Albert Einstein Was Never Good At Math

Someone on an online discussion group I follow posted a link to this article today:

The Myth of Prodigy and Why it Matters

It's a really interesting look at how gifted children don't necessarily - and in fact aren't especially likely to - become gifted adults. From the article:

We think of precociousness as an early form of adult achievement, and, according to Gladwell, that concept is much of the problem. “What a gifted child is, in many ways, is a gifted learner. And what a gifted adult is, is a gifted doer. And those are quite separate domains of achievement.”

It's amazing to me what a relief it is to read this. I was one of those so-called "gifted" kids, reading early, participating in special classes in elementary school, excelling on the college prep track, getting 5's on AP exams, graduating valedictorian. Then I went to college and found out that even though I was smart enough, I was by no means all that and a bag of genius chips. Now that I'm in my late 30's, I've come to appreciate, most of the time, that I'm an intelligent, well-read woman who is still curious and still learning and might just surprise herself one day by actually writing that novel she feels she has in her.

But there's still that part - I was going to say "that little part," but in all honesty it's bigger than I'd like to admit - that feels like a big ole failure. What happened to all that potential? When exactly did I squander it irrevocably?

The answer, this article would say, is that I've squandered nothing. I succeeded remarkably at being a gifted kid, at learning early and well. And then I grew up, and a lot of other people caught up with me. Nothing wrong with that.

It also makes me feel better about something that I'm actually embarrased to admit I fret about on occasion... that my kids haven't yet displayed any particular intellectual precociousness, that they've not been singled out as gifted or "above average" (at the ripe old ages of 6 and 8). That they're "only" smart, funny, socially comfortable kids who do well in school, sing, dance, play sports, love to read, write and draw. Of course I worry about that, right? Because that part of me (the one that's not as little as I'd like) sees their "lack" of giftedness as a reflection on me, a confirmation of my own mediocrity.

Yeah. Embarrassing. Get over myself already.

But the part of the article that grabbed me and that gave me hope for my own future virtuousity, as well as that of my kids was this:

Really what we mean … when we say that someone is ‘naturally gifted’ is that they practice a lot, that they want to practice a lot, that they like to practice a lot.”

What a concept. To get really good at something, to be an above-average success at it, you have to like it, want to do it and... do it. Hard work, desire, and dedication are going to move you farther along the path of achievement than coasting on innate talent.

In other words, all I have to do is overcome that laziness thing, and there's no telling what I can accomplish.