geniuses and weird vegetables

I listened to an NPR story about the growing of geniuses and their definition--genius is whatever society says it is.  I won't argue--genius isn't genius unless someone recognizes it.  Every family has it's odd ducks, handimen and handiwomen, fixers and makers and thinkers of things that make everyone else say "what???"  Those unique ones are rarely called genius by families, at least not unless the greater community calls them that first.

Among farmers and gardeners and those that make money off of produce, there are all those genius creations--100 pound pumpkins, square watermelons, unbruisable tomatoes, and they get their pictures in the local paper and are trialed by stores and even, in the case of the rubber tomatoes--sold all across the land.  They are genius.

Why?

What about those 100 of pumpkins in the pasture at an old garbage site, the watermelon that is supremely sweet that fluked up in some unknown garden, or the sadness we feel for tomatoes that taste like tomatoes.  What about those untended fruits and vegetables that are amazing to the possums and bears, those blackberries and those pawpaws?

Gifted education, which is not really funded anymore due to its reputation of elitism, is aimed at the top, those people that were identified as the most 3-1%ish  of the population--IQ score wise.  (And the students identified were usually more high achievers than genius--those children will be high achievers where ever you put them.)  In other words, there should be 1-3 individuals in any hundred with genius potential. Of course, we do know that just because we have a test for it, doesn't mean that it is always accurate or that everyone is tested.  We have acres  and acres of unidentified potential geniuses in the world, but since society has not identified them as geniuses, they remain their families' oddities and secret treasures.  They become drug addicts, depressed, outcasts due to not understanding that what is wrong with them, why no one can relate to them, is not something wrong.

Society has always used the "whatever society says it is" to identify genius.  Of those people identified, and we don't go out and try to identify them, so we are already only seeing the tip of iceberg--only a very small number are ever considered to be geniuses.  While most of us think "big bang theory",  "scorpion" is a much better example of the kinds of genius that exist.  For every amazing IQ score, there is a person so capable of understanding behavior that he or she scares his peers, the child so focused on building or making that they never develop the "normal" social skills, the child that must be "slow" because the teacher can't capture their attention in a "normal" classroom.

We are not good with non-normal people.  We like average.  We like those that do what everyone else does and sees they world like they are told to.  We want none of that wandering from the "normal" path and wondering about things that no one else is concerned about.

If you recognize someone you know in this, be kind to them, they might do something truly amazing someday--with sunlight and the right amount of care.