The Big Shift

New (School) Year’s Resolutions for Square Peg Parents

School is about to start, a nerve-racking time for square peg children (those who don’t easily fit into the school system) and their square peg parents (those who are willing to buck the system and advocate for their children’s long-term well-being).

If you, like me, have “square peg” children who do not easily fit into the round peg school system, then you just might find these resolutions of interest.

If you, like me, believe that schools need to change to accommodate alternative learning styles and to emphasize alternative skills, such as creativity and critical thinking, then these resolutions just might speak to you.

Five New (School) Year’s Resolutions:

       (1) I will not get angry at my kids for their performance in school or allow my family life to be dictated by school

Commentary: As the famous Pink Floyd song tells it, school is just “another brick in the wall.” Yes, it’s an important brick. But more important than school is providing a supportive family atmosphere that gives our kids the time and space necessary to identify their passions and become their best selves. Not every kid is on the same growth trajectory--thank goodness!--and parents need to allow for these differences even if schools don’t. Family, more than school, is the foundation upon which all other bricks are laid.

  

      (2) I will not give my children the impression that their future success relies entirely on their grades

Commentary: Square peg kids must know that they have more than one bite at the apple. A grade is a teacher’s assessment of a kid’s ability to regurgitate information, not the penultimate commentary of a child’s self-worth. Many, many “poor students” become highly successful adults.  A kid not ready for their college of choice at age 17 may be ready in two years. The world is far more forgiving of late bloomers than school. Let’s help our kids know that.

(3)  I will approach meetings at the school with the principal, guidance counselor and teacher with a sense of proportion and humor, and not feel guilty because my kids don’t perfectly conform

Commentary: A meeting with school officials can be very stressful for square peg parents because they know the purpose of the meeting is for the school to do everything they can to get their children with the program, and that the meeting will force the parents to walk a fine line between allowing children to grow at their own rate and placating the school. School officials mean well. They genuinely (but wrongly) believe that your child’s ability to conform to the system is hugely important to their future success. But they also want to make it as easy as possible on themselves. The classroom is set up for average kids not outliers. Your goals for your children and the school’s goals may not perfectly align. School officials are not your boss. You have agency. Listen to their advice but take it with a grain of salt.  

      (4) I will help my kids identify their passions and become better at what they care most about.

Commentary: Schools are set up to get every child to code, not (unfortunately) to help your child develop a love of learning, identify a sense of purpose and to become passionate. We parents have a critical role to play in guiding them.

       (5) I will work to transform the educational experience for my children and other children, for my country and the world

Commentary: Let’s channel our passion for our own children to help improve learning for all children.

 

Devaluing Individual Differences is the New Bigotry

Jeremy, now 18, has always been a bit different. He was a dyslexic child who didn’t always click with his teachers and classmates. Jeremy was frequently bullied in school. He consumes fantasy literature and movies, and has a flair for creative writing. He’s not very interested in school. A couple of his English teachers have noticed his writing abilities, but still gave him low grades in their classes. Because of his lackluster grades and SAT scores, Jeremy was not accepted into the creative writing programs at his liberal arts colleges of choice, even though the admissions officers were quite impressed with his highly imaginitive writing samples.

We typically think of bigotry as prejudice against a group, such as African Americans, gays, women, or Jews. In each case, the group has experienced a pattern of mistreatment by large segments of society or the government. In labeling this pattern of mistreatment as bigotry, we highlight the need to support and protect the victims and to censure the behavior of the perpetrators.  We include the victim group in our understanding of diversity.

But why do we limit our understanding of bigotry to groups? Aren’t individuals who deviate from the norm, who learn differently, think differently, and act differently, also mistreated by large segments of society? Isn’t mistreating and bullying a "quirky" individual such as Jeremy every bit as insidious as mistreating a member of a group? Doesn’t the victim suffer just as much and need the same level of protection? It’s time that we recognize cruelty against individuals who are different as a form of bigotry. Indeed, with astounding progress in gay rights in the past decade, overcoming bigotry toward individuals may well be the next big social project.

All forms of bigotry are both bad for the victim and bad for society. The victim bears the brunt of the hatred, but the larger society deprives itself of the victim’s full contribution. Slavery in the American South, for example, was first and foremost a crime against the slaves, but it also severely hampered the South’s economy. In providing itself slave labor, the South denied itself consumers with purchasing power. Northern states, by contrast, boasted a more expensive labor force that could afford to purchase goods produced by the burgeoning industrial economy. The North flourished while the South languished. Racism turned out to be an economic as well as a moral scourge.

