As we sat in a meeting room at Ben's school a few weeks ago, I couldn't help but think of the "Middle School" episode of radio show This American Life. (If you've never heard it, give it a listen sometime. It's excellent.) We were there to discuss Ben's education plan for the gifted program.
Mark and Ben and I, along with the principal, the district's gifted-talented coach, and Ben's guidance counselor and English teacher, sat around the conference table. I'm sure it must have been intimidating for Ben, to say the least, and his actions showed as much.
Throughout the meeting, Ben sat next to me, his eyes cast downward, looking uncomfortable. I can only imagine the singular feeling of sitting there listening as six adults talk about plans for your future. The moment when the GT coach handed us an education plan (a loose one) that would take Ben through 12th grade was enough to sending me reeling.
At one point, someone queried Ben about his favorite class. Six sets of eyes peered at him expectantly. What would he say, what insight would we learn? "Gym," Ben finally mumbled, looking at the table.
All of this got me thinking about Ben's future and that episode. In it, host Ira Glass talks to Linda Perlstein, author of a book called, Not Much Just Chillin', which chronicles a year she spent following five middle-schoolers.
"This is the time of biggest growth for a human being, aside from infancy. So your bones are growing faster than your muscles, so you can't actually sit still," says Perlstein. "But your brain, your gray matter – during the middle school years, what happens in your early stages of puberty is this fast overproduction of brain cells and connections, far more than you actually need. And only some of them are going to survive puberty. This growth in your frontal cortex, it peaks at 11 for girls and 12 for boys. And then what happens is the cells just fight it out for survival. And the ones that last are the ones you exercise more."
"During those years your brain turns you into you, the adult," Ira interjects. "The stuff you don't exercise just kind of goes away."
"So if you think about what you learn in the early stage of puberty ... it sticks," Perlstein concludes. "... It's embossed in your existence. It's this important time for your brain. It's this use it or lose it time."
I thought of Ben and wondered what he would exercise in the next couple years, what would stick with him. He plays piano, he's taking clarinet. Will he always be musical? Is his love of soccer here to stay?
I also thought of myself. I first listened to this program about two years ago, and I was a little alarmed at first when I heard that part of the show. What of value had I taken with me from those years? I played saxophone and rarely practiced, was probably in last chair, if such a thing exists.
I desperately wanted to be a cheerleader and finally was made one out of pity from a kind coach. You see, all the really popular girls were on the pompon squad by eighth grade, so that left just a few who tried out for cheerleading. I was hopelessly uncoordinated and embarrassed myself completely. So that's a big no for development of musical and dance talents.
It honestly bothered me. I wracked my brain and unearthed this memory from maybe seventh grade. I was waiting in the commons to be let into school. Two eighth-grade girls approached me. "Do you have a staring problem," they sniped. "You stare at us every day."
To my recollection, I admired one of the girls' short, stylish haircut, so that's probably why I watched them. I guess maybe I really did "have a staring problem." I think maybe, though, this began my fondness for observing people and situations, which later helped serve me as a writer. Perhaps I really did cultivate at least one valuable skill during those awful years, even if it did garner me some social grief.
I'm curious to see what will stick with Ben. When we were at the school meeting, Mark and I wished Ben were a little bit more poised. Thinking about it now, though, I think it's good that Ben is both exceptional and unexceptional.
At 11 years old, I'm sad to say that more than half of Ben's childhood has passed. There is precious little consolation in that. For now, though, I still have my boy with me. He's remarkable enough to skip second grade and to read a 450-page book in one day. But he's still ordinary enough to list gym as his favorite subject and to need a reminder not to use his shirt as a napkin. And that's just as it should be.
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