I volunteered for a medical professional community outreach program. Medical students go into a kindergarten wearing white coats and talk to them, demystifying through exposure. The school I was in is mostly poor kids, the majority of whom are immigrants.
I was in the waiting room, which was a space where a bunch of kids would sit around and the curriculum was supposed to be telling them about fruits and vegetables, wear a bike helmet, wear a seat belt, drink milk for your bones, all that. It was declarative. What do you do to protect your head? Wear a helmet. Statements of information with right and wrong answers based on acquired knowledge.
There was one girl who was either held back already multiple times or she was big for her age and being stigmatized for that. She was being yelled at by her teachers to behave. She had attitude. I took one look and knew her story; not seemingly intelligent, lots of punishment and negative reinforcement, one thing leads to another and she's suffering further from poverty and all the indignities that come with it. There she was in front of me.
I thought naa, I can reach her and teach her something, anything, it doesn't matter, and I can do it right now.
I had some foam fake fruit, would you like some fruit? "Can I throw it at that (the organ system mannequin)?" Sure. I gave it to her and she threw it violently and her teacher and one of the medical students both yelled at her. I said to them no no no, thats entirely my fault, I told her she could. In that context she's out of control.
I offered her more fruit, said you can't throw it, but you can have more. She didn't respond, she covered her face, she was ashamed; she'd listened to me say okay and been yelled at anyway. My fault, not hers, but she suffered the small verbal abuse because of it.
I said to her, look at this mannequin, wanna take all its organs out right now? "Yeah!" We tore all the organs out of it wildly, throwing them all over the place, it was fun. Now she's engaged again.
I said, ok, how can you figure out how they go back together?
I didn't ask if you know, I just asked if you could figure out how. She started to put the intestines back in, but was getting frustrated making them fit. I said, you're getting it! You know they all fit in because you saw it, now you just have to figure out how.
She kept working on it, asking me the names of the parts as she was working. It took her a few minutes, she put some things in, then realized other stuff wouldn't fit so she took them back out and put them in again in a way that did fit. I could've shown her, but that would've been useless. That would've just been like small talk, giving her information without the process that led to it, not actually teaching her.
When she finished she had a big smile. I said, LETS TEAR IT ALL APART AGAIN! She and I and a couple other kids who were now watching took all the organs out and had a great time throwing them at each other and bouncing them off the floors.
Then I said to her, how can you put them back in again? This time she did it in under a minute, and knew all the names of all of them.
Then I left, and she went back to her teachers who already had decided she wasn't capable and who were yelling at her. That was in front of me. Imagine how they treat her when nobody else is there. I'm not saying they don't care, but she's wild, and they think its intelligence or because her parents are bad or because she's just got too many things against her. They've got two dozen kids to take care of, based on how they're being asked to teach they can't sacrifice twenty-three for the sake of one who isn't keeping up. At least that's what they've been told.
In under 10 minutes she learned the names of the all the organs she could take out of that mannequin. If that mannequin had been more complex she would've learned more. No limits. Utterly brilliant. Not special. That kind of brilliance is normal.
I had to help her to think about how to do something. How to do anything. But she figured it all out. It all came flooding out. Learning organ systems for a child is not inherently useful. The thing I taught her was not itself relevant. But that does not matter. She showed that she was brilliant. She experienced her own brilliance.
I don't think this is limited to children. Any person can be approach this way, and in doing so they will become more intelligent in front of your eyes as they unblock themselves. Ask them how to do something.
- Atlanta Journal Of Medical Illustration
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