Divergent Freaks

I was a tree climbing, doll hating, woods walking, fort building, kind of girl

When I went to school my weirdness kicked in about 2nd grade- The nun asked me to spell RED— and I did… Red, read, wread, wred, wreade.

Imagine that she said, she can't even spell "red." Shortly after that incident, I hid in the locker room during recess instead of going out to play. I was a skinny thing, and the bigger girls would taunt and tease me so I’d duck into a cubicle until recess was over and pretend to be the first one in the door. 

At 12, I remember standing the yellow step of St Christopher's church when, my mother while talking to a priest said "Yes, we think she ought to go camp, Bernadette. Yes, she seems to be a little bit retarded. 

At 16, my parents who owned a hairdressing shop gave my school-age friend Janet and I, the same job: to sweep up the hair and wash brushes for our 30 operators. It was a simple job, and there was plenty to do. 

The first day on the job we were standing by the double sink in the back and, I asked Janet what they were paying her. She said 1.88 an hour. That was decent money back then. However, my parents told me they would pay me $0.88 an hour. That meant I was worth less than half of what Janet she was worth. Something inside me snapped. I left the sink went into the back lounge, picked up a magazine and read for the rest of the afternoon. I couldn't explain what was wrong.

My parents told me that night. Well, we thought because you are our daughter, and we own the business, you get everything anyway. It just keeps the money in the family. Janet’s family needs the money, but you don’t. We pay for everything for you anyway. But it told me, I wasn’t worth it. It said you are “less than.” In fact, you are less than half of what someone your own age is worth. 

Fast forward to college where the professor gave me an A on an exam scolded me for not trying hard during his class but said my review was one of the most insightful he had read for literary conventions and had few misspellings.

Now there is a difference between someone who makes a mistake and someone who IS a mistake. People who are flawed are like broken toys, they will never be OK, and they can’t be fixed. 

Weird people actually have a different brain Style. They are wired differently If you take all the varieties of different kinds of brain wiring, it's about 20 percent of the population These talented children do not learn best by stilling still and looking at the printed text. They learn by doing stuff. Whether a kid is ADHD, Dyslexic or has a nonverbal learning disability, they are like broken toys in the current educational system. 

It has only been in the last 150 years, that reading became the primary way to learn: dyslexics learn by doing. They learn when there a real-life problem to solve. They are talkative, observant, insatiably curious, and persistent. They think visually, have high levels of critical thinking. See patterns in large amounts of data. Divergent Thinkers can approach a complex challenge in a way that most people will never imagine. 

This is NOT a disaster:

If a child finds it hard to do something they develop persistence.

If they can‘t compete in the ordinary way, they get resourceful.

If they don’t fit in, they ’ll become self-reliant.  Art by LG

You can’t convince a person who doesn't succeed in the standard system to obey the rules. To survive, they must become immune to peer pressure and usual standards for achievement. They like spending time by themselves. Often they ignore social conventions. This ignoring is fifty percent innocence and fifty percent “Forget YOU! Their ability to develop skills is rooted heir need to do things differently. 

Every group, every company needs those divergent thinkers. The list of famous people with different learning styles will knock your socks off.

Here are some Albert Einstein Richard Branson Steve Jobs Henry Winkler, Actor Steven Spielberg, Director Whoopi Goldberg. Cher Salma Hayek Keira Knightley Jay Leno Tommy Hilfiger