From Ballet to Rocket Science, And Back Again?

As any good mother (with the means) does, my mom involved me in activities in my youth to expose me to a variety of interests.  At a very early age, this involved ballet lessons, I'm sure among other things, but I really don't remember those lessons.  Perhaps I don't remember them because they were short-lived, maybe a few times before my mom realized I was more interested in watching the butterflies flitting around the room than listening to my instructor.  I had private lessons in piano that I do remember, but never pursued that either.  I had my own interests in the arts by my middle and high school years. I was pretty darn good with the flute and piccolo in MS.  In HS, I pursued, unprecedented at the time, to take a vocational art class for only one hour of the day which was and still is normally a half of the school day.  My main interests in my later adolescent years and teens were purely analytical pursuits.  I clearly liked math and science more than I did the arts.

Tonight I read an interview with Yong Zhao:  Will the Common Core Create World-Class Learners?  What resonated with me was Yong's response to the "single high bar" question:

In fact, I would argue a single bar in itself is discriminatory because it favors one type of ability over others, while other abilities may be as valuable. For example, a newly arrived immigrant may not do as well as native born students in English but she has already spoken another language. By judging her ability in English only, she would be "at-risk." Likewise, if a child is musically talented but may not do well in mathematics, if using a single bar, he would be "at risk" in math. Like Albert Einstein once said: "if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." Or imagine judging a swimmer by how high he can jump and training him as a jumper.

Fast-forward from the early years of butterflies and ballot, to my Junior year in high school, when the guidance counselors started talking to us about choosing our future careers.  The message seemed to be, "choose wisely because this is what you will be doing the rest of your life."  We were told we had to make this decision within the next year because we would be filling out college applications.  We even had computer-based tests that would tell us what career we were most suited for.  I think the computer told me I should be a florist.

I chose my first 6 years of college after many talks with with my parents about career choices.  Because I liked both art and math, architect was an idea tossed about at one point.  My choice was conceived when my my mom told me the ballet story, how I watched the butterflies and that maybe I should study aerospace.  While many mathematical/analytical areas of study may seem dry and uninteresting to most folks, this particular one intrigued me.  I still find enormous beauty in flight, whether nature-made or human-made.

Yong's comment left me wondering at what age can we tell what a child is meant to do?  And, in the meantime, what is the responsibility of educators to help children discover those interests?  Does the common core help our youth discover their interests or not? 

I don't know if "standards" led me to where I am today, but I do know that my academic experiences helped to make me a better learner. 

Yet, I did not become a rocket scientist, even though I get to tell people that I'm a non-practicing one.  Nor did I become a florist or an architect.  I was an adult when I decided to become an educator.  While I'm not always very graceful and from time-to-time I fall, I found myself dancing once again.