01/24/2024
The other day, my child asked me what was the opposite of genius.
I was washing dishes, so I was glad for the excuse to quit. Plus, I'm pedantic and a former English teacher who happens to know a lot about neuroscience.
I was excited she asked, because this was in my wheelhouse.
Like me, my daughter has auditory processing deficits, so I can't just talk at her and expect her to keep up. I needed a visual.
I grabbed the row of colorful plastic cups from the dish drainer and put them on the kitchen table, then filled a measuring cup with water.
I asked her to tell me something she does with her brain. We have several children's books about brains, and I talk about brains and processing somewhat frequently, so she was ready to answer this.
She said, "Remember." I put down the red cup and said that's the part of the brain for memory.
I asked for another. She said, "Process feelings." I sat the orange cup next to the red and said that was for emotions.
We went through the other cups with movement, math, language, organizing, and art, so there on the table was a plastic cup rainbow.
"Now, this is a cup of brain power," I held up the measuring cup.
"Actually, that's two cups, or sixteen ounces," she informed me.
Pedantry runs in the family.
"Fair enough. So this is a measuring container full of brain power. Everyone has this much brain power. Now, most people's brains work a lot like this," I demonstrated, pouring an approximately even amount of water into each cup.
I told her that there's a lot more than seven jobs a brain performs, but we will just use that seven for the lesson.
"Most people's brains are like this. They're maybe a bit better at organizing than math, and they're a bit better at art than language-- but, they're pretty good at most things."
Then, I poured the seven cups back into the measuring "container."
"Now, tell me what each of these seven cups mean," I said. She went through and labeled them all. "That's right. Most people couldn't have remembered that. So fill your memory cup," I said, passing her the "brain power measuring container."
She filled it about halfway up, which was more than 1/7 of the "brain power."
"What else are you really good at doing?"
"Language," she said. "I'm good at reading and spelling and vocabulary."
"Okay, so now put some brain power in your language cup."
She noted that she struggled with organizing and with movement. She has a motor coordination disability, so she can be very clumsy.
By the time her "brain power" water had been distributed to her liking, she was thinking of other things the brain does and naming my strengths and weaknesses, too, and how my brain power would be distributed.
"So, people get to know about my memory or my language skills and tell me I'm a genius. But, I can't tell my left from right, I trip over my own feet all the time, and I can't even draw a tree that looks like a tree. If people know that I can't read a clock or tell left from right, will they think I'm a genius?"
"Definitely not. I knew how to do that before I was four years old," she said. I did not add a cup for tact and subtlety, but I wanted to.
"Most people see that someone is really good at math or language or memory and call them a genius, but everyone has about the same amount of brain power. It just gets distributed differently. If someone is really good at some things, they usually have a really hard time with other things."
I then explained how many autistic people, like her and me, have very keen hearing, or they might be very good at art, or music, or math, but really struggle in other areas. They may struggle with motor (movement) coordination so much that they can't coordinate their movements to speak.
"They have an unruly body, like Gregory C Tino!" She exclaimed, cheering about the autistic author of several of her favorite books. "I have an unruly body sometimes, too," she noted.
"So, can you show me the opposite of a genius?" I asked.
She said, "Well, if they are really bad at one thing, they will probably be really good at other things! So the opposite of a genius is a genius!"
As if on cue, she knocked over about half the cups in one impulsive movement. "Unruly body!" she yelled.
"You just spilled all that water like a genius!" I yelled.
We had a good laugh at that, and now my seven-year-old is more versed in cognitive neuroscience than many educators. If you made it this far, so are you.
