Yes but I would add that the caveat to my ability is that I not only teach but have focused on learning how to teach people and therefore gone much deeper into cognitive strategies (what people are actually learning by example of outcome) and the neurobiology of learning.
Two examples:
First Example:
Wandering around on Facebook doing marketing work, I’m a member of several “writer groups”. Sometimes, maybe 1 out of 10 posts are interesting, garner interesting thoughts, ideas. Most are amateurs lamenting that when you place the pen to the paper or finger to the keyboard, you then have to make an effort to make a mark/letter—-very basic ideas-questions.
Occasionally though someone will ask something or illustrate something brilliant. it’s generally done very softly, almost casually with a short reference to something else, a good bibliography to a writer that might not fall into the 100+ contemporary schlock writers. They generally catch my eye. Sometimes in writing sample—-it’s thoughtful, deeper, pushing towards…something. rarely is it someone going on and on, lamenting about their writing or worldbuilding or some such—-it’s generally someone not so much struggling—-as progressing. Good writers progress, bad writers lament and sigh and whine. In sometimes a very short forum/post I can see someone doing something interesting, pushing a boundary. Like I said it’s rarely to see in action online.
Second Example:
Several years ago I was working at Wal-Mart—-I was in Charlotte to help with my terminal mother—-but ironically folk don’t die as fast as their imminent death is seen—-so I rush down in August—-lock, stock and barrel——and along comes February—-still alive. I have cleaned the 3 bedroom close form top to bottom—-I’m starting to crawl around with nail clippers to do the grass; the highlight of my day is whether to walk 8 country blocks to the Lion King supermarket or to expand my walking sojourns (I didn’t buy a car because who thought I would be there that long.) to find other stores, life, people, something—-I find that there’s a Walmart where the bus that literally stops 50 feet form the front door will take me to for ninety cents. At first I was going to work for a pawn shop at a mini mall—-I would stop there to buy DVDs to take to my mother in the hospital but Walmart offered more in terms of benefits. I wander in apply and they literally snap me up like lobster meat at a wedding reception—-like the local plasma joint where I regularly donate plasma—-I am a unicorn—-educated, responsible, able to do all of their wonderful Computer Based trainings.
I land at Customer Service, the front desk because I can pass so many of the If/And trainings about returns, exchanges and I really didn’t want to be a cashier on anything but spot days—-for an hour or so (I know it’s odd but I enjoy being a cashier——I have since high school. If I could make $100k doing it—-I’d be there in a snap! lol)
So I’m whizzing through customers with a variety of items and issues—-there are 3 Basic Rules for a Return Exchange so for me it’s not that difficult of a job and it gives me something to do other than writer, shop and go to the hospital.
A young woman, about 19, 20 brings to me an item, an issue and next to her is her son—-maybe 3–4 years old. I explain the rule for whatever the issue is, what I can do and the little boy asks me a question about the computer console—-I probably had to look up something against her receipt.
It’s a deeply intuitive question—-like is the price different today than it was the day she bought the item?
A jump for an adult to make from my silent finger machinations but a LEAP for a child.
I answer his Yes and explain that it’s from another store so I have to cross reference it.
Are all of the stores connected? Do all of the stores have different prices?
Yes, little boy they do. Yes, they are.
Are the prices shifting on sort of a wave—-a predetermined sequence?
Ok, the first couple of questions and more importantly his enunciation of words, his direct pronunciation of words, his ability to visualize what I am doing—-what MY questions are and how I’m using the computer system proof him as exceptional.
Why Exceptional?
One, I rarely change the level of my intellectual language towards children, especially if they show an ability to understand me. I might simplify—-I’m talking about the red ball moving from this space to that—-but I don’t lean down and do the whole goo goo gah gah bullshit and talk slower or pitch my voice higher. I talk to children the same way I talk to animals, adults, inanimate objects. So the fact that he’s tossing back not only cogent questions but clearly understanding me, not parroting words back at me catches my teacher “ear”—-measurement eye.
