Case Study #1, Circa 1464: Rejected Carrera Marble
In the early 1400’s, in the Apuan Alps near Florence, a large slab of mediocre marble was extracted from the Carrera quarries of Tuscany. It was later delivered to the workshop yard of the Duomo Cathedral in Florence.
David, the statue, the sculpture, was commissioned in 1864. The artist Agostino began work on the large slab leftover from an earlier cathedral initiative. The slab lay on its back in the courtyard, "the stone," he said was “badly blocked out. ” Abandoned by Agostino, Antonio Rossellino came to the slab next but soon backed out citing its poor quality. A third sculptor, Michaelangelo, would come to stand before this rejected mediocre marble and see ‘David' restless for release.
The Outcast Slab of Mediocre Marble
Becomes the World’s Most Famous Statue, 1464
I've met many students who like David were waiting quietly (sometimes not) for someone like Michaelangelo to release the genius within.
In sculptor’s hands from the time of Leonardo DaVinci and Michaelangelo, it is now in teacher’s eyes to see in their students the nascent forms and features hidden within, and, in the teacher's hands, to chisel away at the outer stone to reveal the genius within. -Toby Manzanares
Case Study #2, Circa 1891
With his family in economic crisis and school an increasingly dreadful, seemingly endless labor, he searched for a way out. Sitting far back in his classroom, bored, lonely, uneasy, Albert smiled curiously, painfully aware of his teacher's animosity. In frustration, and seeing Albert's smile yet again his teacher erupted, heatedly directing at him a final and devastating humiliation: Albert! You will never amount to anything. You are wasting everyone's time here. You should leave this school immediately! Another insult heaped upon this neuro unique child.
In elementary school, unable to learn by rote, his teachers thought him dull witted. When called upon in class Albert was not able to give a immediate answers like other children, instead he hesitated, stumbled, and after, he'd silently move his lips, repeating the words, his way of coping with on-demand learning. He was an outlander in a system that expected, forced conformity and compliance.
I would come across many an unconventional genius like Albert Einstein over the arc of my 39 year teaching career advocating for kids lacking the tools to fit into the landscape of traditional educational institutions.
CREATING AN ARCHITECTURE FOR INCLUSIVE LEARNING
“Focus both on students and the content for there
will be little learning without a map of every child's neural landscape.”
will be little learning without a map of every child's neural landscape.”
--Toby Manzanares
Albert Einstein felt, like many of today's bright students, that he'd done nothing wrong, but his teacher continued: "You sit there in the back row, smiling and that undermines the respect a teacher needs for his class." I can only imagine that this teacher interpreted Albert’s smile as defiance, rebellion, or at the very least, smugness. In reality, that self conscious smile was Albert’s reaction to stress.
That they had a genius in their midst was not clear to his parents or teachers, nor did they have the insight to understand what they thought as "odd" behavior, or to value his divergent nature. Not unlike many kids in classrooms today, the young Albert Einstein carried a neural landscape that was remarkably different from the other children in his school classrooms, he was neurologically unique in a very neurotypical world! Resentful of school regimen by 15 he wrote: "the spirit of learning and creative thought was crushed by rote learning." Remember this quote for Chapter
Similar chronicles have been written by modern day gifted At-Risk students who have found themselves bottled up in institutions and circumstances lacking a compass to navigate their prickly landscapes.
Einstein's school experience echoes a long history of children finding themselves in distressing and often convoluted circumstances. His experience from 1890's, shines a shimmering light into the lives of many children worldwide. This light illluminates extremely bright children who are misunderstood, squeezed out of classrooms and ultimately for too many, driven out of school. It's not just extremely bright children that find themselves in ill fitted educational environments. Many students find themselves in this predicament as evidenced by high drop out rates in the United States. Based on my 39 years in public education, schools adequately service about 40% of their students, those who are neurotypical. The rest, I catagorize as neuro-unique, those do not find comfort in a one-size-fits-all institutionalized educational system. Drop outs? No, too many of these kids are not dropping out as much as they are being squeezed or pushed out of schools.
To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln:
"We must work earnestly in the best light they give us."
It's all too common for economic situations to turn ordinary families upside down. Like families today, the Einstein family faced an economic struggle that forced Albert’s father Hermann to move the family from Munich to Northern Italy for better business opportunities. But Albert was left behind at a boarding school where he must have felt orphaned, like the 400,000 kids finding themselves in foster care in the United States today.