The same principle applies to gender equality. When Bill Gates spoke at a Saudi university, a Saudi man asked Gates if Saudi Arabia will ever achieve its goal in becoming a world leader in information technology.  Gates responded that “well, if you’re not fully utilizing half of the talent in the country, you’re not going to get too close to the top ten.” Societies and institutions that exhibit gender inequality are poorer and less innovative than those that include women. By the same token, a business dominated by an old boy’s network is handicapped by its failure to use the entirety of its human resources. Women employees are the primary victims, but the company pays a price in profits for its sexism.  

With the onset of the civil rights era and the feminist movement, America began to come to terms with its legacy of racism and sexism. It passed new laws and classified victim groups as protected classes. It was no longer permissible to discriminate against minorities in employment or socially acceptable to hurl racial epithets. Human resources departments began diversifying the workforce, which meant including people of various protected classes. Diversity itself became a value. While America still has a ways to go in overcoming its legacy of racism and sexism, at the very least it has a robust legal and social framework in place enabling progress.

There is no such framework protecting individuals who are different. As with the victims of other forms of bigotry, the Jeremys of the world are the primary victims, but in mistreating them, in underestimating their value, in shutting them out of the discussion, society deprives itself of their talents. We need people who are different, who bring a fresh approach and an alternative point of view. In being different, they think differently, and bring incredible value to our society and economy.

There's an ugly streak in society, however, that wants to purge such diversity from its ranks and wants everyone to be the same. And just as bigotry against groups can be embedded in the fabric of society, so too can bias against individuals with differences. The very structure of formal education, inasmuch as it upholds a single definition of intelligence and talent, devalues their attributes and potential contribution. The talents of those who deviate from the norm are often invisible to those around them.

Cruelty to individuals, like other forms of bigotry, is a cultural pathology that stifles the contributions of its victims, and suppresses human creativity and the growth of knowledge. It hurts not only the victim, but society at large. The purpose of the diversity ideal—the antidote to bigotry—is not just to protect the individual but to advance society. It calls for using everyone's talents. Up until now, we have mostly limited the definition of diversity to including protected groups. Top learning expert Mel Levine notes, however, that “the growth of our society and the progress of the world are dependent on our commitment to fostering in our children, and among ourselves, the coexistence and mutual respect of these many different kinds of minds.”

In making the case that mistreating and denying people who are different is a form of bigotry, and that our concept of diversity should include people with individual differences, I’m not arguing for the creation of a new protected class under the law or a new form of political correctness. I’m simply trying to raise our collective consciousness of kids like Jeremy, who have so much to offer the world but are precluded from fully offering it. They are the victims of systemic discrimination. We all pay the price.

Book recommendation: The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies by Scott Page

 

 

The Painter and the Sculptor

“Teaching is nothing like the art of painting, where, by the addition of material to a surface, an image is synthetically produced, but more like the art of sculpture, where, by the subtraction of material, an image already locked in the stone is enabled to emerge.”

--John Taylor Gatto

When I first came across the quote above, I was struck by the powerful metaphor of the sculptor, and not just in its application to education. For the past 100 years, we were busy painting. Our industrial economy required us to synthetically produce an obedient and docile workforce. Teachers were painters, parents were painters, managers were painters. Leadership involved defining the world for and giving instructions to followers, be they children, students, or employees, with little respect for individual differences, passions and aspirations.

The emerging connection economy no longer requires us to produce a conforming and homogenous population. It thrives on authenticity, creativity and differentiation. Individual differences have become the key rather than the obstacle to success. The new economy requires the sculptor--the parent, the teacher, the manager—who helps reveal the unique image locked into each slab. In today's world, leadership involves empowering each individual to find her purpose and live up to her potential.

Being a sculptor is scarier than being a painter because we don’t know what we'll uncover as we chip away at the stone. We secretly worry that the image won't meet our hopes and dreams for that person or will reflect poorly on us. The sculptor is the parent who helps a child pursue a passion in theater, despite the parent's misgivings; the teacher who sees a flicker of genius in a teenager everyone considers a troublemaker and works to bring it out; the manager who allows a young employee to take on an innovative but risky project rather than direct his every move. Being a sculptor requires putting aside fears and relinquishing a measure of control.

