By my early twenties I had completed a rather average run in high school where most of my friends were recognized for their nerdiness, although nerd was not really a word at that time. I was not really one of them (a nerd) though, I just felt more comfortable in their company. Late in high school, my best friends were tracked about a year ahead of me in math, and I never saw anything remotely Calculus-like until later in college. I was able to keep up with my social group in science and English, even while refusing to study. In college, the separation between my friends and me increased, with four of the five friends I went to school with entering engineering programs while I was in lowly business school.
I quit two years later to become a rock star, entering into a ten year skid in a south Florida town that was 120 miles from the nearest proper college, although there was a community college branch in a strip mall. I delivered furniture, cooked pizza, and sold auto parts, while practicing in bands on most evenings in rental warehouse garages...the original garage bands.
This was a fun time in life, but not what I needed by any stretch. By the time I was getting a regular musician paycheck, I got married and moved to the mountains ending my musical pursuits, and getting out of Florida and away from music was probably a critical piece to my survival in life, as I look back. Living right on the Blue Ridge Parkaway, and later on, in Maine, awakened something else that had been repressed for some time.
As a child, most likely one with Asperger's, I was more than mildly obsessed with nature, especially birds. I "collected" birds as early as kindergarten and I was adept at identification of many North American species by 2nd grade. Birds that I had never seen took on almost mythical mystique and identifying a new species in person was (and remains) a celebrated event. I counted indigo buntings on telephone wires on our frequent trips to Kentucky. I read and re-read encyclopedia number 4 from my parents red encyclopedia set...the bird encyclopedia. Both my 2nd and 4th grade teachers gave special attention to my obsession, one buying me a bird coloring book and another giving me a Golden Guide about birds from her class library at the end of the year. I was paddled for keeping a bag of tent caterpillars in my desk in 3rd grade, I withdrew the Cornell bird recordings from our library and had memorized most of the sounds of the birds by the time I was ten years old. I could identify many North American species by sound alone by this time. Dr. Arthur A Allen from Cornell was my "friend" as his name was on the record albums, and I knew the name because it was also in the red encyclopedia under all of the photo credits. Oddly, I was aware of this in 4th and 5th grade, as well as the fact that I should attend Cornell University when I grew up, so that I could make bird recordings using those big dish shaped sound collection devices and take photos of ivory billed woodpeckers like Dr. Arthur A. Allen.
Unfortunately, when a high functioning Aspie child becomes a teenager, he comes to realize his oddities and the puzzle of connecting with other teenagers, or the choice of isolation. I chose repression of things that made me feel odd...like the birds and nature. I met with failure after failure of trying to figure out how to socialize with others, which I pursued not because I wanted to be sociable, but because I didn't want to stand out or be noticed. People who are quiet and introverted stand out, or at least that is how it felt to me. I wanted nothing more than to blend in. And although I never had a date, went to a dance, or to a football game in high school, I did learn to blend in to some degree, to go unnoticed. Of course there was the exception that manifested as pretty blatant bullying and social ranking, which was completely acceptable in those days. My interest in science and nature was virtually gone, replaced by guitar, which was a natural obsession that also increased social status without the need to have any real social skills...perfect!
Back to getting married and moving north, and what does that have to do with science, nature, and birds? Well, having given up on being a rock star, and no longer needing the social boost of being a better than average guitarist, there was time for figuring out what really moved me. Being up north in a temperate climate with seasons, including springs with gaudy wildflowers and symphonies of birds, I came to realize just how much Florida had numbed me and enabled the denial. I had purchased a Nikon camera and a host of professional lenses about a year earlier, and somewhat secretly had been regularly exploring south Florida treasures like Sanibel Island and Corkscrew Swamp. My love of the natural world and my next obsession with capturing it on film was exploding.