Is there genus? No, not the way people casually mean it but you have to give space—-as I do in discussions with adults—-that most people know learning of higher concepts from TV and movies. So they take a false/fictionalized projection and layering it onto reality——assuming that their projection is right because of the layering.
Subpoint:
All them Facebook writer posters also needing validation for writing and a lot of the pat answers being to write more—-are true to a point. You also need Deliberate Practice to enhance, challenge and guide over and over for thousands of hours to become even the schlock writers they worship. No one wants to hear that. They just want Anne Rice to be a “genius” because her book has been written well enough, better than they can write—-so she must be a genius—-as when the curtain is parted and she’s standing there with her book——millions of people applaud it.
What this does is one, put some folk into a special category of ability which explains their creation/output and two, it sort of determines that you, when you find what they’re doing hard to duplicate—-are not a “genius—-you weren’t born that “special” way so when you quit—-like a couple of months in—-are at no fault.
Rather than the truth—-the people you see as geniuses have stood still on a stage for you—-the curtain was pulled back and you saw them and screamed “Genius!”
The curtain closes and that person goes back to thousands upon thousands of hours of practicing all of the micro actions, with help from teachers and mentors and schools and ever increasing challenges and outline by people with greater ability——then the curtain parts again and you see them standing there with another creation and you scream “Genius!”
What this does its it allows you to let yourself off the hook for not being good at something rather than going backstage and seeing all the things they do for that unveiling.
So that little boy in Walmart—-I pulled him and his mother out of line and gave her directed advice about how to raise and educate him—-how to fan the spark in a true flame that I spotted in him——generally in poverty children of capability POTENTIAL—-just potential—-like a supermodel who is 14 years old—-she COULD be pretty with the right training, make up, clothes, exposure, modeling agency—-that little boy COULD be very intellectually gifted IF she:
- encouraged and didn’t discourage his questioning of the world
- his intense verbiage and communication—-he’s picked up on the world MORE words than normal for his caste. Generally, it’s about 1000 words in totality, a child in poverty is regularly exposed to—-go ahead listen to some. But a child in Middle Class or higher—-gaining MORE words—- is exposed to 25,000, and 10x more—-up to 250,000 in wealth. (You just learned the difference between public school, parochial school and private school.) What they are learning ultimately are more words to describe reality and their internalized feelings, intellectualizations, etc. Those additional words are coming from books and teachers and such, that are saying things like “Okay, yes, that is a tree but now here are different kinds of trees by season, by region, by species, etc.—-now where you had the base identifier of “tree” you now progressively have say 100+ different kinds of trees—-by name AND you have information about seasons, weather, colors, surrounding fauna—-another 5000+ ideas that attach to the idea of “trees”.”
The little boy in Walmart sort of presented knowing multiple kinds of trees—-an associative connection and that there were seasons that affect the trees in his reality—-summer, Christmas, his birthday—-spotty——but he’s picking up some stuff.
In many ways what I was hearing/seeing in him is a form of the fertility of his mindscape. Yes, going around I hear the depth, growth, deadness and potentiality of everyone’s mindscape——because I’ve spent tens of thousands of hours listening to people, comparing them, assessing them, reading about the mind, about the neuro-biology of humans, etc.—-I’m not just in this for shits and giggles.
I sometimes take students with me onto the NYC subways and I point out to them the gradation of education of potentiality I see and hear in people. Some of my bolder students will go up to the target and ask them specific question—-my teacher says you completed high school, got your associates degree; that you got a four year degree and that both of your parents have degrees; that you have a masters; that you’re currently in school; that you dropped out. I’m never wrong.
Think of it like frequencies—-I’m listening to—-and other teachers are listening to the frequencies given off by children and adults. I can hear in that little boy potentiality—-his frequency is burst much higher than most children his age.
