“She’s not sick; she’s a dancer.”
As a society, we have come to equate academic ability with intelligence. And academic ability — success in the school system — usually determines our entrance into professional pursuits and high levels of academic learning, especially university entrance. One of the primary factors considered for university acceptance consists of an applicant’s transcript of grades. Success in subjects such as math and science lend much more proof to one’s “intelligence” than do great grades in music or art. Think about it: You probably won’t get denied from a university if you did poorly in art. But chances are you will not be considered to be such a strong applicant if you got a below-average grade in math or science.
This hierarchy creates a definition of “intelligence” that is principally based on one’s grades in school. At the end of the day, however, grades are more so a reflection of one’s ability to take tests, write papers, and behave according to classroom and curricular guidelines than they are indicators of one’s intelligence. Intelligence encompasses so much more than these few factors, and some of the people who have low results in school are also some of most intelligent people out there. The consequence is that this system unfairly works against people who mainly thrive in disciplines that require more creativity. They are made to feel unintelligent because they may not be so talented at “math,” or even worse, their talent is stigmatized, even though they are absolutely brilliant in their own ways.
Take Gillian Lynne, for example. When Gillian was in grade school back in the 1930s, she was quite fidgety and struggled to concentrate. She often distracted her peers in class and rarely turned in her homework on time. She did not perform well on assessments. Many of her teachers at school believed she needed to seek out medical attention, so they wrote to her parents, saying, “We think Gillian has a learning disorder.” (Nowadays, Gillian probably would have been diagnosed with ADHD, but that diagnosis wasn’t available back then.)
Gillian and her mother went to visit a specialist, and for the duration of the visit the doctor chatted with her mother about all the various problems Gillian was having in school. After about 20 minutes, the doctor addressed Gillian and told her to wait in the room while he talked privately to her mother. As the adults were leaving the room, the doctor turned on the radio on his desk, signaling to Gillian’s mother to watch her daughter once she had exited the room. Immediately, Gillian started dancing to the music. The doctor turned to the mother and said, “Mrs. Lynne, Gillian isn’t sick; she’s a dancer. Take her to a dance school.”
So Gillian went to dance school. As she recalls, “I can’t tell you how wonderful it was. We walked in this room, and it was full of people like me. People who couldn’t sit still. People who had to move to think.” Gillian went on to dance at the Royal Ballet School, where she eventually became a soloist. She went on to become an actress, theater-television director, and choreographer. Today, she is probably most famous for her theater choreography of two of the longest-running shows in Broadway history, Phantom of the Opera and Cats.
Gillian Lynne is one of the most celebrated figures in the art industry, and some people would have wanted to put her on medication. There is no way Gillian could have possibly made it to this level of success without immense creative abilities and intelligence. Gillian’s success story shows that the common definition of intelligence is by no means all-encompassing. Rather, creativity can be an important element of intelligence and of the subsequent success that can result. Our schools, for the most part, have yet to recognize that. For more reading on the subject, check out the article below.
For more information, please contact me at sfd9@georgetown.edu. To read more, you can purchase my book, “When Birds Swim” on Amazon in paperback or Kindle.