Photo source: ResearchGate
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/A-playful-Einstein-amidst-a-pile-of-fellow-Swiss-Federal-Institute-of-Technology-students_fig4_246356771
Case Study #3: circa 1920
Friends Called Him Ritty
Ritty spent his early childhood largely between the covers of Encyclopaedia Britannica's 32 volumes (14th edition) where among other interesting titles he poured over its science content but his early academic record was mediocre.* In his homemade lab he experimented with electricity, where he used light bulbs, resistors, a storage battery and swithes to invent a burglar alarm to alerting him the millisecond his parents entered in his room. On an IQ test he scored an above average 125. In high school he grew preoccupied with science and math, but his approach to mathematics was highly unconventional which brought him immesurable pleasure to the extent that by his senior year he won the New York state-wide math competition. Though he excelled in math and science, when he applied to Columbia University, he was rejected due to his unremarkable grades in the other subject areas. This is a teachable moment for high schoolers today, because Ritty was subsequently accepted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He did not allow rejection to crash the arc of his trajectory. And there he found freedom to chose a very personal course of study that landed him untimately at the California Institute of Technology in 1950. That is where I came to know him. A gathering of parents at Cal Tech and Jet Propulsion Lab met to advocate for a visionary school for their children who at the time were attending public school in Pasadena. One parent reported: "my daughter came home to tell me she no longer interested in school because she wasn't allowed to choose what she wanted to learn. This group of parents, many of the finest minds on the planet, wanted a school of choice for their children. They met with the school superintendent who called upon the finest teachers in Pasadena starting with Greta Pruitt who put together the first school of choice in California, The Pasadena Alternative School where I found a nobel laureate's son in my science classes.
My hypothesis about the development of genius is well framed in the life cycle of a monarch butterly: looking like ordinary caterpillars, there comes the moment of metamorphosis when the breath-taking beauty of the adult butterfly emerges from quiescent chysalids. That's what we aspire to as teachers, to engineer for all children an architecture where choice, the freedom to learn, releases their germinal genius. Geniuses are not born, they are made, as in Ritty's case.
As adolescence passed, the rest of Ritty's story became history, finally maturing into his grown up title: not Ritty but Richard Feynman, Nobel Laureate in Physics.
Though his IQ test did not detect his genius, the world renowned scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory knew him as the boy genius amongst the greatest scientific minds of the time and the only one able to crack top-security safes when scientists were out of state but their lab data was needed immediately. Call Feynman!. Richard was the product of "Choice in Education**. He chose the MIT classes he wanted to take. And that opportunity is what he wanted for his own children. When his son Carl was in my science class, Richard already knew his son would end up at MIT. What Dr. Feynman needed from me is to make a space where his son would love learning about the world of science.
Case Study #4, Circa 1970
Fast forward 100 years beyond Albert’s classroom. He wasn’t a CEO forty-nine years ago when I knew him as Chucky, but at that time, he was “too smart for his own good”, he'd already been kicked out of high school and unlike the young Albert Einstein, Chucky was not passive in his noncompliance and for his tender years, did not suffer injustice kindly. Chuck had lost count of the number of times he was sent to the principal’s office. But by the time he walked into my classroom, his character reminded me of what Abraham Lincoln once wrote:
As teachers "We must work earnestly in the best light they give us.”
Asking questions that revealed deep insight he was a model student in my class.
But some of Chucky's teachers were not able to see his light. I was surprised therefore one afternoon when he told of his history of problems in school. He taught me that student behaviors give us clues about how to fire their learning. It was natural for me to look beyond his history, and look to his future by gathering data about the workings of his mind like in this story that Chucky told again at my retirement celebration a few years ago.
“Passing the teacher's lounge en route to the Principlal's office, I overheard two teachers making a bet."
First voice: “I bet he's in jail before the end of the semester.”
Second voice: "I bet Chucky doesn't make it to the end of the month."
Out in the hall he must have bristled.
He told us at my retirement dinner that the distance between being a citizen or a criminal is a very thin line. Pointing at me Chuck said: "If it wasn't for Toby, I'd be in jail now." Now, he's the CEO of the non-profit Outward Bound Adventures. Click HERE to go to the OBA web site..
But to me as a first year teacher, Chucky was a young Einstein, showing signs of genius in a school system not yet able to recognize unconventional genius.
Chucky was bright eyed, playful, brilliant with a wonderful sense of humor, personable and eager to participate: the ideal student. Why he had been expelled from high school was baffling. Staying after class one afternoon, I asked: "You're such a top tier student. How is it you were expelled?"
