Not working to your potential. How often have many gifted adults encountered that phrase in their life? How often do gifted adults say that to themselves? I think the problem with that phrase is how ‘working to your potential’ or ‘living up to your potential’ is generally understood in narrow terms. As a child it means getting exceptional grades. As an adult it means earning a lot of money and/or eminence in your profession.
I came across a very interesting article about gifted children written by Nicholas Colangelo called Counseling Gifted and Talented Students. I thought it was interesting a number of levels – as a parent of gifted children, that I was once a gifted child and that some of the information can also be extrapolated and applied to gifted adults. However, the article included the following quote:
“Gifted students are vulnerable to underachievement, defined as school attainment considerably below ability level (Neihart et al., 2002). The outcome of underachievement is always the same—performance below expectation.”
‘Performance below expectation’ – who’s expectation? And how do we understand ‘performance’? Obviously, we’re talking about grades. I don’t deny that grades are one way in which we understand school performance but the inordinate focus on it often means that grades are the only measure of achievement, at the potential expense of enjoyment of the process of learning, confidence and self-worth and learning itself. This hit close to home as I have been spending a lot of time on school work with two out of the three children in my home. When I suggest to them that school is not just about writing a test but actually understanding the work, both of them look at me like I am from another planet because what I am saying completely contradicts the message they receive in school. Where I live there is a provincial standardized test that is administered in certain grades to gauge skill level. The teachers and school’s are evaluated on how the children perform on this test (though individual children are not) and it is my perception that when my children are in the grades where the test is administered, the teachers spend the year teaching towards this test. When I suggest that they think about the work rather than simply memorize, I am contradicting the message the children receive from their school. According to the school system, children are achieving when they memorize – challenging and thinking is not part of the equation.
When I was in university I majored in political science. I started with a focus in International Relations but the exams were pure regurgitation. So I switched my focus to political philosophy which was extremely challenging. Many of my peers avoided political philosophy because they intended to go to law school and it was recognized that getting an ‘A’ regurgitating was easier than receiving an ‘A’ in a discipline that did not rely on rote memorization. Using conventional criteria, my slightly lower grade point average as result of the switching academic focus could be perceived as underachievement but I do not feel that way. On the other hand, I did not take research methods in university because I was afraid I would not get the mark I wanted due to my math skills, which are not as strong as my language skills (OK, yes, the class was also first thing in the morning). In retrospect, I look at my lack of trying as underachievement, regardless of the mark I might have received. (By the way, I did go back to university later and took several statistical methods courses).
If we tend to understand achievement in school as synonymous with grades, similarly, the path to work success, as defined by earning a lot of money and professional eminence. But many conventional paths to ‘achieving’ will not also meet a gifted adult’s cognitive needs and/or may not be aligned with an individual’s personal idea of success I know a man who chose not to become a medical doctor because he didn’t think it would meet his cognitive needs. He perceived medical diagnosis as akin to cooking from a cookbook. Instead he pursued a career in biogenetic research and he is personally challenged and has also received significant recognition in his field. However, had he followed his parents’ advice regarding professional success and he may have also been perceived as being successful as a medical doctor but I doubt he would have been as personally satisfied or as professionally successful. Ironically, he is an extremely modest man and does not think his extraordinary intellect is particularly unusual or noteworthy.
It’s my belief that the standard definition of ’success’ – external validation and material gain rarely, if ever, feels like achievement whether your gifted or not, unless it’s also aligned with what matters to you personally. It is very possible to earn money without using one’s intellect. In fact there are many well compensated jobs where thinking too much is a detriment rather than as asset. I’m not suggesting that doing well in school or earning a lot of money or achieving professional eminence is antithetical to being gifted but I am suggesting that it’s unlikely to be an end in itself. It strikes me that people generally, gifted people particularly would be better off pursuing their own personal understanding of achievement and limit the distraction of traditional messages of what achievement looks like.
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After all, what profit a man to make $300,000 a year but hate himself and not get to do cool stuff? (Well, I took a few liberties with the saying, but you get the idea.) Money (though it’s certainly good for paying the bills) isn’t everything.