Misfits and the Modern Day Tribe

If you were to reflect on the many students who you shared a classroom with over the course of your education, you might recall a few common archetypes: the hilarious and distracting class clown, the energizer bunny who couldn’t keep from bouncing her knee or the chatty Kathy who was always forgetting instructions. Perhaps you sat next to the reclusive kid who always had headphones in his ears and fiddled with a rubix cube in his hands or the chronically late boy who doodled incessantly. There was the girl who was always getting into heated debates with the teacher and the one whose theatrics derailed many a classroom conversation. Collectively, this group of kids probably spent an inordinate amount of time in detention, exhibited poor test taking skills or frequently failed to complete their assignments. 

While you may remember them as being difficult, challenging or disruptive (maybe you were one of them!) the reality is that from an evolutionary perspective these students were likely placed in the wrong environment and expected to complete a set of tasks that their brains and bodies weren’t naturally inclined to do.

We all know that Steve Jobs didn’t finish college, van Gogh sold only one painting a few months before his death, and Satchel Page didn’t pitch in the major leagues until his mid-forties. While none of us doubt their particular talents, their “failures” in college, the art world, or in major league baseball say more about the perspectives, limitations, and assumptions of others than it does about their individual abilities. How their minds worked, their particular quirks and idiosyncrasies, and the values of the worlds they lived in are all relevant to understanding their challenges and genius. This is why we must understand EF within a specific context and across every level, from the biological to the cultural. 

It is not an accident that we all excel in different areas, it is by design. We are each born with a unique set of interests and talents to serve the purpose of enhancing the portfolio of the tribe. We need some people to have mathematical talent and analytical acumen but we need others to contribute to society via artistic brilliance, social intelligence, and compassionate wisdom. 

Those who exhibit less conventional (or measurable) forms of intelligence are often misunderstood and labeled “misfits” within the educational system, and in some ways they are. They were never the kids who were going to grow up on the straight and narrow path towards a career in finance or medicine, but if given the proper support and encouragement, they might have changed the world. These are the children and adolescents who, in the past, would likely have grown up to be hunters, warriors, and healers.

When children with active or curious temperaments are forced to sit at a desk all day, given drugs to help them focus, and evaluated using tests of information retention, the message that they’re receiving from trusted adults is “your natural skills, abilities and executive functioning strategies aren’t needed, thanks anyway.” In time, and mostly on an unconscious level, this wears them down, leaves them feeling purposeless and devalued. When a child’s gifts go unnoticed and undeveloped by their parents and teachers, they come to believe they may have nothing to offer. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, where they find themselves in a randomly chosen career, going through life unaware of their above-average empathy, creative talents or ability to innovate. As a result of this lack of purpose and identity they often succumb to anxiety, depression, and addiction. As their adaptive skills, abilities, and EF strategies become unnecessary and obsolete, so do they. When we place our students on the conveyor belt of a standardized educational system that often (inadvertently) robs them of a chance to really be who they are. And we do need them exactly as they are. 

We need artists and entertainers, philanthropists and influencers, reiki practitioners and holistic farmers. We need forward thinking innovators who break rules in the name of scientific discovery and explorers who venture into the depths of the ocean. We need people who feel more at home with animals than other humans, those who speak more eloquently in computer code than English and others who are skilled at deciphering the babbles of messy little humans. For these people, sitting still is not a necessity. Nor is having exemplary test taking skills. They might be experts in just one thing, and that’s enough. These are our hunters, warriors, and healers, and without them, the world would feel entirely off kilter.