AlexsMom,
Two things.
First thing: An excellent article titled "The Dark Side of Perfectionism Revealed" appeared on the Internet yesterday. It can be found at:
http://www.livescience.com/health/perfectionism-health-100711.htmlPerfectionism is a potentially destructive characteristic that is common among many gifted children � and, worse, the characteristic is also common among the parents of many gifted children, which can create a terrible double whammy for a gifted child. My oldest daughter had it bad for a long while, but was finally liberated from it when she received less than an "A" grade in Calculus at the end of high school. I was so relieved when it happened, because I knew my daughter would be blessed to learn that her world would not end if she was not always a straight "A" student � and she was blessed. She learned that her genuine interest in a particular subject matter was more important than her excelling in all subject matters, and this allowed her to focus her efforts toward her own interests during her undergraduate years. She became much more selfish in her academic efforts by concentrating her learning on what was useful for her own personal goals rather than on what the teaching goals of a professor might have been, and I consider that to be a hard-won victory in gaining intellectual maturity. Finally, when your life, your mind, and your curiosity are your own, you are no longer the victim of the dictates of others, and you then become free to be yourself and to make your own contributions to the world. It is not easy to get there, and perfectionism is often a big obstacle along the way.
One goal of mine in designing NAPS was to put NASA Scholars into a learning environment where they will not always be the smartest people in the room, where an "A" grade will be an honest praiseworthy accomplishment, and where a "B" grade is something to be proud of if a best effort is made. NAPS accomplishes that goal.
Second thing: Accreditation is a beastly consideration in the world of education. It forces a norm, and it lives on accepted prerequisite streams. Measurable proficiency is a "must" accomplishment for a school, and understandably so. Always, being clever in a curriculum has its punishments, so cleverness is not encouraged. For example, as a third grader, my oldest daughter was placed in a third and fourth grade grouping where she immediately went to the top of the whole class in academic performance. Good for her throughout third grade, but what then when fourth grade happens? Well, her academic and social peers became fifth graders while she became a fourth grader, and the rest of the story becomes predictable after that.
NAPS concedes the prerequisite streams to the university accreditation process without any protest, because nothing is to be gained in fighting the system. If you choose to get fancy with a special curriculum at an out-of-the-ordinary school somewhere, your graduating students will be forced to submit to a proficiency exam that will then place them appropriately into the standard university system, and they will then start in that system where they are told to start � and that is the way it is.
NASA scholars will earn university credits on a university transcript that cannot be denied to them at a later time. The great curriculum at a special boarding school somewhere might in the end require a student to retake a class at a university because the high school class did not fully teach to the standard proficiencies required by the university prerequisite streams. Yes, I know it is crazy, but that is the way it is, and time is precious.
Steven A. Sylwester
