Maybe you have received, like me, a very exciting WhatsApp viral with a beautiful story about Thomas Edison and his mother. An anecdote that has furrowed social networks from mobile to mobile and about which we have wondered what is really and has inspired us to investigate geniuses and school. We tell you:
They say one day Thomas Edison, who was one of the greatest inventors of the century, came home and gave his mother a note. He told her."My teacher gave me this note and told me to just give it to my mother." Her mother's eyes were full of tears when she read the letter her son brought her. He read it aloud to his son:
"His son is a genius, this school is too small for him and we don't have good teachers to teach him, please teach him."
Many years later Edison's mother passed away and one day Edison was looking at some old things in the family, he saw a folded paper in the frame of a drawing on the desk. He took it and opened it. On the paper it was written "Your child is mentally ill and we cannot allow him to come to school anymore." Edison cried for hours, then he wrote in his diary: "Thomas Alva Edison was a mentally ill child, but by heroic mother he became the genius of the century."
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We do not know if the story of the note is true or not, what is true is that Thomas Edison, like other geniuses of different ages had problems at school. Thus, for example, Euler or Pascal, two of the greatest mathematicians in history were also educated by their father.
Geniuses like Leonardo da Vinci and Pablo Picasso, notable characters like Agatha Christie had serious learning problems in their childhood and it is believed that some of them had dyslexia or attention deficit problems (ADHD), which caused them to not understand what they were being explained and could not keep up with the regulated education that was given at the time in the schools.
The importance of seeing a child's potential
If all these people have something in common, apart from their excellence, it is that the system did not know how to see its genius. They were children with learning disabilities and with a way of seeing the world that was quite far from the "official" way it was taught. Many had to leave or go tumbling from one school to another until they managed to devote themselves to what they were passionate about.
Agatha Christie never learned to write well and was forced to have to dictate her novels.
For example, Agatha Christie never learned to write well and was forced to have to dictate her novels.It is clear that in many cases, the support of their parents and the effort that they made, made that child that many had already taken for granted and that society had marked as one more of the heap grew secure in itself and could develop their wonderful potential. What would have happened to our current society if Edison's mother, Pascal's father or Grahan Bell's grandfather had also given them up if they had not encouraged them to keep fighting and face adversity and their own problems?
In the different is where the change is, the progress
For millions of years, nature itself has been teaching us how what is different ends up being a new opportunity for humanity to advance. It was a difference with our ancestors that allowed us to adapt better to the environment, or that made us give a break in evolution, it was a mutation that allowed us to get out of the water. It is true that many times that difference does not imply an improvement and that many times, in nature itself, being different is a minus, a problem for one who is different, but does not necessarily have to be a threat to the rest.
Being gifted ends up being a problem for many children
We know that 80% of gifted children fail at school due to lack of support and motivation. It is not easy to recognize a gifted child at an early age, and the most common is to confuse their symptoms and hyperactivity, problems of adaptation to school and even low intelligence due to lack of interest in class activities. That is why it is very important that a child with these characteristics be detected on time and dedicated the time and resources needed to develop their potential too.
It is the same thing that has happened to many of the great geniuses of humanity, which has caused them to have been educated by their family and end up being self-taught when society does not have enough capacity to devote the necessary time and resources to This type of children or simply the world is too small for them.
Parents, that bond that keeps them united to the world
Parents are, for any child, that sure bond that makes them face the world around them, thanks to us our son will find the courage to be carried away by his curiosity and explore that world around them. For a gifted child, or with a learning problem, the bond of trust with people who love and know him is even more important, since his way of seeing life does not resemble what he will find in the rest of the Children and adults, so they need "translators" and "interpreters" of the world around them in the same way that the rest of society needs to understand their behavior.
We may feel intimidated by a gifted child or think that we will not be able to live up to it, but we must not forget that it is precisely that special brain that causes his social skills, feelings and way of expressing himself to be also very special and can become very intense, so they need more than any other children they know, those like parents and siblings who know how to see beyond that prodigious mind, who know how to translate their feelings.
The truth is that the anecdote, is the least, that the important thing is that many times many mothers and fathers have done this, on small occasions and that always, We must always trust and motivate our children. They may not be geniuses, but surely they still have many goals to achieve, our mission, to be their best fan.