Sculpting is, unfortunately, less common than we might care to admit. Most people and institutions are still telling people what they ought to be rather than helping them become what they were meant to be. Giving people their marching orders used to work for us, and it seems safer to rely on what used to work than to try something new. So we work harder and harder at doing what's not working. At the very moment we need to cultivate individuality, we double-down on uniformity. At the very moment we need to encourage creativity and love of learning, we issue "common core standards," insisting on what  “every” child ought to be able to do and when, as if every child was meant to do the same things and be the same person.

We are a learning society—a slow learning society, but faster than most others—so eventually we will overcome our insecurities and shed our outmoded beliefs. Eventually we will learn a new way of teaching, leading and inspiring. The question is: how much more painting must we do before we realize that the image we are looking for is just beneath the surface?

How schools create bullying

Andrew is a 14 year old ninth grader who taught himself how to program in Visual Basic so that he can produce his own novice video games. He plans on designing video games when he grows up. Andrew has trouble paying attention in class. While he can tune in to some teachers some of the time, more often than not he simply checks out.

“Andrew!” his biology teacher, Mr. James, bellows. “What are you doing?” Andrew turned red, as his classmates snickered. “You’re not even looking at the right book!”

Being publicly humiliated in class is a way of life for kids like Andrew with alternative learning profiles and for those who otherwise deviate from the norm. Mr. James has little regard for Andrew’s learning differences or feelings. Several of Andrew’s classmates, imitating the teacher, tease him after class. He’s been severely bullied on numerous occasions. When Andrew's parents mentioned to school officials that Andrew complained about being mistreated by Mr. James, they defended the teacher, who is popular among most kids. Given the values and, indeed, the very structure of school, it’s no wonder that bullying is so pervasive.

We speak of bullying as if it’s some irksome alien force, independent of the social structure of school when, in fact, it’s deeply ingrained in the very fabric of school life. The main problem isn’t that certain kids are mean, though that’s definitely the case, it’s that school values some kids and devalues others. Anti-bullying programs focus on teaching kids to be kind, which, of course, is a good thing to do. But telling kids that they should be nice and accepting of others when the school celebrates one type of student to the exclusion of others, is ultimately going to fall on deaf ears. In upholding a single standard of performance--only one definition of intelligence, one method of learning, one way of acting--the school, itself, is not being nice to kids who don’t fit the mold. We should not expect students to be any more respectful of diversity and any nicer to people who deviate from the norm than is the school they attend for seven hours a day.

In all likelihood, Mr. James cannot fathom that Andrew is actually quite talented. The teacher's impatience with Andrew reflects the school's limited model of the mind, which sets up kids like Andrew, whose mind works differently, to be ostracized. While I put some of the blame on Mr. James for lacking insight and compassion, I place most of it squarely on the education system and its relentless drive for homogeneity. Even if boorish teachers like Mr. James were out of the picture, we'd still have a gentler version of the same system, favoring one kind of kid and demeaning another. 

While learning outliers are frequently victims of bullying, they can be bullies too. In such a scenario, the outlier bullies a physically weaker “good student.” The outlier is angry at the way he has been treated by the system, and takes it out on the other student. Both types of the bullying are predictable outcomes of the classroom monoculture.

Some argue that combatting bullying requires cultural change in schools. Bullying, however, is first and formost a structural problem. Unless the structure of school changes, the culture will continue to support bullying. The only way we’ll ever see more compassion and less bullying is to restructure school, allowing for and even encouraging varied kinds of learning, interests and passions.

Such an environment would reduce if not eliminate bullying because it would acculturate kids to a diverse array of learning styles, behaviors and interests. Of course, this new structure cannot eliminate bullying altogether and perfect the human condition--none can--but it can create new norms and vastly improve upon it. Because the school itself would exemplify these values, it would be in a much better position to teach kindness, respect for diversity and opposition to bullying. It would also be a far superior learning environment, empowering kids to pursue their passions and preparing them to flourish later in life.

Until we transform the current cookie cutter education system, anti-bullying measures will be nothing more than a band-aid approach to a systemic problem. 

Thank you Mike Jeffries, CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch

We all owe a debt of gratitude to Mike Jeffries, the humiliated chief executive of Abercrombie & Fitch. He has made a significant albeit unintentional contribution to the positive evolution of our society.

Here's what he said:

"In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids...candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don't belong, and they can't belong."

In a single interview, Jeffries laid bare and likely sullied the pristine brand he worked so hard to build and protect. But he has also damaged the brand of the socially-superior, conformist popular kid, a repugnant cultural archetype that stifles individuality and perpetuates a rigid and often mean-spirited social hierarchy, first in school and later in adult life. In so doing, Jeffries has handed us an occasion to celebrate the kid who doesn’t seek to fit in, the weird, the outlier, the geek, the original.

