Consider for example, the following case study of a young boy described by his parents as an ‘active and curious toddler’. From an early age, he had a strong dislike for authority and hated being told what to do. Twice in his early years, his parents had to rush him to the emergency room: one time because he had stuck a metal pin into an electric socket and burned his hand, and another time because he had eaten poison. Perhaps he’d have benefited from Ivaar Lovas’s intensive early intervention project at UCLA that aimed to teach such children a new respect for the word ‘NO!’ (click to learn more). At least, that might have saved his parents a lot of anxiety and work.  

 

School

        School was a challenge for this ‘curious and active boy’. He was interested in machines and electronics and liked tinkering with them. However, this was of course not encouraged or allowed at school. He had learned to read before he joined kindergarten and claimed to be bored at school. He busied himself with pranks and practical jokes that got him in trouble. By the end of third grade, he had been sent home from school several times for his behavioral issues. The one subject that he didn’t mind was math and he could be bribed into doing math problems for one of his teachers who formed a connection with him. 

         His school decided he needed to be challenged more. He was made to skip a grade or two and sent into middle school. But the social challenges of surviving middle school with kids that were chronologically older than him were too much for him to handle and he decided he wouldn’t be there anymore. Further, his sixth-grade report card noted that he had trouble getting motivated. 

         His parents were luckily able to move to a new city and find a new school where he presumably felt less threatened. It even had an electronics class with a well-equipped lab. But this young boy, with his rebellious attitude and rejection of authority, clashed with the teacher. He was usually “off in a corner doing something on his own and really didn’t want to have much of anything to do with either the teacher or the rest of the class.” Although he loved electronics, he dropped the course. 

         Fortunately for this boy, his parents had moved to the part of the country where a veritable revolution was taking place in the very area that interested him – electronics. Outside of school, he joined an engineering club where students got to hear real engineers talk to them about their projects: lasers, holography, light-emitting diodes. This helped the boy connect his interest with real world applications and truly inspired him to work on projects of his own design.