Creativity is not a disorder

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Thomas Edison, if he lived in our modern school system: “When I was a little boy, my teacher said I was 'addled in the head' and sent me to the school psychologist. He called in my mother, and she took me to a doctor, and they put me on ritalin so I could sit still in class. I thought school was really boring so the medicine did help
Later when I grew up, I couldn't sleep more than 4 hours so I was tired all the time. I kept needing a nap in the afternoon. It made it impossible for me to work a regular job, so I went to the sleep disorders clinic, where they said I had a sleep disorder. They gave me medication so I would sleep for 8 hours at a time. Now I'm able to hold a regular job managing a kerosene lamp store. But I do feel kind of bored with life - like I could have been able to do something more with my life. I just don't know what that would be, though."

Edgar Allen Poe, if he lived in our modern school system: "When I was in school, I kept having morbid thoughts of death and torture. I felt driven to write these things down, but I got in a lot of trouble for it. The dean of students said it was 'inappropriate' for me to write things like that and eventually I acted out and got suspended. My parents took me to a doctor, who sent me to a psychiatrist, and years of conflict over taking medications followed. I didn't like the way the pills made me feel - I just couldn't think of anything at all, just existing in a kind of prison of the mind. Eventually my medication got out of whack and I started hearing voices and things just got worse. I live at the mental hospital full-time, now. Every so often I write stories, which are all filed away in my file folder in the psychiatrist's office."

OK, you get the idea. Schools are pretty much designed to be engines of conformity - like an hydraulic press forming exact replica shapes out of raw materials. The humour magazine www.theonion.com asks what would happen if Pablo Picasso were medicated as a child so he wouldn't think of fifty things at once - he'd be 'cured' and would have spent his life painting pictures of fruit in bowls - no Guernica.

Does this mean all psychiatry is all wet and medications should never be used? Of course not - certainly Pablo Picasso could have used some interpersonal relationship training - but we need to be really careful about 'normalizing' people. Most of the pain in my life has been in the disparity between the way I am and what is considered 'normal.'

What if 'abnormal' kids received encouragement and guidance instead of pressure to conform? What would that be like? How would you run the school? The home life? What work model would be used? Could such a person marry, raise a family? Can 'abnormal' attributes be made into special abilities?

These questions can be answered, if we'd try. The fact that there are no ready answers for them is only evidence that these questions are not a part of the model we've all used in raising kids and running schools and society. It might be more work to deal with individual differences, or it might not be - if you factor in the effort we all spend supporting those whose unapproved differences were allowed to become a source of shame and failure instead of creative achievement.

- George Wiman

Here's a satirical piece from the wonderful www.theonion.com - I hope they won't mind my reprinting it, and will remove it if they so request:

VOLUME 35 ISSUE 27 4 AUGUST 1999

Ritalin Cures Next Picasso

WORCESTER, MA. Area 7-year-old Douglas Castellano's unbridled energy and creativity are no longer a problem thanks to Ritalin, doctors for the child announced Friday. "After years of failed attempts to stop Douglas' uncontrollable bouts of self-expression, we have finally found success with Ritalin," Dr. Irwin Schraeger said. "For the first time in his life, Douglas can actually sit down and not think about lots of things at once." Castellano's parents reported that the cured child no longer tries to draw on everything in sight, calming down enough to show an interest in television.