Thank you, Mike Jeffries, for being a useful idiot.

"Pity the cute kid who gets anointed as the popular one or the class clown who discovers that a rude joke works or the facile actor who succeeds early and often in school plays. The feedback that comes from popularity in a popularity-obsessed system becomes an addiction. Soon the cuteness fades or the jokes get old or other, harder-working actors and musicians take the stage. Now what? How does the popular one stay popular?"

--Seth Godin, The Icarus Deception

 

My piece in Psychology Today...Today

My piece "Some disabilities are actually quite good for society" appeared in Psychology Today as a guest post on my friend Nikhil Goyal's blog.

Nikhil is the author of One Size Does Not Fit All: A Student's Assessment of School (a very good and important read). His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, MSNBC, NPR, FOX and Friends, FOX Business, NBC Nightly News, The Globe and Mail, Huffington Post, Fast Company, and Education Week.

Oh, did I mention he's 17 years old?

Three Things I Never Learned in La La Land

When I was in elementary school, I couldn’t pay attention in class for the life of me. A teacher lecturing sounded to me like the garbled voice of the unseen figure in Charlie Brown films: wah wah, wah wah wah wah. I was completely out of it. People who know me well now would say I still am but, if pressed, might admit that I’m good at a few things.

 

My younger son’s teachers from last year thought that his difficulty paying attention to the lesson was a really big deal. “It’s causing him to fall behind in all his subjects,” we were told, as if not being enrapt by first grade science constitutes a severe deprivation of the mind. I’m sure that if I grew up in this day and age in the Washington, DC area, they’d have said the same about me.

What did I miss during those countless hours of inattentiveness?

I never learned to think inside the system

While other kids are solving problems in the system, the ADD kid may be operating at ten thousand feet, detached from the immediate classroom agenda, pondering abstractions. When the mind can’t focus on what’s happening within the system, it’s not frozen in suspended animation, it’s doing something entirely different.  That, of course, may not be all bad. By not being attuned to the finer points of the curriculum, the contemplative ADD kid may be developing higher order thinking skills well in advance of his classmates.

ADD is, to be sure, both a strength and a weakness. No doubt I missed out on more than a nugget or two of useful information. Absent from the discussion of ADD, however, is that the more controlled mind often misses out on higher level observation. People with ADD tend to be big picture thinkers because they’re not capable of being small picture thinkers. People with a more controlled mind, ever rewarded for being on task, can have a hard time breaking out and seeing the big picture. I’ll bet that a disproportionate number of social change agents are ADD, both because they’re angry at how they were treated growing up, and because their minds are well-suited for and trained to examine whole systems.

Tragically, ADD kids often sense a depth in themselves that many lack at their age but can’t figure out why others, especially parents and teachers, don’t recognize it in them. I felt that way well into adulthood.

I never learned not to be creative or curious

Research shows that children are untaught creativity early in their educational careers. Hal Gregersen, who conducted a six year study on creative executives, stated that “If you look at 4-year-olds, they are constantly asking questions and wondering how things work.” By the time they are in first grade, however, they cease asking questions because they learn that teachers value the right answers more than pointed questions. Of his school experience, Steve Jobs said “They came close to really beating any curiosity out of me.”

ADD kids are notoriously curious and creative. That may be in part because the ADD mind is most active in the regions of the brain that generate creative thought. Another reason may be when you’re not paying attention and don’t know the “right answer,” you don’t learn that there is only one right answer or that it’s a bad idea to push the issue further. Your curiosity level stays locked into toddlerhood.  Moreover, all the structured time in the classroom dedicated to teaching to the test tends to crowd out time for more creative pursuits. When you can’t pay attention in class for 35 hours a week, all you got is time.

I never learned to provide unqualified respect for authority

Psychiatrist and cognitive theorist William Glasser stated that many educators "teach thoughtless conformity to school rules and call the conforming child ‘responsible.” Such “learning” can create a followers mentality that inhibits personal growth and leadership development. Questioning authority (appropriately), on the other hand, is a hallmark of critical thinking and innovation.

When the teacher doesn’t seem to like you because you can’t pay attention in class, you may not learn how to curry favor to authority figures. This can be a blessing or a curse or both, depending on the direction it takes. New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote that “The education system has become culturally cohesive, rewarding and encouraging a certain sort of person…People who don’t fit this cultural ideal respond by disengaging and rebelling.”

