I can't believe I managed to get this done on time. What a relief.
If we don't do something about this culture of celebrating mediocrity and punishing intelligence, we're going to be in a lot of trouble.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
.jpg)
48 comments:
Greetings Jai,
A very interesting and thought provoking video you have submitted. Please allow me to reflect upon what you have noted. I believe we are, in our way, all writers. Now then, I've had a number of people tell me,'I wish I could write like you, Gary'. Now, I'm very flattered by that statement, but I tell them, 'why don't you write in your own way, your own individual style?' To which they usually reply, 'I can't write'. I ask them what it is that makes them think they cannot write. At this point, they give a detailed account of why they cannot write. I then tell them to, 'write that down'.
And this 'stigma to be smart' you alluded too, Jai. My thoughts on that is, that you will encounter folks who like to suppress the talents of others to try and mask their own insecurities. Just a bit of a theory, however, like you mention, one should not be ashamed of having a brain and having intelligence. That, like many other stigmas, needs to be rectified and eliminated. As that old saying goes, 'a mind is a terrible thing to waste'.
Take care, my friend.
With respect and peaceful wishes, your way, Gary :)
Sadly, many people equate writers not just with intelligence, but being way too off-center to be comfortable. Weird. Kooky. "Artsy."
Mediocrity is safe. Being creative can be perceived as a kind of mental instability, LOL.
Loved your little character Jai. He sounds like a dream to chat with. I'm on the other side of the coin. I've met too many kids that think they are brilliant when in fact they are sadly lacking. Their parents have molly-coddled and spoiled them rotten and they have the attitude that this whole world and everyone in it owes them respect. Its laughable except its so sad. Given the choice to talk to either of these kids I'd pick yours every time. The others I just want to duff-up :)
I think you handled him very well,
Elizabeth
It's all about belonging. On the opposite side of the coin, I knew a kid who had super smart brothers and hung out with super smart people, but they treated her poorly and told her she was dumb. She was not dumb. It was tragic to watch.
PS maybe you shoud consider putting in laser guns in your next book ;)
I hear you on the problem with celebrating mediocrity. In the US, we're so proud of our status that we ignore how it's slipping through our fingers by our own doing.
Mediocrity is a problem that our culture is helping to produce. Too many of our youth is happy to watch the garbage promoted on TV rather than excel in school, or God-given gifts, or even a hobby. Our math and science scores as a nation only back this up.
Jai, I don't know the answers, but the time you took with that boy just might make the difference in his life.
You probably altered that boy's life. Seriously. It's probably the first time someone believed in him like that.
Great video,Jai. Enjoying it as much as the Mahabharat posts.
Careful, you might inspire someone to write!
Part of being a writer is seeing those things other people miss. You didn't miss him, and he didn't miss you, and that boy will never never never forget that conversation.
Good job and nicely played. Watch the movie Finding Forrester if you've never seen it, and you'll find your little boy again.
- Eric
Great vlog post!
You probably did change his life. :)
What a moving post and thanks so much for sharing it.
This is something I've also thought a lot about and it's why I do sometimes consider whether or not to homeschool. My daughter may face some bad stuff - am I protecting her and denying her the chance to struggle and fight on her own and become strong in that way, or am I endangering her needlessly? I don't know. We'll be starting kindergarten this fall, so I guess I have time to figure it out, but I'm a student of history. I've read about the fall of Rome and many other countries enough to know how to answer your question of what kind of country we are:
a dying one. We have a lot going for us, but the decay is there.
We value the ability to play [insert sports variety] over the ability to do just about anything with our minds. I'm not knocking sports - not totally. I'm knocking the over emphasis of the physical ideal and the under emphasis of the emotional, spiritual and intellectual.
I will pray that your conversation gives that boy something to cling to and take strength and hope from. When I deliberately rejected trying to fit in with those physical ideals it was obvious I could never meet and embraced everything else, I was reborn. Who knows, maybe he'll experience such a baptism as well?
I'm so glad you recounted this experience among others, Jai!
I totally agree with you about the mindset that kids have these days about considering themselves intelligent. Books and media too at times are guilty of putting ideas into kids' minds that being smart (think about the nicknames they're given: geeks and nerds) is not cool. Hope this changes and fast!
Gary, 'a mind is a terrible thing to waste' - such true words. I feel like so many minds are being wasted when they should be put to good use creating and problem solving. Thanks for your comment, mate.
Jai
Lydia, I agree that of it is a fear of being thought of as kooky and artsy and that's exactly my point. In other countries the creative artistic people are revered because they speak out when others cannot. Here it's the mediocre who speak out to silence the creative genius in others.