Talking to his mother—-she had a high school level education—-that level of education, without further education, dimming (Yes, in that short time I could hear her frequency.) So, say she was a solid A to B student by the end of 12th grade. She hasn’t done rigorous course work so she’s slid down to a 10th grade level, maybe a B- student, if we stuck her into a testing situation right now—-(I taught GED classes to adults for years and what the real challenge was was evaluating where the adult was at, inserting appropriate materials and enhancing—-sort of looking for where they had “atrophied to”—-what they knew, were good at, had picked up——all different “levels”.)
But I could tell the little boy’s mother wasn’t busting no intellectual moves—-she was regularly only watching TV, movies, playing on the internet—-not even reading books regularly—-which would help sustain her intellect, but not increase it greatly as she might not challenge herself with more and more complex books. Zane is one level, with dozens of books—-Toni Morrison is another level, with a dozen books too.
(I once gave a young mother the Morrison books I had on me—-we were on the 2 train and she was sitting with her baby, trying to get through Sula, frustrated. I told her to keep on pushing and here’s some more when you’re done with that—-go get the others. That’s what teachers do.)
Mothers, Children, Fathers and Grandparents
The young mother at Walmart had probably been slightly derailed by having a child so young. Some of his high propensity/potentiality might have to do with having her as such a close parent when her educational infusion was so intense——high school—-so while she might slowly dim—-there’s a point-place where it’s like her mental sunlight is over-focused in his direction—-maybe not intentionally completely but enough——to get some buds sprouting. The education of children, pointedly in poverty happens in two dimensions—-if the maternal father—-my mother’s father——encourages his daughters to educate past 14 and then mothers directly sharing that education with their children. Which is what my great-grandfather did with my grandmother and her sister, and then my grandmother did with my mother—-the last of four children and the first to go seriously to college. Imagine how gratified I was to be able to track my own prodigiousness when I started learning the social classism and psychology of education.
I also told the mother at Walmart to:
- not be frightened of her child’s burgeoning intellect—-it is useful, winning in life, not a threat to her. I told her this because something parents don’t know how to discuss is smart children will bust you in your bullshit. It’s one of the reasons why poverty self-perpetuates—-adults, who might be wrong—-tell their thinking children to shut-up, to not question, to not investigate——and all of the world and advancement is about thinking, questioning, investigating.
- Provide him with as much stimulus as she could in books and games and coloring books now and more importantly when he got into school keep adding stuff—-from the Walmart book aisle——BUT do it TWO grades beyond where he was at—-force him to advance, to operate at a higher level.
- I was teaching her a rough formation of Deliberate Practice.
The elements of deliberate practice:
- Deliberate practice is structured and methodical
- Deliberate practice is challenging and uncomfortable
- Deliberate practice requires rest and recovery time
- Deliberate practice involves constant feedback and measurement
- Deliberate practice is most effective with the help of a coach or some kind of teacher
- Deliberate practice requires intrinsic motivation
- Deliberate practice takes time and can be a lifelong process
- Deliberate practice requires intense focus
- Deliberate practice leverages the spacing effect (the spacing effect refers to how we are better able to recall information and concepts if we learn them in multiple sessions with increasingly large intervals between them.)
Or, concerted cultivation:
- Concerted cultivation is a style of parenting. The expression is attributed to Annette Lareau. This parenting style or parenting practice is marked by a parent's attempts to foster their child's talents by incorporating organized activities in their children's lives.
- Concerted cultivation is a middle class style of parenting that involves deliberate cultivation of a child's development. In contrast, the accomplishment of natural growth is a style of parenting more common among working class and poor families.
What I was trying to convey to her—— at her level of understanding—-from the incredibly odd man at Walmart Customer Service—-(I explained some of my resume, teaching background)——was the above—-little things she could do that he would latch onto until most importantly, he was in school, in an environment where other teachers would notice him and encourage his development. Luckily there was another teacher in line who came over and helped me talk to the mother——so she wasn’t freaked out—-because from her perspective, we just told her her child was a mutant and could one day be an X-Men….. but we needed her to get insight into him——and in some ways stop ignoring his prattle—-something was potentially happening there.
