2e Tuesday: “Unable to Load Page”

So, you know when you’re surfing the internet, and sometimes you come across a page that won’t load, so it gives you the message “Unable to load page–link is missing or broken” and so then you have to backtrack and try to find the information via another route?

Yeah. Thats the message that flashes across my kids (and my) foreheads at certain moments. It’s all linked to short term memory, I swear. I’m not much into medicating kids, but if they had a pill that would give us all back the huge portion of short term memory that we’re apparently missing I’d totally do it.

And actually, I think we’re missing a big part of our long term memory, too. In fact, it’s almost like we all suffered a massive head trauma that affects our brain output. “How can someone SO SMART be SO DUMB?!” is a question that I’ve heard a lot. And it’s the essence of being twice exceptional…gifted and LD at the same time. Case in point:

Sandwich: FAIL

This was Golfer last year, after making a sandwich. Even though he’s been making them for a while now, he totally blanked on how to make a half sandwich. So I told him, “take a piece of bread, put jelly on it, fold it in half”, and that’s exactly what he did.

It reminds me of the time I was in 7th grade home ec class, and tried to make a skirt. “Cut out two rectangles of fabric, sew them together end to end.” So I did, and was left with two identical rectangles, like the tops of stovepipe hats.

It also reminds me of the time I was checking in to a hotel and they wanted my zip code and phone number. I totally couldn’t give them either. It’s hit or miss, and sometimes something even that rote and permanent isn’t so rote or permanent anymore.

And then, one time Naturalist brought home a bunch of salt dough, flat christmas ornaments she’d decorated from school (back when she went) and nothing was painted in except the very tippy tops of them…the star of the christmas tree, rudolf’s antlers, the top of the wreath. I asked her why she didn’t paint in the whole ornament and she said, “The teacher told us to only paint the top of the ornaments.” So right, but so wrong all at the same time.

I sent Naturalist to school many-a-day with information memorized and repeated back to me precisely. She’d take the test, and get, like, 10% right.

I understood. Some days you have it, others you don’t. This wreaks havoc in school. I learned to stay BFF’s with my teachers/professors, and have weekly discussions with them about the materials. That way, if I took a test and bombed it, they could vouch that I had been studying and more often than not forgive me a few points here and there on the material they know I knew. Some were more hard nosed and told me to study harder. Whatever.

Some people learn information and retain it completely. We call these people smart.
Some people learn information and retain it…but sometimes can’t recall where in the brain it is. We call those people stupid.

But really? I think our spotty memory combined with our out of the box thinking (seen often in the way we follow directions, ie., sandwich building) makes us prime candidates for Einstein’s quote:

“You can’t solve a problem by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

One thing is certain, 2e out of the box kids definately don’t use the same kind of thinking as everyone else. Thank goodness.

Come celebrate the many quirks and joys of out of the box thinking over at my yahoo group!