Jai
Elizabeth, that's exactly my point though. The kids your talking about, the ones who've been spoiled and coddled by their parents are like that because their mediocrity has been celebrated and admired. They've been told that they have every right to underperform. While those who excell are held down and undervalued and shown that they don't have a place in society.
Jai
Lynda, I leave the lazer guns to that kid. He would have done them much better justice than I could have.
That is sad that the girl was treated like she was dumb when she wasn't. That's not right. Although I'll be honest and tell you that I've seen instances of that happening in the USA much less than I've seen smart people devalued.
Jai
Theresa, I agree. I think part of the problem is that people want to continue justifying America's greatness by the things it did in it's past which is all well and good but what is it like now? What is the present generation like? That's what's going to determine the future. There's no point boosting of America's greatness and high status when most of the kids in this country don't even know enough about history to understand why those things were so great.
Jai
Stephen, the math and science scores in this country scare the heck out of me. I'm no math whiz but I studied hard and knew that it was important to study hard at it. I watch many documentaries about scientific discoveries and I read articles etc because I want to be informed about stuff and know what I'm talking about. Kids today don't even bother doing that. No wonder we have to import scientists and researchers from other countries.
And I totally agree about how the rubbish on tv discourages children from learning and applying themselves to their studies.
Jai
Diane, I don't know if it made any difference but I'm hopeful. I think about that kid all the time. He'd be a young man by now. I hope he's alright.
Jai
Brandi, I hope I wasn't the first person to ever believe in him but I suspect you're right. It breaks my heart even more. I just hope he went on to excell and damn the torpedoes.
Jai
Rachna, thanks! I know I've been lax lately. The demands on my time are stretching me thin.
Jai
Eric, I've watched Finding Forrested and loved it. That kid was brilliant.
I think of that kid all the time. He'd be a young man by now. Wonder what he's doing.
Jai
Golden Eagle, I've kept my fingers crossed for him.
Jai
Victoria, I agree with you wholeheartedly. The decay has set in and I don't know how far this is going to go but if something radical isn't done to reach the children of today, our future is doomed. I hate to be fatalist about it but without an educated youth we really don't have anything to look forward to.
I hope you figure out whether or not to homeschool your child. I don't have children but I've helped my sister raise her kids and I do believe that for all the drawbacks of the eductation system, it is still better to let the children go through it. There's no profit in teaching children that if something isn't easy they can run away from it. That's just another type of giving in.
Jai
Hema, America invented the words "geek" and "nerd" and thus became the only country in the world to make up derogatory words for smart people. Only in America is this kind of absurdity possible.
I feel so free.
Jai
Jai,
I'm sure you made a positive difference in that boy's life. What an imaginative individual he seems to be!
Lisa, he was amazing.
Jai
what kind of society, indeed, jai :(
hope you lit a fire under his butt and he decides he can write, his ideas, like you say, show the possibilities... kudos to you!
At this poing we can only hope, laughingwolf.
Jai
Great vlog, Jai - very thought provoking. My little grandson (10 years old) thinks he's useless because he can't run as fast or hit a ball as hard as his older brother. But boy can he read! And he's started writing. Recently he submitted a little story to Stone Soup. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that boy you spoke to put pen to paper. You are so right about the need to inspire our kids to use their brains.
Great vlog, but it was the message at the bottom of your post that really caught my attention. I agree, if we don't something quickly the idiots will take over! :-) Katie Price for PM?
Greetings from London.
Dorothy, it seems like the only kind of talent valued in this country is athletic talent. And why shouldn't it? It makes a lot of people a lot of money.
No one thinks about how our young athletes are being exploited and used and pushed into drug use and put under such pressure that some of them crack.
I know I don't need to tell you to encourage your grandson as much as you can. It's kids like him who'll be the future of the nation.
Jai
Cuban, you made me shudder with that last sentence. But David Cameron makes me shudder even more.
Alas, what strange times we live in!
Jai
I'd say it sounds like you definitely made a difference in that boy's life. Two of my kids are in the gifted program at school, and I'd say kids about this boy's age are probably at the age where intelligence is most seen as a stigma. I think it gets better when they're older and their peers are more mature.
Susan, I think you're right on the whole about people maturing and the stigma lessening. The problem is that those years when it is a stigma are the most formative in a young person's life. If a child doesn't take advantage of education opportunities at that age then he's shooting himself in the foot for the rest of his life. And he's shooting all the rest of us in the foot too because without educated enlightened youth our future is not a future.
Other countries around the world don't have this kind of attitude. They don't revile intelligent talented people as 'geeks' or 'nerds'. American's invented this attitude all by themselves.
Jai
Jai, I do respect (and cringe at some of the truth behind) your exploration of the wider point of whether intelligence and curiosity and creative pursuits aren't respected.