In sum then, genius is concerted cultivation—-the environment the child grows up in supporting them, married to Deliberate Practice.
Mozart
His father was a music composer. He and his sister were taught music from toddler age then pressed to perform all around Europe. The bread and butter of the family was dependent upon their performances. He supposedly composed his first serious piece at 4. But consider this—-your child is good at something you’re very good at—-before you let them show it to the world, would you help them make corrections, clean it up a bit, help translate what they mean?
And music was all these kids did all day—-there was no TV—-and it was also a way to not only get audience cheering/feedback/fame but also their father’s loving, devoted attention.
Simple. Now you know how geniuses are developed and created.
All of that to say yes, real knows real—-I could spot that little boy (and others on the subway and online)—-I could see their sparks because I’ve studied looking for sparks and nurturing that to fires. Is it based upon my own prodigiousness? I would say that what I’ve personally done is dissected my family of origin, their education and its’ effect because I’ve studied and taught the effects of education. In the examining of myself, my college educated parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents in comparison to my lesser educated cousins, aunts and uncle—-I can see distinctive differences in the handful of us, including several college educated cousins based upon that education.
I can even see, now that I reflect on it, though two cousins went into education—-one with my help and an older one as her second career—-that their education-prodigiousness was to the goal of work/career. Mine has been to an edification end AND my career. I like understanding things, ideas, myself, education, students, teaching, learning, how people learn, how to teach. One of my strengths is Ideation (from the Gallups Assessment.) I get off on learning/knowing things. To that end having been marked as prodigious since about that boys age in Walmart—-smart, genius etc. for decades form teachers, peers, social workers, therapists, parents, frailly, coworkers, lovers, professors—-I know I’m smart.
I recently had a conversation with a coworker—-we were doing something completely unrelated to the discussion we were having about my having attended Long Island University as a teen=—-as part of an extension program from high school—-a soap opera club where me and my best friend Sean were filming a student soap opera (I’d written the 200 page screenplay.) The advanced program went on for 2 years teaching us all about lights, cameras, filming—-we did great projects and met Spike Lee and his partner Monty Ross—-it was a great experience. (and yes, I heard the professors/teachers discussing myself and another young guy as the “best” in the class with the most potential.)
My coworker a few days ago looks at me, like she’s discovering something and says—-”You are smart.”
I laughed because we’d talked about this before—-I told her that the a beautiful woman and a smart man KNOW they’re beautiful and smart, it’s unnecessary to tell them. In fact, I have a beautiful friend—-she’s startlingly beautiful,, and knows it but doesn't live in that vanity—however she dismisses people—-men and women—-when they tell her that. She knows. She’s 50 and has known since she could understand language and deference and privilege.
I’m the same way about smarts. So what I think of my own genius is that really it’s YOU in the audience masturbating to the curtains popping open and you think you’re seeing fireworks spontaneously come out of my butt. Curtains close and I go back to logging another hour or reading, thinking, writing, over 50,000+ hours now, into the Genius Machine of Kyle.
What I was trying to convey to that young mother, sort of a seed within a seed implanted into her to implant into him, is for her to normalize his abilities as they develop. To encourage and foster them, concerted cultivation, but not squash them or masturbate to them.
Being smart, testing really, really, really high since I was a child, I know how useless the term genius is—-unless you’re getting that Macarthur Fellowship! lol What is more important is learning and doing the work that interests you, that feeds you, that allows you to travel and explore with other smart, wise, useful, good people.
So yeah, I spotted another genius—-and right in front of everyone I slipped him (hopefully) the secret seed, inception, of how to be free of such a bullshit term.
#KylePhoenix
#TheKylePhoenixShow
