Gifted or Disabled

In a thought-provoking article, "Your Brain is a Rain Forest," in Ode magazine (April 2010), Thomas Armstrong posits that "whether you are regarded as disabled or gifted, depends largely upon when and where you live":

"No brain exists in a social vacuum.  Each brain functions in a particular cultural setting and at a particular historical period that define its level of competence.  Each civilization also defines its own forms if giftedness.  In ancient cultures that depended upon religious rituals for social cohesion, it might have been schizophrenics (who heard the voices of gods), or the obsessive compulsives (who carried out the precise rituals) who were the gifted ones.  Even in today's world, being at the right place at the right time seems to be critical in terms of defining whether you will be defined as gifted or disabled.

"One of the things I've noticed in my work as a special education teacher is that kids in special ed. classes tend to be the weakest in those things the schools value the most (reading, writing, math, test-taking, rule-following), and strongest in those things schools value least (art, music, nature, street smarts, physical skill).  So they end up being regarded by society as attention deficit disordered or learning disabled:  ultimately defined by what they can't do rather than by what they can do."

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