“I had this teacher who was always kicking kids out of class, sending them to the principal’s office.” He went on to say that most of the time this teacher mistakenly kicked innocent kids out of class. One afternoon, this teacher was writing on the chalkboard back to the class, never a good idea, when a paper plane hit the blackboard. Turning to trace back its point of origin, he spotted three laughing kids on that side of the room: 'You! Out! To the principal’s office!' But the actual paper plane pilot was busy taking notes in the front row.h e actual paper plane pilot was busy taking notes in the first row.
Charles went on that this miscarriage of justice was common. But this instance was a bridge too far. Chucky had come to class after lunch, an apple in hand, and imagined it splattering on the chalk board between the teacher’s head and the chalk in his right hand, sending apple sauce all over his face. He stood, wound up like a picture on the varsity baseball team and threw fast that apple at the chalk board with enough speed to splatter. Spinning in a rage, he saw 5 kids laughing in the back of the room and kicked them all out of class, suspending them until their parents could come for a conference, again, the wrong kids.
Chucky now must weigh the call of his conscience above the plight of his punishment, so he leaves for the principal’s office to take responsibility for his actions and prevent a miscarriage of justice for the three wrongly accused.
One characteristic common among kids “too smart” for their own good, is that they carry a highly evolved moral compass especially when injustice is at play. And many, like Chucky would find themselves in trouble because of it. It was then that I realized that while their sense of justice was to be respected, they lacked the knowledge, the tools to respond in an effective and constructive manner. Now I understood, that when students exhibit poor judgement in the classroom, these could be “teachable” moments. I launched a career-long journey to help students learn how to respond constructively rather than react to the injustices of our time. Instead of seeing them as misfits or failures, I was to become their advocate. They needed a mentor, a champion in the system. Now when they felt their new voice, and understood their new tools, they rose to my highest expectations.
Breathtaking, actually, the extent of the effect of self fulfilling prophesy from my positive expectations on students over the arc of my career (see Pygmalion below). It seemed like they’d longed for someone who believed in them, and now they flourished in this wholesome environment. They quickly responded to this belief and worked diligently as if to fulfill a divine decree. Furthermore, their progress was unmistakable prompting reinforcement of the notion they’d finally found their calling. They were no longer misfits or dropouts, they’d become rare avis, an uncommon, exceptional people.
The Pygmalion Effect
TRUST
What so many of my students held in common:
• a highly evolved passion for social justice, or
- life altering traumas or series of childhood traumatic stress events. (Traumatic Stress: Effects on the Brain) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181836/
Take Cindy for example.
Weeping, she entered my classroom an hour before first period as I prepared for the day’s lab activity. Dad had just dropped her off on his way to work and he wasn’t happy that Cindy wanted to be early to study for her biology exam. I gave her time to collect her thoughts then asked if she needed someone to talk to. She explained her family was about to be evicted from their apartment. Both her parents were working, mom had two jobs yet they were unable to make ends meet. Under a great deal frustration, he lost his balance and spewed:
“You spent the whole night studying, for what?”
You’ll never get into college, you're so f…..g stupid.
Why don’t you drop out of school, get a job, do something useful.
You're too f…..g stupid for anything else.”
Tears fell again as she repeated his castigating words.
“Looks like he shot you full of poisoned arrows and you’re terribly hurt.”
She nodded, shamed. “He’s said it before. It’ll come again.”
“I have an experiment for you to try that might stop his arrows from sticking next time. Give it some thought, and if you want, I’ll come back in a few minutes.”
Going back to preparing for the day’s lab, I heard her voice softly: “I’d like to try it.”
“Ok, stand up tall. Did you see that scene in Titanic where Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet are on the bow? Wind blowing back their hair?”
Cindy nods.
“Close your eyes and image with me. (This imaging technique works for about 70% of those who try it.) Keep your eyes closed. Imagine you’re on the bow of a great cruise ship, sun on your face, wind in your hair . . . Let me know when you’re there.”
With a faint smile, she nods.
“Feel the cool ocean breeze on your skin, and when you're ready, raise your arms out like … wings. Feel the wind lifting you to the tips of your toes . . .”
She smiles.
Looking down you see the bow, resolute, cleaving the water into a giant sparkling wave.
Can you feel the waves’ mist on your face?
Again she nods.
Up ahead you see your dad on the stern of an old rusty barge. He’s shouting but you cannot hear his words. Instead they erupt from his mouth on a roll of toilet paper.
Do you mind if I use his words?
No. she nods.
