Natural Talents

Sitting in a high school classroom are two highly intelligent teenagers:

• Student "X" is highly proficient in academics, his natural talent. He clearly understands literary structures, parts of speech, and is an excellent speller. When he looks under the hood of a car, he has no understanding of mechanical structures or the process that make the car run. He makes efficient use of the car without understanding mechanical systems.
• Student "Y" is highly proficient in mechanics, his natural talent. When looking under the hood of a car, he clearly understands mechanical systems, internal parts of the engine and what their function is. In the classroom he has no comprehension of literary structures, neither can he transfer his thoughts to paper. He makes efficient use of spoken language without understanding its structures.

The formal education system only measures academic talents, not mechanical or other non-academic skills. Question:

1. Which student will be labeled most likely to succeed and receive scholarships?
2. Which student will be labeled a failure and drop out of school?

You know the answer. What you may not know is, if the school offers auto mechanics training, student "Y" would not be allowed to participate if his academic grades were below "C", the one subject he could excel in. Through self-fulfilling prophecy, the education system trains non-academic talented teenagers to be failures. This failure is guarantee by societies acceptance that "anyone who cannot master academics lack ambition and cannot learn." The Self-Discovery program can give these teenagers a second chance.

Inspiration is a Motivator

• Maritime Theme Park would inspire teenagers to seek a professional skills in the blue-collar world.
• Inspiration and interest that motivates is achieved through the discovery of natural talent.
• The discovery of natural talent is achieved with Project Based Education.

• All teenagers have a burning desire to learn, be considered intelligent and have ambitions of being an achiever. Classroom failure does not mean they lack ambition, they need a different learning environment.
  • Teenagers join gangs because the education system has no alternatives for classroom failures. Street gangs fulfill this natural desire while gaining social recognition among their peers. Crime is the tool to achieve these goals. Our society must offer alternatives!
  • There will always be highly intelligent teenagers that are in conflict with classroom environments and/or cannot learn in competitive classroom environments. Classroom performance is not a measurement of true capabilities.
• All of us have different natural talents, intellectual, artist, mechanical, to name some. For this reason, there needs to be alternative learning environments to meet different natural talents. In the right learning environment, anyone can excel.
  • For intellectuals, the academic base education system inspires a vision, discovery of natural talent, opportunity to develop it, career guidance, and job placement. The system does not provide the same opportunity for non-intellectuals.
  • Most high schools will not allow students with below grade "C" average to take shop/vocational courses, an opportunity they could excel at. Self-fulfilling prophecy proves the education system right, "anyone who does not comply with our policies will be a failure."
  • The education system does not prepare students that are going into the job market out of high school. Their careers are hit and miss.
• In high school, placing intellectuals and non-intellectuals in the same classroom does both groups a disservice. This is like having automobiles compete with bicycles and expect the same performance. It will never happen. If both are required to be at the finish line together, the automobile will operate well below its capabilities. If not, the bicycle will be called a failure. The bike has the ability to do things automobiles can't and vise versa. The education system should recognize the various abilities and provide opportunity for uniqueness.
  • Teenagers that become failures are taught to be failures through self-fulfilling prophecy. When teenagers are told they are a failure 5 times a day, 5 days a week, for as long as they can remember, they believe it. Most teenagers believe and accept the limits placed on them by authority.
  • For many failing students, the classroom is their enemy and/or prison from which they feel there is no escape. Through self-fulfilling prophecy, they become misfits who believe they are NOT wanted at home, in the classroom or by fellow students. To them, there is not much difference between a prison with bars and a classroom without bars, either place is a reminder of not being wanted. With negative feelings like this, there is no motivation to learn.
• Education system's motivation tool is reward and punishment. Intellectuals receive the rewards while non-intellectual are punished. Does this develop a love to learn?
• Non-intellectual people learn best with hands-on projects, learning by doing. This can be achieved with opportunity to experience a verity of blue-collar skills. Hands-on projects give students opportunity to discover their natural talent.
  • In the blue-collar world, the ability to work with tools is a skill that has value.
• Ten days aboard a tall ship, at sea, gives inspiration needed to break through self-imposed barriers. In 1963, at the age of 27, I helped crew a 36-foot sailboat from Hawaii to Los Angeles. That experience gave me the ability to break through self-imposed barriers and carry out my teenage dream of becoming a hard-hat diver, drift down the Amazon River on a raft, and sail across the Pacific Ocean in a dugout canoe.
  • Teenagers use role models as a symbol of the person they want to be. They inspire a vision of the person they want to be. This can be constructive or self-destructive.
  • Leadership style and the ability to inspire a motivating vision is the key to efficient programs.

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