When we go out to schools, we always ask the kids what are you good at and a lot of times we’re speaking at schools where there’s a high percentage of kids with learning differences and they all say well I stink at school, I’m a bad student, I’m terrible at school. We say okay, yeah, we get that but what are you good at?
And it’s amazing what they say. One kid said well I’m a really good friend. I said yeah, how about that? Well I’m good at basketball, I’m good at drawing, you know, I’m good at talking to grown—ups, you know? So you start to see the array of things that people are good at and to try and help them think of ways that that is their gift. You know, everyone has destiny and your destiny will work out best if you use the gifts that you have and not focus on the gifts that you don’t have, you know?
There’s a very famous educational psychologist who wrote if your child has a reading disability, don’t get them a reading tutor, get them an art teacher. So you go to your – you go to your strengths and you figure out what’s unique about you. Whether or not you have a learning challenge, this is what we all do in life, right? You say well, you know, I know my parents want me to be a physicist but I really want to make clothes.
And we all struggle with that, you know? My parents did not want me to be a writer. They wanted me to be a nurse because a nurse was a good profession for a young girl. They thought that was secure. And a writer, a writer lives in a garret and, you know, will starve and then when I refused to be a nurse they said all right, well then you have to be a teacher and I said all right, well I can live with that and I did.
I went to graduate school. I got a teaching credential and I was a very bad teacher because I didn’t – it just wasn’t natural for me and so I tried it and in the end it was me having to rebel against my parent’s themes to say no, no, that isn’t – I’m never going to be really good at that, you know? I so admire excellent teachers, but I wasn’t going to be one because I just didn’t have the gift for it.
So the trick is to find a supportive community, your family, adults, friends, teachers, counselors, gatekeepers of all kind who will help you see yourself for what you are and to run after that with all your heart and soul and passion and not try and fit into a mold that wasn’t designed for you.
