I have been reading for my Masters in Education program, otherwise known as the MAT@USC. We talk about being sociotechnically literate, and the program is a good example of that, with all its multi-print/media sources and modes of conducting class online. An article by I would like to focus on by Miraca U. M. Gross introduces the central dialectic of identity construction for gifted students. She posits that there are two extremes for identity diffusion that many gifted students tend toward, but advocates a more integrated, socialized, and balanced view of gifted student identity (Gross, 1998). Gross contrasts George Bernard Shaw, who created a "dazzling array of masks" behind which to hide his giftedness, with Einstein and Cyril Joad, who seemed to remove themselves "gently but firmly from the obligations of social intimacy," believing that the "differences between [themselves] and the people with whom [they have] to associate are so much greater than the differences among them, that there is little hope of finding someone with similar values, or beliefs, or interests" (Gross, 1998, p. 8). I have often found myself straddling this line, and have been jealous of others who were better at role experimentation and creating glamorous masks for themselves, or who could get away with being reclusive and people were in awe of them for it. I always had a sense that there was something unhealthy in it, but I envied them because I wasn't any good at role playing or forswearing the company of people altogether. I envied them, but I didn't see a future for myself in their shoes, so I was stuck working out my identity in the context of the people left and right of me.
I was fortunate enough to have several schools and teachers who knew what to do with me, and I made friends with others who learned and developed much like I did in Honors, AP, and special elective classes. But there was always the reality in the hallways, at sports practice after school, even in orchestra or the school play, that not everyone was on the same page. In college it still surprised me to find that my genuine love of learning (I think we talked about the accompanying physiological arousal in the 518 class) was not shared by many of my classmates. I assumed that the love of learning was why you went to college, and yet they were surprised by my caffeinated persona following a good read or an essay test. Gross outlines this difference by saying that "one of the basic characteristics of the gifted is their intensity and an expanded field of their subjective experience" (Piechowski, 1991, p. 181 as quoted in Gross, 1998, p. 5).
Here is where the rubber continues to meet the road for me. In college, I became close friends with my roommate who by her own admission was not academically inclined whatsoever. We became close primarily because she was patient with me while I continued to be myself. I wove into our daily conversations about typical college girl things my reflections on what I was reading, listening to, experiencing in my classes and hobbies. I persevered when I noticed that she was losing interest, either by linking it to something I knew she was genuinely interested in or by giving myself permission to lose her interest--without taking it as a negative assessment of who I was. (I still employ this technique today with friends, bosses and coworkers in the Army, when our interests don't align.) To me, it was a better use of my "giftedness" than to cloister myself away from the women on my hall or prefer only fractured, pedantic relationships with other bookworms like myself. I had sought her out as a socially stabilizing force because I perceived, perhaps selfishly, that she could bring me into a world of relationships that I would otherwise struggle to cultivate on my own. In a sense, I sought her out because she was "normal."
As much as I loved learning, I wanted it to be relevant to the people I was meeting, and I did not want to be consumed by the isolation of my own academic ego and miss out on the pure, wreckless joy and adventure that college friendships could bring. My roommate did just that, introducing me to people I would have barely sought out or talked to otherwise. If I felt they were boring or shallow, it became my challenge to invite them into a deeper dialogue, which I instinctively knew they must have something to contribute to. That was when I stopped envying my more gifted friends and acquaintances who put on masks or withdrew from community. I was watching them become fit only for academia or niche interests, and I couldn't follow them there. I wanted my life to be lived in the arena, inviting others to realize their potential instead of entrenching or flaunting mine. I would like to say that at this point I was unequivocal about my self-acceptance and the social integration of my gifts; however, I recall on several occasions attributing my enjoyment of less intellectual company to the fact that I just wanted as intelligent as my more reclusive or flamboyant friends.
It is only for God (and my employers, perhaps) to know where I fall on the spectrum of giftedness: others are more gifted than I, certainly. The essential thing is that I have known for a long time that I am different than many of the people I run into in life. My moral sense was perhaps the first thing I noticed was heightened compared to many of my grade-school peers, then other acuities followed. This is a classic nature vs. nurture debate as well, which I do not want to explore at the moment--I only know that who/whatever is responsible for my giftedness, I am responsible for revealing the greatest good out of what I was given, for myself and for others. That my roommate could begin to sense this impulse in me--where others wrote me off as nerdy, ostentatious, or even insecure--is half of the miracle of relationship for someone like me. (That said, it still wasn't much fun when, using my normal vocabulary in daily conversation, people often gave me a hard time about using "big words" or being "too excited" about how my theology class related to my Emily Dickenson reading that week.)
Eventually, my roommate began to realize her own unexplored passion for learning, and as her awareness of herself increased, we continued to enjoy the great potential of friendship. I watched her go through a stage of isolation and loneliness as she began to differ from established norms she had taken for granted, and then to flourish as she painfully began to reintegrate herself into our social context as an emerging thinker. She always had an acute moral empathy for others, and she had an exceptional drawing and painting ability, but she had not necessarily been characterized as academically gifted. School continued to be a struggle for her, but she was now aware that substantive learning could occur in many other modes, and that this was attractive and important to her. I think this demonstrates why it would be a mistake to assume that all gifted kids should be kept from interaction with their "normal" peers. Given the right impetus and encouragement, gifted kids can help their peers unlock their own potential, and also benefit from the social interaction that implies.
Finally, most of us will have to work with some "normal" people in the course of our adult lives. My life in the Army has given me painful examples of this, where my analytical, compassionate, and creative impulses have earned me negative social ramifications more than once. Yet I am consistently given more challenging jobs and encouraged to pursue a military career. Someone gifted in the arts and humanities might miss the value in military culture and leadership styles. This can be counteracted to a point through self-reflection, reading the literary works of military thinkers to develop a warrior-scholar paradigm, and appreciating the art-and-science aspects of martial skills. Soldiers will surprise you with their ingenuity, their sometimes beautiful lightning reflexes, their intimate knowledge of equipment, and their logistical sense of the material world by which they live or die. Even the conformist camaraderie of military culture takes on its own life and artfulness from unit to unit, until it can be rightfully called in some cases esprit de corps. (I was so nerdy as to quote the British Romantics to myself while navigating my way through night forests with only my compass and map, to keep from panicking. Similarly, as a cadet, I couldn't march well until I conceptualized the movement as a dance, for which I had prior experience.) If it were not for these kinds of investigations, it would be easy for me to conclude that the people around me were stupid, unimaginative, or base, autocratic literalists. What I have had to perceive over time is that there are many forms of being gifted, and out of sheer necessity some are more valuable in my job than others.
In sum, our definitions of "gifted" and "normal" begin to warp as we place them in close proximity to one another. One realizes that the aim of every human being ought to be social and personal integration, rather than isolation or conformity in either extreme. That each person learns at any age to appreciate solitude and individual pursuits as valuable in and of themselves is vital to identity construction for anyone. In compliment to this, each must learn to appreciate the value of human community as inherently worth the cost, recognizing of course that some communities will always suit her interests and personal growth better than others.
References
Gross, M. (1998). The “me” behind the mask: Intellectually gifted students and the search for Identity. Roeper Review Feb 20 (3).
