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It's one of those choices that I can honestly say was a big mistake. I wish I had a better knowledge of history and the other things I could've learned.  Of course, nothing is stopping me from learning now. In fact, I'm probably better prepared.  Christina Applegate - on quitting school at age 17 [imdb.com bio] - photo as Kelly Bundy

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Going to Harvard was in many ways a journey away from home for me. At Harvard, one of the favorite buzzwords of academics is discourse.  A discourse is an ongoing conversation, a talking and listening back and forth. Each discourse is physically and culturally situated in a space.  There is the discourse of cognitive psychologists, discourse on literature, sociological discourse on poverty and welfare reform. The word comes from the Latin discursus, "to run to and fro." The word current also comes from the same Latin root.  So when I think of a discourse, I think of a flowing river of words, a current of communication. ... Good discourses make it easy to communicate. They increase understanding and clarity. They are like rivers with plenty of water in them, they are like a good steady run, like taking deep long breaths, they flow.  There can be rocky parts in a discourse, places you must push through, but you do get from one place to another.

.. .. As Jeanette Winterson wrote in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, "I don't know how to answer. I know what I think, but words in the head are like voices under water. They are distorted. Hearing the words as they hit the surface is sensitive work. You will have to be a bank robber and listen and listen to the little clicks before you can open the safe."  A discourse may be an imperfect medium but it can help you get from the place inside your head to the place where you can begin to see inside someone else's.  ... [from Chapter One: Mother] Publishers Weekly: When Summer entered Harvard in 1994, she stood out: she wore eight earrings, wrestled competitively and had spent much of her life homeless, living with relatives, in foster care and in shelters with her mother. *Learning Joy from Dogs Without Collars : A Memoir - by Lauralee Summer

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Elizabeth Murray was neglected as a child. Her parents were drug addicts who spent most of the family's money on feeding their habit. By the time Murray was 15, she was living on the streets. After her mother's death from AIDS, Murray decided that she had to live a different kind of life. She not only returned to school, but excelled and earned herself a NY Times scholarship to Harvard University.

Elizabeth Murray: "I wish I could tell you one specific source from which I draw my strength. However, I cannot. All I can tell you is that my life has consisted of constant self-reflection, questioning the odds I'm presented with and constantly forming extremely strong bonds with people and continuing to nurture them. These things have helped me become a large part of who I am today.  ... "I tend to admire people who have pulled themselves up from nothing. One person in particular about whom I can recall reading magazine clippings and books when I was on the streets was actor Jim Carrey, who was homeless and living with his whole family in a tent on the side of the road. He was determined to have everything that life could offer and knew that it could be his if he simply reached out and took it."  [from abcnews.go.com chat 1999]

Lifetime: You're also writing a book about your life? Liz Murray: Yes. It's been been an intimate experience . When I close the door, I can cry my eyes out writing passages - it's wonderful and so cathartic. ... The book is my license to sit by myself and dwell on this for a while. I needed to put my story down in order to not forget it, so it counted for something. ... I very much want to leave the story behind... so I can be normal and anonymous. I don't want to have to live up to anything. I just want to pursue my interests and put myself out there and see where life takes me.   [quotes from lifetimetv.com]   ~ ~ [CNN April 7, 2003] Murray decided to leave Harvard several months ago... "I need to feel more grounded than I did," she said. "I didn't feel grounded there." She has been taking care of her father, working on a memoir and giving motivational speeches, and plans to continue her college education with film courses over the summer.

.. .. I see Liz Murray as a hero for people our age. In today's climate, where there is so much doubt surrounding the potential of young people and teenagers, she is an amazing example of what someone young can achieve.  [quotes from lifetimetv.com] Thora Birch - who plays Murray in Homeless to Harvard:  The Liz Murray Story premiering April 7 2003 on Lifetime

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Success... takes three very important things: (1) talent, (2) a belief in yourself, and (3) someone who believes in you. My mama was and is that someone. I wanted to write this book so people could understand what a special bond we have... and how much we've depended on each other over the years... It would be great to encourage kids to follow their dreams and not be scared to set high goals. *from book:**Britney Spears' Heart to Heart < photo from book:  Femme Fatale : Famous Beauties Then and Now

 

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Understanding the rules that nature put out here is like turning our world into a big playground. And it's a more fun playground to be in when you get to appreciate its subtleties. In a world that's getting more technical all the time, I think that young people will enjoy life more when they can understand more of what's going on. I also think that they will use that understanding to be creative."  Dean Kamen  [from interview: thefutureschannel.com] - founder of DEKA Research & Development, and FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), a "program that brings together America's top engineers and thousands of high-school students."   << more on Kamen in article Eccentricity and Creativity

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* My advice to other girls? I have relied on several others to give me support and encouragement. Finding mentors is such an important step toward discovering and pursuing your personal and professional goals.