His words, on paper roll from his mouth and land upon the water. . .
“You’re . . . so . . . f…..g stupid.”
Can you see the words, the paper floating in the water?
They're not about you, they spew from his unbearable frustration.
Now watch closely the floating paper . . . “You’re . . . so . . . f…..g . . .
Watch as the paper is cleaved by the bow, some going left, some to the right.
Can you see it?
The words don’t stick, they are just cast aside, flotsam on the surface of a vast ocean.
If they don’t stick, they can not hurt you.
Now just enjoy the ocean breeze, the mist, the warmth of the sun.”
Her face relaxes slightly. I know she understands.
Cindy in her excitement, bursts into my classroom the very next day.
“It worked, it worked!”
Sad that it was necessary to deploy her newly learned skill so soon, but judging by her happy face, she was now able to
CHAPTER 1
Drawn on parchment circa 1450 is a beautiful map of the known world, a “mappae mundi” commissioned by King Afonso V of Portugal. Upon closer examination you will find it is upside down compared to the way we see maps today and it reminds me of an important understanding brought to light by my students. Each human being, every student, came to me with their mappae mundi, on their own parchment life history, made from the archive of their collected moments allowing me to navigate through their unimaginably complex neural landscape. Since schools are not yet able to "succeed" with all students, I had a great opportunity to examine the mapper mundi of students who had been forced out of traditional schools. I was searching for ways that schools could succeed with students that were ... neurounique.
If we are charged with the education of our youth, then we must first chart their terra incognita, their unknown land, for they are not taught to draw one for us. Then we must learn to sail their mare incognitum (unknown seas), so they may arrive at journey’s end with their magnificent fleet in tact.
Behind eyes just now reading these words, is a world largely uncharted, your brain, and we must pull out a large sheet of parchment and map it for ourselves, and so better understand our own landscape, our unknown seas. This will be our NeuroYouNique journey, to paint the portrait of our neural landscape.
Like the Fra Mauro mappae mundi, our understanding of education is upside down, with subject content at the top and the ways students learn at the bottom. We need to look at learning from both sides. Nowhere on his circa 1450 map is the New World, knowledge of which was about to emerge. Similarly, there is now a great deal emerging about mapping the human brain, a veritable new world understanding that has and will have an enormous impact on education.
The Mappae Mundi di Fra Mauro with its thousands of inscriptions was a transitional map marking the end of the medieval period and the beginning of the Renaissance. In a way, this book can too be a transitional map marking the beginning of a Renaissance in education, one where learners are valued for their thousands of “inscriptions” telling us how to best help them learn. Coming to us with a teeming storehouse of data, we must see them as unimaginable sources who will guide us toward lighting in them a life long passion for learning.
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BRAIN FACT: “The process of combining more primitive pieces of information to create something more meaningful is a crucial aspect both of learning and of consciousness and is one of the defining features of human experience. Once we have reached adulthood, we have decades of intensive learning behind us, where the discovery of thousands of useful combinations of features, as well as combinations of combinations and so on, has collectively generated an amazingly rich, hierarchical model of the world. Inside us is also written a multitude of mini strategies about how to direct our attention in order to maximize further learning. We can allow our attention to roam anywhere around us and glean interesting new clues about any facet of our local environment, to compare and potentially add to our extensive internal model.”
The human brain is a pattern engine designed to identify patterns in our environment. When things really are connected, we learn something new and can make predictions. Sometimes we believe things are real when they are not, (false positives). Imagine 10,000 years ago, hours after sunset, a hunter is returning home when she hears a sound from a rocky outcropping. She sprints, then dives into a rock crevasse too narrow for a saber-tooth to reach her. She’d heard that sound as a young girl, barely surviving an attack. This day it was a false alarm (a false positive) but thats better than not believing something is real when it is not.
This is important for parents (and teacher’s more specifically) because when children enter a new class, teachers will see behaviors that connect with previous experiences: The kid that sits front row center vs. the kid that sits way in the back, furthest from the teacher’s desk. Even where they sit and how they sit gives us useful information about them. Do they like photography, pop music, animae, dogs, fashion, insects, skateboarding, movie making, or street art? Knowing this, a teacher can nudge a borderline student in the direction of a more challenging term project. They’ll carry a challenge farther if they already have an avenue of interest that can be employed.
Full stop
CHOICES elaborate on these topics.
Unimaginable, overstating the importance of providing choices in the learning environment
The Narrative Mind, The Narrative Learner
Protecting kids whose behavior seems out of right field.
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