Being Well Rounded
Embracing obsessions
In this series of things we were told were good for us, that turned out to be bad for us and things we were told were bad for us that turned out to be good for us, I’d like to talk about….being ‘well rounded’.
After I wrote yesterday, I was thinking about this aim we have - this social norm - to be well rounded. And how that affects our attitude not just to school and learning (particularly for young children) but also to how we might approach life.
At school, in England anyway, until the age of 13 or so children learn a wide range of subjects. Anecdotally, I’ve heard that pressure on primary school children has increased over the last 10-15 years, as well as pressure on schools to provide more with less funding per pupil. I’ve also heard of many schools that have reduced creative arts teaching in order to prioritise attainment in core subjects - but I can’t give you evidence for that and I’m trying not to go down a rabbit hole there. If you have evidence to share, please do so in the comments!
As we get older from 16 or so, this funnels into more specialist subjects. And then if you go on to further education, you go in depth into that specialism. If you just can’t really engage with one of those subjects that you’re not interested in, you might be penalised for that later on. Maybe you’re distracted and noisy so there’s a direct consequence of being told off or sent out (which is not really going to make you love that subject any more). Or you get lower grades which can impact later choices (or at least, appear to at the time). I remember at some point picking up that it was frowned upon to only focus on academics too - for example at university or job interviews - there is often an idea that you should also have socially oriented hobbies, responsibilities and interests.
The general ideal seems to be one of well roundedness. Nothing too obsessive, but also being focused enough to not jump around between ideas.
This completely contradicts a monotropic way of operating - the way you enter that tunnel and don’t emerge until you’re done. Using that example of school again, often we have to shift our attention regularly on to new topics, or areas related to those topics. There’s little opportunity to get into a deep, flow state. Learning about monotropism explained to me why, in learning environments, I often felt sort of itchy and uncomfortable. Performing well-roundedness meant I had a constant sense of being just a little (or sometimes a lot) unsettled, until I had an opportunity to relax into something.
Could it be ok to be obsessive? For this to be seen as a strength, as a gift, not a quirk or an oddity? Even though deep interests are not unusual (Taylor Swift?), there often seems to be this invisible line where interest becomes obsessive and unusual and frowned upon. But surely it’s over that line that the most interesting discoveries are made? I don’t know if we can do that when we’re trying not to dive in too deep.
What do you think?
I think our culture takes it too far too in terms of academic qualifications (leading on from the deschooling post yesterday). Why do you have to have a maths level 2 qualification to be an art teacher, or an English one to go to university to do physics? It’s such a huge source of stress for people who just don’t have that kind of brain.
I’ve always felt like I’ve never found my ‘thing’, I’m mediocre at most stuff but never good at anything. (I think I’m AuDHD- awaiting assessment, and think that this is why I’ve never settled on a ‘thing’. Because I find it hard to focus, I’ve accidentally become ‘well rounded’ but it doesn’t feel successful?
Ps I gut three Cs at A level- an art, a science and humanity (classic well-rounded) but got an A in general studies 🤷🏻♀️😂
I think about monotropism a lot in the context of the self-directing youth I know. Some of them seem to be doing one main thing, like gaming, yet as teenagers are full of surprising knowledge about the world.
Information can come from a wide variety of sources, not just adult driven and graded classes, but of course this isn’t common knowledge. And then there’s the fact that so much of what conventional students regurgitate for tests is immediately purged from their memory the next day! I was the queen of that.
Self-directing kids may have gaps in the knowledge, but I think the trade off of really knowing themselves well is worth it.