In
His Opinion
In Defense of Late Bloomers
Paul Cummins
Mirror Contributing Writer
I think I was fortunate to grow up in the ‘30s and
‘40s (I was born in 1937) and to attend high school and college in
the 1950s.
The ‘50s were a decade in which the College Board
Scores (SATs) did not exercise such inordinate weight in determining a
young person’s future. Neither did grade point averages (GPA) or
advance placement (AP). The competition for admissions into the highly
selective colleges was not at the fever pitch it is today. Colleges
were not looking for quasi-objective reasons to deny this or that
student. The triumvirate SAT-GPA-AP which now rules was then weak or
non-existent. Consequently, there was ample time to grow, to wander
down backroads, to enjoy the salad days of youth, to play kick the can
and stickball, and time to be a carefree youth. Kids like me had a
chance to grow up at their own pace.
I look back and realize now that I was a slow learner,
a late bloomer, and, finally, an over-achiever. However, I was allowed
the time to be all of those. I didn’t hit my stride intellectually
until mid-college I needed time to learn how to learn; and I needed
time to find out who I was and what my passions were. It was my good
fortune to grow up in a time where I was allowed the time. I feel
sorry for kids today. How many of them, I wonder, are like me, but do
not have the leisure to find themselves without feeling bad about
themselves?
I remember, in particular, one incident which occurred
after I graduated from college and which, I think, is food for
thought. I was 25 years old, teaching at my old high school and
feeling pretty good about myself. one day, I was looking for some
alumni records and I came across my own file. And there they were --
my SAT scores. I can honestly say, I had no recollection of ever
having seen them before, or even if I had, of knowing their
significance. I was admitted to Stanford in 1955 when SATs were
relatively unimportant, and I have never paid any attention to them.
But now, at 25, I was a teacher, a college graduate
(BA, Stanford, MAT, Harvard) and a Ph.D. candidate at USC and here I
was confronting my SAT scores for the first time. I was utterly
shocked. They were amazingly low. I stared at the scores in disbelief,
because now I was a college counselor and I knew what they meant. I
was depressed for weeks. Was I really that stupid? How could I be
teaching when all my students were more intelligent? I was, for a
time, thoroughly disheartened. And yet, I was 25 years old,
self-confident and successful in my chosen field. Nevertheless, these
students numbers hit me between the eyes.
How much more, I wonder, do younger students wilt
under the societal weight of scores and grades? How many students, I
wonder, fail to live up to their potential because a test score or
grade fixes upon them a crippling self-image? How many potentially
productive