in computers, film (both watching and making), and individual sports. He loved it when his parents read to him, but he did not enjoy reading himself unless it was fantasy. He learned to play the guitar and did quite well with it. He seemed to be born knowing how to draw well and combined this with a well-developed sense of humor to create cartoons. He enjoyed being with peers who were deep thinkers, often because they admired his strong creativity.

 

Foster and value the interests of the young person even if you can’t see down what productive path these may lead. Explore together career possibilities that might use these strengths.

 

Thomas was a disaster in school. He rebelled strongly against authority and resented people trying to fit him into the traditional mold. His parents feared that he would never finish high school. However, he did finish and also spent a few years in and out of college. He wandered around in jobs trying to find something that would fit his interests. Finally, in his mid-20s, he landed on just that. He got back into computers in a way that could use his very developed visual-spatial sense and excellent problem solving ability. He presently works for a small company that builds and maintains computer systems. He has a great deal of responsibility, and loves being in charge. He thrives on complex problems much as a lawyer would welcome the challenge of a court scene. He makes a good salary, has lots of friends, and is a very caring person.

 

In “the real world” (a term I really dislike), Thomas is hardly an underachiever. In fact, he has achieved far more than many of his classmates who were excellent students. But Thomas is pretty much self-taught. In fact, looking back on the situation, there is probably no way that anyone could have taught him. His mind does just not respond to traditional school. He used to be a square peg who everyone was trying to fit into a round hole. If the adults in his life had just allowed him to be the square peg, life may have been a little easier as he was growing up.