Writing is also a powerful means of self-expression and making sense of confusion and despair. It's also a wonderful way of articulating successes and triumphs.  I always tell girls that their voices matter -- and that they should look for ways of connecting and communicating with people in their lives.  Asking introspective questions is a courageous act and the first step toward finding one's voice. Vickie Nam  - editor of book: YELL-Oh Girls!: Emerging Voices Explore Culture, Identity, and Growing Up Asian American   [quotes from Allhip.com interview - posted on book site: yellohgirls.com]

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'Even as a small child, Buffy writer/creator/executive producer Joss Whedon
knew his interest in super heroes, horror stories and other twisted tales was out of the ordinary.
'It was deeper, more consuming than [with] other children,'' he says.

''While they were outside playing, I was indoors, fascinated by a large stack of comic books.''
Whedon is an old boy of Winchester public school. Now, he has an impressive list of writing
credits that include Alien: Resurrection, Speed, Toy Story and of course, the 1992 film, Buffy
The Vampire Slayer. Whedon studied film at Wesleyan in Connecticut, where he graduated
''broke and without a job prospect ... I wanted to write for TV, so I wrote a sickening number
of TV specs, most of which were returned to me.''

After a year of sending his work around, he found success with a script he wrote for Roseanne.
A year later, he quit the show after selling a movie script."   [quoted from buffy.com]

*---book: Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Script Book by Joss Whedon

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     "I have selfish reasons for doing anything that I do... just to teach myself lessons. Speak when I have something to say..
so that whether I'm in this business or someplace else, 20 years from now, I've trained myself to be outspoken."

Fiona Apple [MTV, Nov.99]***CD: ..When the Pawn...

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 "It's so hard to climb to the top, especially in the entertainment world. And I still have three-quarters
of the way to go, so I try not to carry a big head. I try not to look at what I've accomplished but at what
I can accomplish, what's ahead of me...

Other people don't see their potential, but I believe in myself. I know I can write something good if I try hard enough."

Samantha Gellar, 17, from Charlotte, NC; her play "Life Versus the Paperback Romance"
was a winner of the Young Playwrights Festival in North Carolina, but was banned from
performance because the story has two women who fall in love. With support from the ACLU
andTime Out Youth, it was later performed.

  [from article:"Play It Again, Sam" by Roseann Marulli, 1999, shewire.chickclick.com]
 
 

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"If you find yourself in bad relationships where your negative self-view
is getting reinforced, then either change the way those people treat you
by being more assertive, or change who you interact with."

  William B. Swann, PhD   [from article: "Self-Help: Shattering the Myths"
  By Annie Murphy Paul , Psychology Today] -

  Swann is author of Self-Traps : The Elusive Quest for Higher Self-Esteem

*related page:***self-esteem / self concept

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"I'm afraid I have bad news about that demo tape, Jewel," I tell her playfully. "I'm not going to help you
make it. ... Making a demo tape and knocking on doors, trying to get others to listen, pitching you loud
enough for someone to hear...all of that is part of an old way of working that has nothing to do with us.

"We don't need to participate in any of it. No one needs to really. There's an entirely different way
to work in business. It utilizes the principles of the outgoing wave."

"What do you mean?" Jewel said, "I don't know what you're talking about!"

We stop at a favorite meditation rock and sit facing into the sunset. "What is needed instead, Jewel,
is for you to know what time it is. Asking the question, 'What time is it now?' is a great way to determine
what the next step is.

"If it was truly demo time, the demo resources would be more apparent. But when we examine our
resources, there aren't any for it - no money or people, no situations, or energy even, that would create it.
Instead of forcing a demo simply because everyone says you have to have one, let's ask what time it is."