But to me, the real point is that people can still be reached, and invited to learn about expressing their inner lives, by the simple of act you performed, saying "Hey, you should be a writer" to a person who was a stranger minutes before. As others have said here, you really CAN change lives with gestures that reach across boundaries, even the simplest of gestures.
By the way, you continue to crack me up with these videos...
Tom, I agree that we can reach each other and if just one person can make a difference by encouraging someone, then think how much can be changed if we come together as a society to remedy this problem. We could turn our youth around. That's my wider point. The situation is too dire to be lazy about it, or complacent. This problem is not going to solve itself so we have to be proactive about it.
Jai
This is the very reason that I will be teaching my daughter why it is not okay to pretend to be dumb. I've seen too many youth try to act as if they were clueless.
The sad part about this is most of them are young women, and that is just thoroughly depressing. I could see why talking with him was very important. Isn't it odd how the wind blew him into your presence that day?
I think we all touch others lives much more than we think, no matter how trivial it is.
Take care, and can't wait for the next book!
Hugs!
Chrys
Oh! Oh, oh, oh! I had just written a Long response only to have a glitch when I posted it and....it's gone! Arg! So let me start over....
This is, by far, the best vlog you've posted to date Jai. How wonderful that you and that boy encountered each other just when he needed it! That's fate in action. I have a feeling that this boy will indeed become a writer and, in his first publication, he will acknowledge you for the encouragement you provided.
It is so sad to realize just how many children there are out there who feel the same way this boy does – ashamed to have any talent, much less show others they do. I work with the United Way each year to determine how much funding each agency receives, (and yes, it is as challenging as it sounds), and I’ve had the opportunity to meet many children who are just like this boy – scared to death to show anyone how smart they truly are. Either they’ve not been told “you can do it” or, (if not and), their peers talk down to them in such a way that they instinctively bury that talent so deep even they can’t reach it any longer. It is sad, but the good news is we can do something about it. Just as you have done Jai, I believe it is our responsibility – as adults, as a society, as individuals – to tell these children “You can do it!”, and to nurture their talents in such a way that they finally accept that it is okay to be smart, that they don’t have to be ashamed of their intelligence. We need only keep preaching it – “You can do it!”
Thank you so much for a wonderfully thought-provoking post Jai!
Chrystal, that's very true that this is a particular problem with girls because for many of them, they think being dumb makes them prettier. God knows where they got that notion *cough* TV *cough* but it's not acceptable.
I'm sure that you're going to teach your daughter very well. She's got two intelligent parents to show her the way and that's the best start any child can have.
Jai
Deanna, what a difficult and important job you have. I can just imagine the kind of situations you see everyday that simultaneous break your heart and fill you with hope. Thank you for the work you do. It's so crucial to our society.
Jai
and here I thought we were already in trouble with a capital T
Paige, it's so much worse than you thought.
Jai
Jai, I thought of you and this vlog yesterday.
We went to a family reunion, which was such great fun, and I encountered this same experience - with my cousin! He's around 7 years old and I've only seen him maybe ten times in his life, (I'm sorry to say), he's my first cousin's son. Anyway, I had gotten a sketchpad and colored pencils from my car so that my son and I could draw the very scenic mountains surrounding my uncle's property. Soon, several of the younger kids surrounded us, asking if they could draw too. So I happily sat them in a circle and took a sheet of paper from the sketchpad for each child. When Isaac, the 7 year old said "I can't draw," I immediately thought of this vlog. Naturally I said, "Sure you can!" and tried to hand him a piece of paper. He wouldn't take it! He actually hung his head and insisted he wasn't good enough to draw. Oh! I can't tell you how much this broke my heart, knowing that this very thing is happening in my own family. And my cousin, (Isaac's mom), is a great woman, she loves her kids - I just couldn't imagine that she would never encourage him to express his creativity. To make a long story short, it took some time but I finally got him to take the paper and draw and, get this, his drawing was the best of all the kids, (of course I didn't say that). By the time we gathered the pencils and their drawings he was smiling. I asked him, "Isaac, the next time someone asks if you can draw, what do you say?" He looked at me confusedly so I asked again. Still, no answer, so I told him, "When someone asks if you can draw, you say 'yes, I can!'. I was happy to see that made him smile.
Sorry to take up so much space here, but I just had to share that with you.
Wow, what a great story, Deanna. Love it. He'll probably always consider you a mentor now. ;D
Victoria, I only hope he remembers that he can do whatever he sets his mind to do. Thanks for reading, and thank you Jai, for letting me hijack your post. :)
Deanna, I'm thrilled to have inspired a deeper thought process here and I'm so glad that you took the time to help your little cousin and make him believe in himself. I agree with Victoria that he'll see you as a mentor from now on.
Jai
Post a Comment