Didn't the Royal wedding recently make you think in fairy tales?
Once Upon a time, a long long time ago, in a kingdom far far away, the royal superintendents of schools were working out how to respond to the new young kings decree that we would educate our children better and use the best and the brightest to win the race for outer space. In a far away corner of the kingdom, a group of children, only 6, were identified as a precious commodity-geniuses.All of the schools in this part of the kingdom examined their children. Tests were taken, scores were analyzed, and 6, only 6, were deemed worthy. Among these special 6 were 5 males, and surprisingly to everyone, a female. Now they expected to find young males,in fact they expected to find more than they found. But in the end, after all of then inspections and evaluations, they were left with 6 young persons who fit the bill, and one of them was a female whose IQ turned out to be the highest of the 6. Well, That was just not what they expected at all!
Once Upon a time, a long long time ago, in a kingdom far far away, the royal superintendents of schools were working out how to respond to the new young kings decree that we would educate our children better and use the best and the brightest to win the race for outer space. In a far away corner of the kingdom, a group of children, only 6, were identified as a precious commodity-geniuses.All of the schools in this part of the kingdom examined their children. Tests were taken, scores were analyzed, and 6, only 6, were deemed worthy. Among these special 6 were 5 males, and surprisingly to everyone, a female. Now they expected to find young males,in fact they expected to find more than they found. But in the end, after all of then inspections and evaluations, they were left with 6 young persons who fit the bill, and one of them was a female whose IQ turned out to be the highest of the 6. Well, That was just not what they expected at all!
The Royal Superintendent of the county of La-La land, decreed that the 6 special children would be the first students designated as "Gifted and Talented" and these 6 special children would be examined and analyzed for the rest of their years in school. They would be precious gifts to their districts and should be treated as such.
So, they decided to see if they could find out why these 6 were so different. They sent them to the hospital at the University. They tested them, they x-rayed them, they took their blood. For 3 days they had them in the hospital looking at them upside down and backwards. They never released the results to the 6. After all they were just children.What threy didn't take the time to ask was what the dreams and aspirations of the special children were. They really didn't care, they just wanted to be able to say that there were special children in the school district.
As the years went by, and the school district tried to educate the special 6, some strange things happened. Several of the 6 turned to drugs and alcohol. It seems that being different is very difficult to deal with for a young person. Since this was the first attempt to corral the intelligence, mistakes were probably made. Hopes and dreams were not important, and they tried to make the special ones conform to what 'they' thought they ought to be. It was no easy task.
The girl was probably the most different of them all. Not only was she the smartest one, she was the only girl, and she was different in many other ways. She was tall and obese and was treated as a freak by those around her. Mothers in her neighborhood often were heard calling their children in so that they wouldn't be able to play with her. She was so big, mothers were afraid the children her age might get hurt.
Then she was called names every day. Back in the late 50's and early 60's being fat was an anomaly. She really was The fat girl in school. So she was ostracized for being fat, for being smart. She knew the sound of a common ordinary word like 'smart' being used as a curse.
But children grow up, and graduated from school. The Royal Superintendent had no more interest in the 'special' children. They were sent out into the world to fend for themselves. They are all grown up now, parents, grandparents themselves. One of them died young, the ones who drifted off into drugs and alcohol grew up at long last and stopped abusing their bodies. They learned to be who they are, nothing more, nothing less, and that is OK.
Special wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Special was scary and lonely, and everyone wants to belong to someone. So the special children became grown-ups and discovered that being themselves was the most special thing they could be. Because when you learn to love yourself, others find it easier to love you. Being loved is all the special children ever really needed anyway.
So, they decided to see if they could find out why these 6 were so different. They sent them to the hospital at the University. They tested them, they x-rayed them, they took their blood. For 3 days they had them in the hospital looking at them upside down and backwards. They never released the results to the 6. After all they were just children.What threy didn't take the time to ask was what the dreams and aspirations of the special children were. They really didn't care, they just wanted to be able to say that there were special children in the school district.
As the years went by, and the school district tried to educate the special 6, some strange things happened. Several of the 6 turned to drugs and alcohol. It seems that being different is very difficult to deal with for a young person. Since this was the first attempt to corral the intelligence, mistakes were probably made. Hopes and dreams were not important, and they tried to make the special ones conform to what 'they' thought they ought to be. It was no easy task.
The girl was probably the most different of them all. Not only was she the smartest one, she was the only girl, and she was different in many other ways. She was tall and obese and was treated as a freak by those around her. Mothers in her neighborhood often were heard calling their children in so that they wouldn't be able to play with her. She was so big, mothers were afraid the children her age might get hurt.
Then she was called names every day. Back in the late 50's and early 60's being fat was an anomaly. She really was The fat girl in school. So she was ostracized for being fat, for being smart. She knew the sound of a common ordinary word like 'smart' being used as a curse.
But children grow up, and graduated from school. The Royal Superintendent had no more interest in the 'special' children. They were sent out into the world to fend for themselves. They are all grown up now, parents, grandparents themselves. One of them died young, the ones who drifted off into drugs and alcohol grew up at long last and stopped abusing their bodies. They learned to be who they are, nothing more, nothing less, and that is OK.
Special wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Special was scary and lonely, and everyone wants to belong to someone. So the special children became grown-ups and discovered that being themselves was the most special thing they could be. Because when you learn to love yourself, others find it easier to love you. Being loved is all the special children ever really needed anyway.
1 comment:
Reading this, I was reminded of some lyrics to the song "Perfect" by Pink ... "You're so mean when you talk about yourself; you were wrong.
Change the voices in your head; make them like you instead." Self talk and self image and learning to love yourself is so important. Bless you for being who you are. ((((hugs))))
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