"Okay," she said, "What time is it?" She was flipping sand into the air with her toes, partially intrigued
and partially annoyed, anxious to take action.

"It's not time for you to get someone else to hear your songs and give opinions about you. It's time
for you to get your own feel for yourself as a singer-songwriter. You don't feel like a writer or singer;
you're very uncertain about it, you've only written about a dozen songs.

"You don't know if you can keep writing, you aren't certain where they come from. You don't know if
larger audiences will like your songs or if a fan base will start to grow. There is no place in you where
you can own all of this yet - this idea about yourself and your work, your talent, your audience.

"And you will need this self-knowledge to create from and take your dream forward."

from article: The Question of Time by Lenedra J. Carroll  [mother & manager of Jewel]
on site: soulfulliving.com

*book:**The Architecture of All Abundance: Creating a Successful Life in the Material World by Lenedra Carroll
 

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School bored me. Being educated and being intelligent are two different things. I thought I was smart enough. And I wanted to be an entertainer.  I stopped going to school as a way of saying I was mature, a way of saying I was going to choose who I was going to become. Djimon Hounsou  ... [Daily News, Dec 3, 1997]

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.. .. Surprising to most people is the fact that sex stereotypes continue to be as strong and as widespread in this decade as they were thirty years ago... this is still seriously problematic in a number of important areas, a conclusion supported by the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women Report (1992).

Parents still hold gender stereotypes for their children that can profoundly influence achievement directions and ambitions.  In an extensive longitudinal study of high school valedictorians, Karen Arnold found that although the aspirations of the male and female valedictorians were not different, as they went through university the young women experienced a lowering of their aspirations and goals, accompanied by a drop in self-esteem, a decline not experienced by the young men in the study. from article Educational Exceptionality as a Risk Factor and Strategies for Increasing Early Adolescents' Resiliency - by Dona J. Matthews, Nada Barraclough ...related book : College Student Development and Academic Life: Psychological, Intellectual, Social, and Moral Issues by Karen D. Arnold, Ilda Carreiro King

*related pages:***androgyny / gender.......self-esteem / self concept.......self-limiting behavior
 
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.. t-shirt : "Bart Simpson Underachiever -  And Proud of It, Man" .... If you are an underachiever, you may seldom, if ever, have executed a plan all the way from an idea to the final result.  Though bright and creative, you may notice that you have not completed a particular course of study leading to a desired degree or certification, or you do get the degree but then donít follow through and practice the occupation or profession. ... Perhaps you move on to something else just when you are finally getting through the initial start-up period needed for success with an idea or a project....

People who fail to live up to their potential frequently feel a chronic vague uneasiness and dissatisfaction with their lives.  They feel a little fraudulent and as if they are about to be discovered. They feel that something is missing, that somehow they have never quite expressed themselves fully in terms of work and other significant activities. ... Not surprisingly, underachievers feel frustrated, disappointed, and discontented. ... from Underachievement in Adults page - part of  the Maximum Potential Project of Kenneth W. Christian, PhD ~ ~ Pulling back from your potential, at the most fundamental level, is a kind of abdication, an abandoment of your own best interests.  Achieving self-development, on the other hand, is not only life's central mission -- it can also be the most thrilling odyssey there is. ...Kenneth W. Christian, PhD - in his book  Your Own Worst Enemy: Breaking the Habit  of Adult Underachievement

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Praise pushes girls' success Parental support and expectations -- as well as a strife-free environment while growing up -- have more to do with women's success in life than does socio-economic status, according to a study by Sigrid Gustafson, assistant professor of psychology and senior author of the book Female Life Careers: A Pattern Approach. .... "We found patterns where parents were very low in socio-economic status -- in income and education -- but were upwardly mobile in their expectations for their children.  "They wanted their children to go on and believed they could," Gustafson says. "The patterns set up early in a child's life cause them to have different life courses."  .... The highest achievers in all groups came from households where the parents believed the daughter would succeed.