I was on an insatiable quest for knowing, like someone who had been denied any intellectual stimulation. I needed it. I sold nature photography, worked in photo labs, took portraits in a studio, and sold camera equipment. In two pivotal events, my adult life was defined. First, I was asked to teach portrait photography and how to use professional photography equipment, and second I took an astronomy class at University of Maine. Those events fused two parts of me, the understanding that learning and thinking about lofty ideas while surrounded by really smart people was intensely motivating, and that I actually enjoyed interacting with, and especially thinking and learning with others. It wasn't long before I traced the roots of this purest of motivating spirits in myself back to parents who actually kept an encyclopedia in their house and took me to the library in the first place, a second and fourth grade teacher who noticed my peculiar interests and made a special effort to awaken them, and my high school chemistry teacher, who actually made me feel like the cool one in the class. I took a second astronomy class, a geology class, oceanography, two biology classes, chemistry, meteorology, ornithology...essentially every college science class I could take without declaring a science major.
But I didn't declare a science major. Why? I was afraid of calculus 1-4. I was a coward. Even organic chemistry and physics, which I needed to move forward, depended on mathematics that scared me. I even bought the calculus text book for $100 (a crazy amount of money at the time) and tried to teach myself before taking the class. About the same time, I signed up to take a class "Science for Elementary and Middle School Students", which technically was for Education majors, but which they encouraged me to take because there was a shortage of science and math teachers and they hoped to rope some people in through the back door.
This class got me into an elementary classroom once a week and changed my life. I wanted to be the guy who made the kids feel cool about wanting to learn and the guy who understood that kids have unique interests that should be nurtured. I wanted to be some amalgamation of the three teachers who noticed me tried to help me to fit into a world where Asperger's Syndrome wasn't even "a thing" (frankly, I am still not convinced it is "a thing" and not just part of the continuum of personality...either way, accept it).
But education scared me too. Teachers were smart people, and I was genuinely afraid I would fail when I surrounded myself in a workplace filled with smart people. I was petrified that I wouldn't have the social wherewithal to collaborate with professionals and parents. I almost quit as I finished my schooling back in Florida. But my student teacher supervisor, who I know tolerated me and saw little in me, motivated me without even knowing it. I felt destined to fail, but I wanted to do this! This job was important!
Miss Bosworth, as she appears today, was my teacher supervisor. It was a miracle to me that some 5 foot tall dynamo could reign in the energy of 5th grade students, some of whom were a foot taller than she was. It baffled me for months and I reflected on my failure to duplicate her skills and learned (too late for poor Miss B.) that it was her ability to forge relationships and her confidence with kids that enabled her to lead them so effortlessly.
Not only did I do it, I was quickly recognized as being really good at it! I was helping people, giving back to society, making a living, and being recognized as having an unusual talent for something all at the same time. That, I thought, is what life is all about, and I wished that feeling for everyone, especially for my students. Through a remarkable serendipity of sorts, I taught first grade when my own son was six years old, second grade when my son was seven, and fifth grade when my son was ten. This gave me insights into both my craft and my parenting.
Through my career, I have continued on to get my M.Ed. and have been sought out for leadership roles, continually going through cycles of fear of failure, that I might not be smart enough, and then, ultimately, succeeding, even excelling. I never got less than an A in any class, including my science classes...although that is relatively common in education programs I am told. Eventually, I came to coach and mentor teachers and fell into math specialization because the school in which I worked had two reading specialists. At each step, there was fear, mistakes, panic, and then success.
Since I have been working in the curriculum office, I am surrounded by people who are smarter than I am (in the conventional sense). Although very stimulating and humbling, it has also provided evidence that it takes more than "smart" to make an efficient operation. Leadership is a special kind of intellect that involves knowing when to seek input from others and knowing that no one person has all the answers. There is nothing more frustrating than dealing with someone who has overestimated their intellect and who is at the same time too foolish to recognize their miscalculation. Leadership, I think, must be my next challenge. I recognize now that my life has been driven, in part, by fear of failure followed by success. It is my pattern. This fear is a driving force to busting one's ass, and this is my testament! I may have the balance of humility and competence to motivate people to a common vision.
As I am considering entering a PhD program, that old fear is stirring. At each step in my life, the people with whom I have interacted daily have been smarter, and the likelihood of failure has increased exponentially. Failure in doctorate programs is a reasonable expectation. And I am afraid, but I move ahead. It seems a shame to go through life and never figure out where your limit really is because fear binds you.
Posted with Blogsy
Posted with Blogsy
