The Stigma of Genius

If a people who have always been told they have nothing of worth were given a gift of a priceless diamond at birth, how can they be convinced that they are worthless or hold nothing of value? The answer is quite simple. They have to be convinced by every force they come in contact with that the diamond / the genius they hold is valueless and that something of exponentially more value lies not within them, but beyond them. Schooling is the facilitator of this conniving convincing of those who hold genius to let it go. It is a system where folks who do not have the diamond have developed a set of well-designed obstacles for those who do by convincing them that embarking on the course will garner something more valuable than what they already have. It is a process of manipulating people to navigate obstacles not designed for them in a century old marketing scheme that denies their humanity and convinces them that their gifts are curses. Naturally hardworking and resilient people are called lazy and weak as they travail through a 12-year, 16-year or even 20+ year course to nowhere; only to discover at the end of the journey that it was all a farce. Or worse, to get to the end of the obstacle course holding on to piles of fool’s gold handed to them on the journey while the diamond they possessed at the beginning was dropped along the course. By the time that the realization comes that they may have lost something of value, it is too late to return to the course and search for it. They complete the course and now stand on equal footing with the children of those who designed the course – each with fool’s gold that signifies completion. The obstacle course proved to be a “great equalizer” but not in a way that benefits those who had something to begin with. Instead, it places those who didn’t have genius to begin with in the same position as those who learned to let their genius go. At the end of the game, genius will still be named and claimed among those who never had it. Expertise in some arbitrary dimension will get some without a natural gift to get named as genius while those who always had the gift are left with self-doubt.

The saying “They tried to bury us, they didn’t know we were seeds” holds deep meaning for today’s hip-hop youth. Their ancestors who were literally buried were seeds that transfigured themselves into trees that emerged from the ground with thick trunks and wide stretched branches like the arms of young people who protested oppression in the 1960’s, like their ancestors did. Those young people- those trees from buried seeds were chopped down and reburied in schools for decades and now, something new emerges. The buried seeds became trees, the chopped down trees got reburied, they underwent pressure and heat and turned into coal and then the carbon from the coal became diamonds. We cannot allow our young people to drop their diamonds on the obstacle course of school. When we drop our diamonds, we drop our ancestors, their lives and their stories. The dropping of our diamonds is to lose sight of our magic. It is this process that is the stigma of genius

“We talk about historical trauma,” noted Russell Eagle Bear, the historic-preservation officer of the Sioux as he described the effort to return the bodies of Native children who died at the Carlisle school. “A hundred and thirty years later, this still has an impact on our youth. We’re trying to make peace with those spirits and bring them home.”

Embracing our ratchet is bringing our ancestor spirits alive and back home. It is reclaiming our lost energy.

Christopher Emdin is a professor in the Department of Mathematics, Science, and Technology at Teachers College, Columbia University. He is a social critic, public intellectual and science advocate whose commentary on issues of race, culture, inequality and education appear globally. The founder of Science Genius, he spends a great deal of time dedicated to working in urban school science programs. His NY Times bestselling book, For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood … and the Rest of Y’all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education (2017: Beacon) is followed by Ratchetdemic: Reimagining Academic Excellence (2020: Beacon). #hiphoped

In The Stigma of Genius: Einstein, Consciousness, and Critical Education, Second Edition, we muse over ways in which to be, to become, to recognize uniqueness and different paths to genius. Understanding that there is no prescribed procedure, but only multiple actions, means, measures in which to recognize or teach to genius, we look at Einstein’s life and knowledges to connect our pedagogies and students. In the 1980s, Joe L. Kincheloe spent hours, days, weeks pouring over the Albert Einstein House papers in Princeton, New Jersey. Kincheloe understood that the notion of context was essential in placing Einstein’s genius. While working on the research, he recognized that Einstein and genius were not usual topics in schooling, on the contrary, Einstein is most notably a one trick wonder, a calculation, a t-shirt, a clock, a mug to many pedagogues. Decades later, we still see few references to Albert and fewer to genius and the possibilities of genius lying dormant in our students. I do understand those 10,000 hours can be a goal, a concrete mark … what I don’t comprehend is our inability to encourage and extend students to find the passion, to seek a goal. Our students are not succeeding, many are failing, most are discouraged and disenfranchised … and those are the privileged ones. We swirl in an underworld of mandated consistency: curriculum indecision, instructional design hell, punitive standards, inadequate administrators, and combat-weary teachers. Climbing to the top are those kids whose parents can afford to finance the 10,000 hours, however, I’m not sure many of them become genius, even at 20,000 hours. Genius cannot be quantified or purchased. And other kids, the Black, Brown, poor, Indigenous, refugee, queer kids … how can we help them ascend, to aspire genius? Our students need tentative, living pedagogies, contextualized lifeworlds, cultural relevant classrooms, to discover where they can go. We hope that this book will bring our readers past the kitsch t-shirts, and consider the importance of multiple unified, critical, democratic educations and ways of knowing.