Being a Well-Rounded Individual.

Brusilov · Deinonychus Joined: Mar 31, 2009 Age: 27 Posts: 330

In previous years, when I had no control over my life, I hated being forced to partake in activities designed to turn me into a well-rounded individual. I viewed those old attempts to make me spend time doing things that I did not want to do as contrived efforts to prevent me from developing my talents and becoming a specialized adult with only a few execptional skills. Being forced to spend your time in a piecemeal fashion; while never getting to really devote any attention to anything seemed to me like institutionalized mediocrity. I would have much rather been allowed to spend all day doing one or two things. These days, I understand that what my parents and schools were really trying to do was expose me to a variety of different possible activities and interests. The problem was that by the time I was eight years old, I already knew what I liked and who I was, and I had no need for variety. Still, it was apparent to me that the schools and machinery of society were waging an agressive campaign to turn everyone into well-rounded individuals; people who are too precoccupied with a myriad of concerns to really specialize in or accomplish anything great or cause trouble for the system. When you force people to multitask, you remove their ability to really focus on things and acheive true greatness.

I was a Freshman in High School when "No Child Left Behind," became the slogan of the day. It was not for another couple years until the counter-slogan, "Slow No Child Down," was retorted back on a regular basis. By the time I had finally gotten into High School and had the chance to really start exploring some specialized disciplines and get away from the humdrum basic curriculum, my High School basically dumbed down the curriculum to make it comprehendable for the lowest-common-denominator. I was failing most of my classes in those days, but I was failing because I could not follow directions, turn in homework, or stay organized; I was not failing because I didn't comprehend the material. So despite the watering down of the learning material, my grades did not improve because the school actually started placing more of an emphasis on functional learning like group-work, organization, and time-management. The increased focus on group-work, teamwork, and interdependence was noxious to me. My High-School made getting 4 years worth of credit in each Core class mandatory before graduation, thus reducing the ability to explore electives. In addition, electives that I had no interest in such as Wood-Shop and Auto-Mechanics were made mandatory, just so we could develop technical skills. I viewed industrial arts and advanced math as an enormous waste of time, and I would have given anything to have been able to spend more time in English, Music, and History. Alas, because of "No Child Left Behind," I had to relearn how to become a well-rounded individual and refocus on learning functional skills to scrape by in the middle class. They ignored the fact that I wasn't destined to be some blue/white-collar monkey and I would have nothing to do with the bumptious mis-agendas of the Bush Administration and his "Right-Wing values" cohorts. I would not become one of his "cookie-cutter" kids.

Despite the many controversies over NCLB(such as providing the personal information and social-security numbers of every student to military recruiters,) school districts had no choice but to implement No Child Left Behind or be cut off from Federal funding. No matter what, the consequences for me meant that I wasted precious developmental years having to perform activities that were perfunctory, mundane, and of no value to me, instead of being able to really grow as a person and do things that mattered to me. But I dont doubt for a second that there is a huge agenda behind promoting the values of the new "Renaissance Man," or the well-rounded adult. By developing a person who can't really concentrate or focus on anything because he is too busy tending to all of the mundane obligations in his life, the government is basically creating human sheep who can only function within the parameters of the existing social system.

Society favors Well-rounded people who have diverse interests and thus are too preoccupied to cause trouble. Those of us(our dwindling and pariahed number) who prefer to devote all of their time and energy to one or two metiers are being rerouted by social organisms that demand us to assimilate. It is not acceptable in this day and age to shut yourself up in your house and throw yourself into a passion. Yet, even if we go out and partake in functional social activites, we realize that there are much better things that we could be doing with our time than putting on appearances. But for the contemporary well-rounded individual, a culture that appeals to the Lowest Common Denominator has been created. Instead of cultural material being produced of the highest quality, stuff is watered down to appeal to the broadest possible spectrum in order to increase ratings and the potential target audience.

Why has our society not produced any contemporary Mozarts or Beethovens? Perhaps it is because our schools force them to spend all of their time engaged in prosaic activities and studies so that they can "fit in" with their peers. "Child Prodigy," has such a negative ring these days. Potential Beethovens, Michelangelos, or Rembrandts have to spend all of their time learning long division and spelling, so by the time they actually get some free time after all of the after-school sports and 3 hours of homework, there is no time left to cultivate any sort of talent, painting, music, or whatever. When I was in school, even my "Gifted" programs focused more on introducing advanced material in concrete maths and sciences and developing business qualities like leadership, as opposed to any attempt to cultivate love of the arts or encourage more unique passions. This country as a whole is growing more increasingly uniform, and we are now creating cookie-cutter citizens. We are being forced to throw all of our effort into things we don't really care about, as opposed to being allowed to acheive something truly worthwhile.