When I was a kid I knew I was a big fish in a small pond. My immediate environment did very little to challenge my innate capacity. In fact, no one had any real idea of my true capacity. Nobody ever really thought to check, or knew how to check, or had the time and resources to check. It lay there, dormant and, to some extent, atrophying.
I have a high IQ, and that meant I noticed the contrast between who I could be and who I was permitted to be more keenly than some others. But that’s not the kind of potential I’m talking about. Almost every child is a big fish in a small pond, because our ponds are shallow and paltry. In fact, my ability to score well on a test got me special extensions built on my pond, and it was still woefully constricting.
The spellbinding truth is we all have unfathomable human potential. We are, as a collective, a kadeidoscope of wondrous, talent-filled possibilities. And it’s sinful how much that goes to waste because we’re never given the support or space to explore it. Take us to the sea!
It scares me, sometimes, to think about all the ways school will inevitably fail my son as he grows. And the alternative – to keep him out of school and take on that responsibility and inevitable failure myself – terrifies me too. And that’s just one kid.
I have no answers here, just many troubling questions.