.. .. The 13-year-olds with high perceptions of their abilities and high adaptations to school came from families who "thought they were hot stuff." .... "Parents can reinforce their childrens' abilities," Gustafson says. "The underachievers were not dumb. They were normal at 13. But by 16 they were lower. The overachievers had lower IQs, but their high achievement came from families going 'rah, rah, rah.'"  Virginia Tech Magazine Volume 14, Number 3 Spring 1992 ...image from book: Ophelia Speaks

*more quotes from this article on :**parenting

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.. .. ...The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and  Get a Real Life and Education by Grace Llewellyn This is not a book about the kind of "homeschooling" in which you stay home all day and hang a chalkboard in the family room and write essays designed by your father and work geometry problems assigned by your mother. There are some good things to say about that kind of homeschooling, especially for young children who haven't yet acquired basic reading, writing, and math computation skills. There are also some bad things to say about it. In this book I will say little about it. Most people who do fantastic unschoolish things with their time call themselves homeschoolers, because it keeps them out of trouble and it doesn't freak out the neighbors.

Anne Brosnan put it well in a letter to Growing Without Schooling magazine: When an adult comes up and asks, "Why aren't you in school?" you're supposed to soften it by saying, "My mom (or dad) teaches me at home."  If you say, "I don't even go to school. So far, I've taught myself everything I want to know," they think you've run away from school or are a lunatic. Whereas the other way, they think your parent's a teacher and you get private lessons. The usual adult person in America thinks it's terribly hard to teach yourself something, and if you want to learn something, you've got to find somebody to teach it to you.  This leads to the idea that kids are dumb unless taught or unless they go to school. If you quit school, you too will probably wish to call yourself a homeschooler, at least when you talk to the school board. But that doesn't require bringing the ugliness of school into your home, or transforming your parents into teachers. Nor, for that matter, does it require that you stay home.  The idea is to catch more of the world, not less. To avoid these kinds of connotations, I usually use the term unschooling. book excerpt from publisher site

Grace Llewellyn taught school for three years before unschooling herself and writing The Teenage Liberation Handbook.  She has since edited Real Lives: Eleven Teenagers Who Don't Go To School and Freedom Challenge: African American Homeschoolers, and written Guerrilla Learning: How to Give Your Kids a Real Education With or Without School (with co-author Amy Silver).  She now directs the annual international Not Back to School Camp for unschooled teenagers...

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[Why do you think it's important to read?] It's important to read because it's really good for your [vocabulary]. It's really good for your imagination. I enjoy reading because I find it relaxing. Emma Watson... Scholastic.com interview, Sept 2002 - about making the film based on  the book Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

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Particularly in middle childhood and adolescence, artistically gifted children create imaginary settings and fantasy characters in their drawings, and their drawings depict episodes in the lives of these invented characters. ~ ~ ~ Wang Yani grew up in China.. and spent many hours a day in her father's art studio painting alongside her father. ... she painted all the time (she made four thousand paintings in three years), and she painted far in advance of her years. ...from book:**Gifted Children : Myths and Realities by Ellen Winner

 

But it isn't only girls that society discourages: Our educational system lets down gifted children of both sexes,
Dr. Ellen Winner asserts, by keeping them in classes with less advanced peers out of misguided egalitarianism, or by grouping them together in superficial programs that meet just a few hours a week.

from review of book: Gifted Children : Myths and Realities
 

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Barbara Kerr profiles artists, scientists, writers, activists, and musicians who overcame childhood obstacles
to become eminent women in her book Smart Girls...

For example, writer and political activist Maya Angelou was 8 years old when she was raped by her
motherís boyfriend. Scientist Marie Curie was 11 when her mother died.

She grew up in a Poland tyrannized by Russia. Rigoberta Menchu rose above poverty and discrimination
in Guatemala to win a Nobel Peace Prize as an activist for Indian rights.

ìBasically, most eminent women were at-risk girls,î Kerr says. ìIf not poverty, then other issues in their families
put them at risk. They had to develop survival strategies and courage. Put that together with intelligence
and youíve got a powerful formula for achieving goals.î

Each of these women became intensely involved with an idea and found her lifeís work -- pursuing a career
as a writer for Angelou, performing groundbreaking experiments in chemistry and physics for Curie, becoming
a voice for the poor and oppressed for Menchu.

But how does someone help a gifted girl, especially an at-risk teen, today?  ìNourish them intellectually,
guide them, love them, challenge them, leave them alone to fall in love with an idea in their own way,î Kerr says.

from article: Fall in Love with an Idea by Melissa D. Olson

  Barbara Kerr, PhD.  Smart Girls: A New Psychology of Girls, Women, and Giftedness

 

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