Wednesday 8 March 2017

Albert Einstein said ...


"Everybody is a genius.
But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree
 it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

Albert Einstein

For many autistic children, achieving to their potential at school is a bit like being a fish trying to climb a tree.  Or, more to the point, it's like being a fish that looks like a squirrel, in a class of squirrels, trying to climb a tree.

Being a fish out of water ~ trying to cope in unsuitable surroundings ~ is stressful in itself.   But to then be judged on your ability to climb when you were built to swim & having your climbing ability compared to that of squirrels, well, that's tough.

I know a little angel fish who tried to climb trees for years.  In hindsight, this little angel fish did pretty well ~ looking like & thinking it was a squirrel, the little angel fish was determined to fit in & be like all the other squirrels.  The real squirrels scurried up & down & between trees & socialised without a second thought.  The little angel fish climbed well at first but tired quickly & started to fall behind, moving from being an 'above average' climber, to being an 'average' climber, to being a 'below average' climber.
It didn't matter how hard the little angel fish tried to improve, it just couldn't climb any better &, in the end, the little angel fish refused to try any more.  

The little angel fish was exhausted & felt very stupid.

The problem was, no-one realised the little angel fish wasn't really a squirrel & even though the little angel fish refused to try & climb the tree, everyone told the little angel fish that this is what it must do. 

 "You look like a squirrel."  
"You must be able to climb like a squirrel."  
"Your mum must be a very soft squirrel not to make you climb better than you do."
"We'll have to get the Animal Welfare Officer involved & fine your mum for not making you climb trees if you don't try to climb more often."
"How are you ever going to get on in life if you don't climb trees?"

Days & months passed but nothing worked.  No-one could get the little angel fish to climb like the other squirrels & the little angel fish felt even more stupid.  In the end, some animal rescue centres got involved & told everyone that the little angel fish that looked like a squirrel was actually an angel fish & not a squirrel at all.

The little angel fish was moved from the forest of trees & put into a tank of salt water.  That's better, everyone thought, the little angel fish is in a tank of salt water where it can now swim with other fishes & be judged on it's swimming.

The little angel fish was relieved to be out of the forest & was very keen to start swimming & be judged on how well it swam.  But the water made the little angel fish splutter & splash.  Entering the water & swimming in the water was not as easy as the little angel fish had expected.  It tried & tried but, again, reached a point when it refused to try any more.  The salt water was really yucky & the little angel fish felt stupid all over again.

After a bit of to-ing & fro-ing, a very wise veterinarian assessed the little angel fish, visited the animal trainers who worked with the fish in the tank of salt water & visited some other animal trainers who worked with fish in a fresh water pond.  The very wise veterinarian announced that the little angel fish was a fresh water fish, not a salt water fish, so would only be able to achieve its best swimming if it was moved to a fresh water pond.  

So this is what happened.

The animal trainers who worked with fish in the fresh water pond tested the little angel fish on it's swimming ability in fresh water & discovered the little angel fish had a non-verbal swimming iQ of 135 (that's 5 points off genius swimming).

No-one else had spotted this before 
(except, maybe, the 'soft squirrel mum').

What a clever little angel fish.  
For the first time in a very long time the little angel fish felt proud.

So, it looks like Albert Einstein was right.

And, switching analogies from fauna to flora, so was Alexander den Heijer when he said: 

"When a flower doesn't bloom
you fix the environment in which it grows, 
not the flower."


Alexander den Heijer


Alone by Belhoula Amir via behance.net








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