Many kids, very often boys with alternative learning styles, never overcome this deep inferiority complex and anger at authority. We all know them—they’re often very bright, with a quick, sarcastic, even angry wit. Discouraged by the system, some of them enter a vicious cycle of self-destructive behavior; others eventually make it, sometimes in a big way. If schools were to stop treating the ADD mind as a blight and make room for diverse learning styles, they could help so many more of these kids find their place in the world and make a contribution.

Given the chance, these kids can set a useful counterexample for the more conventional students and bring a unique set of cognitive abilities to the table. Schools should focus less on making the ADD kid a little more like everyone else, and focus more on making everybody else a little more like the ADD kid. La La Land has its advantages.

Google learns that having a strong sense of mission is more important than SAT scores

Awesome news for The Big Shift: The New York Times reports that major companies, such as Google, have determined that the traditional metrics, such as SAT tests, are not reliable indicators of  job performance:

"Google, not surprisingly, is committed to applying data-driven decision-making to human resource management. For years, candidates were screened according to SAT scores and college grade-point averages, metrics favored by its founders. But numbers and grades alone did not prove to spell success at Google and are no longer used as important hiring criteria, says Prasad Setty, vice president for people analytics.

Since 2007, the company has conducted extensive surveys of its work force. Google has found that the most innovative workers — also the “happiest,” by its definition — are those who have a strong sense of mission about their work and who also feel that they have much personal autonomy. “Our people decisions are no less important than our product decisions,” Mr. Setty says. “And we’re trying to apply the same rigor to the people side as to the engineering side.”

Here's to hoping that high schools and colleges will eventually figure out the same!

 

Five Big Shift Thinkers Who Explain How the World is Changing

The Big Shift is a worldview that holds that the economy is changing rapidly, and that society must adjust in order to take full advantage of its potential rewards. It stresses that we must recognize and cultivate the diverse array of human talent, and allow each person to contribute in a way consistent with her passion and purpose.

Here are a five of my favorite Big Shift thinkers:

Seth Godin

A digital-age marketing guru, Godin sheds light on the myriad opportunities of the connection economy. He inspires us to channel our authentic, artistic voice to potential markets. When I grumbled to him in an email about the trials and tribulations of organizational change, he responded “keep raising a ruckus,” believing that putting ourselves and our art on the line will make us better artists and give us the best chance of business success. He sees differences among people as the bedrock of our modern economy and society.

Favorite Quote: “We’ve built a world where it’s possible to fly higher than ever, and the tragedy is that we’ve been seduced into believing that we ought to fly ever lower instead.”

--The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly?

Sir Ken Robinson

Robinson did more in 18 minutes in his now famous TED talk to usher in Big Shift thinking than the rest of us can hope to do in a lifetime. Viewing it changed me forever. Robinson believes that people are born creative, but that schools suppress creativity. In his book The Element, Robinson argues that each of us have a sense of purpose. “The Element is the meeting point between natural aptitude and personal passion.” It’s society’s job to help people find their element.

Favorite Quote: “I’m convinced that taking the definition of intelligence for granted is one of the main reasons why so many people underestimate their true intellectual abilities and fail to find their Element.”

--The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

 

Dan Pink

Pink describes the critical role that right brain thinkers can play in the emerging economy. Pink also delves into human motivation, arguing that most motivation is intrinsic.

Favorite Quote: “The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind— creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers. These people— artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers— will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys.”

--A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future

Walter Russell Mead

Walter Russell Mead is a professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College and writes for The American Interest magazine. Mead argues that the institutions, ideas and expectations that defined American life since World War II no longer work. He worries that American intellectuals, themselves  prisoners of the status quo, have failed to grasp the emerging reality and shine a light on the road ahead.

Favorite Quote: “Too many of the very people who should be leading the country into a process of renewal that would allow us to harness the full power of the technological revolution and make the average person incomparably better off and more in control of his or her own destiny than ever before are devoting their considerable talent and energy to fighting the future.”

Yong Zhoa

Zhoa is a professor of education at the University of Oregon. He has written prolifically about transforming the education system to stress innovation, independent thought and entrepreneurship. He asserts that America should stop trying to catch up in standardized test scores with countries such as China, which produce high scores but low innovation, and lead the way with a 21^st education system.

Favorite quote: “Schools in general reduce instead of enhance creativity and the entrepreneurial spirit because they have been designed to prepare good employees.”

