(2012-11-02) Accomplished Vs Educated

Pamela Paul confesses: *I was one of the middling sort, endowed with a reasonable amount of natural ability. But, I figured, if all went according to my carefully hatched plan, I could graduate with all my “to do” boxes neatly checked off, my teachers impressed if not wowed, and the ultimate achievement: an acceptance letter from the Ivy League college of my choice. It all went as planned. I didn’t learn much of anything.

At the risk of sounding like yet another wizened GenX-er wagging a precipitately middle-aged finger at millennial youth, I’d like to share a lesson I learned only years later: the overtly accomplished child is often the less educated one. To be clear, what I call the accomplished child is a very different creature from the born or cultivated genius, and equally different from the aspiring superstar. With neither the superlative skill of the former nor the extraordinary efforts of the latter, the accomplished child does exactly what is expected of him. And nothing more.*

This was my Schooling history also. Not a great start to a Meaningful Life.