--World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students

Some Disabilities Are Actually Quite Good For Society

This piece appears in GOOD

When my younger son was diagnosed with ADHD, the school psychologist ticked off a list of symptoms (hyperactivity, impulsivity, distractibility, etc.) and recommended medication. "Why," I asked, "Do you consider his learning issues a disability?" With an air of medical certainty, he responded that "these qualities are inappropriate for his age and will make it hard for him to function in a school setting."

But what if the disability in question actually has value to society? What if our economic well-being demands more people with that disability? It's time that we rethink our concept of disability.

In researching disability, I came across numerous technical and legal definitions, all devoid of social context. These definitions speak of being "impaired," but impaired compared to what and at what cost? What we really mean by disability is being significantly less proficient than most at a task society deems important. A person who is under par at, say, bending his left pinky wouldn't have a disability because pinky bending is not viewed as important. A person who is hard of hearing would have a disability because she is well below average at a task we consider important. If most people were hard of hearing, then it wouldn't be a disability. It would be normal hearing. A disability is not something most people have, or it would be considered normal.

The definition of disability matters because once we label a person disabled, we place an onus on society to accommodate that person and on the individual to accept every available remedy for the condition. So if a child has attention control problems, we consider that child as having a disability because she has difficulty at a task society thinks is important—sitting still and paying attention to the teacher. We expect the school to offer accommodations—extra time to take a test—and expect the child to accept the remedy, taking medication or learning new coping skills.

Some disabilities, it turns out, come packaged with high value strengths. That child with attention control issues may be inherently more creative than most of his classmates. According to one recent study, the prefrontal brain systems that govern cognitive control may suppress creative thinking. Highly controlled people are often less creative, and highly creative people are often less controlled. As education scholar Yong Zhou put it, "certain human qualities may be antithetical to each other."

Other disabilities are also linked to unusual cognitive powers. Dr. Laurent Mottron argues in the journal Nature that we must stop considering the different brain structure of autistic people to be an impairment. "Recent data and my own personal experience suggest it's time to start thinking of autism as an advantage in some spheres, not a cross to bear," Mottron said.

By focusing on fixing the disability rather than building up the accompanying strength—by trying to make the individual more "normal"—we may be holding him back. We force him to devote most of his time and energy at improving at what he's not good at rather than getting better at what he naturally excels in. Such an emphasis will likely damage his self-esteem because he will always be worse than average at certain tasks. And with all the time spent on improving on his weak points, he will have little left to fully develop his strengths.

We are much less disaffirming of the weaknesses of the majority. We don't, for example, consider an uncreative child as having a disability because most people are not particularly creative. According to one study, 98 percent of 3-5 year olds scored at the genius level on a creativity test, 32 percent scored at that level 5 years later and only 2 percent of adults. We consider being creative as possessing a special ability, but don't consider lacking creativity as possessing a disability. The uncreative child never visits a tutor.

During the industrial era, the economy required far less variety of abilities than it does today. There were few opportunities to specialize. Whole cities were built around a single industry and a narrow skill set. But increasingly the minority quality—the less controlled but more innovative mind—is an indispensable ingredient of productivity. In today's economy, a young person who would have made a lousy pipefitter or plant manager might make a brilliant app designer.

To be sure, the concept of disability has its place. Some disabilities don't come paired with obvious strengths, make a person genuinely miserable, or render her incapable of functioning independently. A schizophrenic, beset with hallucinations, disorganized thought, and bizarre delusions, may only be capable of functioning in society, if at all, under strict psychiatric care. Society is right to demand that she take her meds. Likewise, some children with ADHD are so hyperactive that they can't function in social situations. The condition drowns out their strengths. In such extreme cases, we should not hesitate to call ADHD a disability and treat it accordingly.   

If we had a magic wand, we would undoubtedly do away with schizophrenia. But would we extinguish ADHD, and its attendant positive traits? Our economic and social condition demands people with unconventional combinations of strengths and weaknesses, and ridding ourselves of them would cut off a source of innovation and renewal. With a 25 percent rise in the use of ADHD drugs in the past decade, that's precisely what we are trying to do.

It's time to shift our thinking about what constitutes a disability and what doesn't. Rather than change the definition of disability, we should revisit our idea of what’s important. Is it really critical that a child sit still and follow directions all day? Can we allow children and adults to be bad at things most are good at and be good at things most are bad at? We should. Our new economy needs more of them.