Breaking Free From The Boring Prison of School

Former students like me and Aaron Iba felt like school was a sentence.  This Prezi gives some insight into why.

Breaking Free from the Prison of School - Aaron Iba on Prezi

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When "Free at Last," Means Escaping the Boring Prison of School

Editor's note: This post is my Martin Luther King Day tribute. You can read the story in Aaron Iba's own words at Low Tolerance for Boredom.

I recently spoke on the phone with Aaron Iba who, despite being labeled since 2^nd grade as a “Multiple Problem Child” has achieved success at age 26 as cofounder of a product called Etherpad which was recently purchased by Google. I was intrigued when I first learned of Aaron through Ben Grey’s Tweet The Best About Me Page You’ll Ever See. Iba’s “About Me” page is a psychological report warning that his “playful attitude toward all school learning will make academic progress very difficult. He was referred for psychological testing because his overly active and impulsive behavior presented a serious “management problem in school.” Contributing to the problem, the report explains is that, “Regarding school, his complaint is that he feels ‘bored.’” However, he was “quite dramatic in describing his excitement when playing his Nintendo computer games. Throughout the testing he made constant reference to them as if nothing else in his life mattered or could hold his attention.” The report goes on to recommend that he be placed in psychotherapy to address his "development delays."

His story hit home with me as Iba and I share a similar school experience. A psychological report as an "About Me" page sends an important message to all those who knew, know, or are like Iba, who might take solace in the fact that not having what it takes to succeed in school does not equate with not having what it takes to succeed in life. His story inspired me to write this post Fix Boring Schools, Not Kids Who Are Bored.

While many students with similar reports are treated with medications to help those labeled as "multiple problem children," fortunately neither of our parents wanted to risk using meds as a treatment (studying the long-term neurological damage resulting from this is an area Iba is interested in exploring). Instead Iba continued through school, as he shared, "bored most of the time." As a result he readily found opportunities for mischief and was overlooked by his teachers. Iba shares he had one exception during his entire k - 12 experience. A 4th grade teacher who allowed him to sit in his own space in the classroom doing logo programming. Iba laments that he just isn't the type of person who could sit back passively listening to a teacher trying to impart knowledge. He liked interactivity and engagement which was why he drawn to technology. Immediate stimuli / response / gratification.

As Iba progressed onto middle school, despite an IQ in the superior range, he never cared much for, or performed well in school. True to his report, Iba was "oblivious to the reality demands made in a school setting." With perhaps only the exception of the grade 4 teacher who allowed Iba to disengage from the rest of the class, there were no teachers who took particular note of Iba in any positive way nor worked with him to ask about or even notice his talents or passions. They had a curriculum to teach. Learning about who their students were, how they learned best, and what they cared about just wasn't a part of it.

Right around 9th grade Iba's father shared a book that forever changed him. It was a book called Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. In the book Steven Levy describes the people, the machines, and the events that defined the Hacker Culture and the Hacker Ethic, from the early mainframe hackers at MIT, to the self-made hardware hackers and game hackers. Contrary to negative media sterotypes, Levy describes the hacker ethic as the idea that individuals are performing a duty for the common good, an analogy to a modern day 'Robin Hood'. The hacker communities as a result are prided on the fact that they are the rebellion against authority figures that restrict this level of computer freedom. Levy wanted to present a more accurate view of hackers than the one most people had. He found them to be adventurers, visionaries, risk-takers, and artists rather than nerdy social outcasts or unprofessional programmers who wrote dirty, nonstandard computer code (Wikipedia).

Iba for the first time was reading about an entire of culture of people that excited him. From then on he was on a singular mission to become a student at MIT...despite his boredom in school. He "played" school, doing what he needed to, to get good grades, still remaining unnoticed by any teacher in particular. Despite the fact that no one and no body in his high school experience took interest in him, he had a determination that could not be stopped...inspired by a book that exposed him to a future he wanted.

This "multiple problem child" suddenly ceased to be a problem when exposed to a passion which gave him a new found purpose and motivation to achieve it. Sadly, this all happened in spite of, not because of, his schooling. Once Iba reached his personal mecca there was no stopping him, but it was by chance outside of school, rather than by design inside a system that instead wanted to send this "multiple talented child" to psychotherapy to fix him so they could eliminate "his playful attitude toward school" and ensure he "was no longer oblivious to the reality demands made in a school setting." Iba could not sit still in class. His mind was made for more than sitting still. Schools felt it was necessary to fix this defect which they deemed would result in him facing significant psychological problems because of his inability to see and accept such boundaries.

It's time to remove such boundaries from our students. When set free Iba excelled at MIT, went on to a successful career at Google, co-founded his own start up company which was recently acquired for a reported 10 million dollars. Finally set free, this multi-millionaire, 26-year-old has been re-employed by Google enjoying a life without boundaries where he can truly soar and spread his wings.

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Low Tolerance for Boredom

Editor's note: This piece was written by Aaron Iba following a conversation we had where I asked he share his story with others who may themselves identify with his experience or know of a student like Aaron. It is cross posted on Aaron Iba's blog. The conversation was also inspiration for the this Martin Luther King Day tribute When "Free at Last" Means Escaping the Boring Prison of School.

Lisa Nielsen stumbled across my psychological testing results from when I was 7 years old and wrote about it. She is giving a talk about innovation in education and asked me to share my story, so here it is.

I'm 26 years old. When I was 23 I founded a software company that was recently acquired by Google, and before that I went to MIT where I got a degree in mathematics and nearly perfect grades. So if you'll excuse the immodestly, I think based on my recent history most people would consider me pretty successful academically and professionally.

None of my early teachers, however, would have predicted any sort of success for me. At Estabrook Elementary School, I lit fires and sprayed graffiti in the bathrooms. At Diamond Middle School, Sopheak Un and I stole all the mouse balls from the computer lab, prompting an all-hands meeting of the students and teachers in the cafeteria. (I believe Joey Carroll ratted me out). I was permanently banned from riding the school bus for doing something I am too ashamed of to publish on the web. In 7th grade, I sold a 3" Israeli army knife to Matt Fallon, who pulled it out during English class. These are just some of the things I remember getting caught doing. Detention, suspension, and attempted expulsion were regular occurrences in my early life.

Everything changed during the summer before high school. My dad suggested I read the book Hackers, by Steven Levy. I was already interested in computers because they provided a great source of stimulation at a pace I could control. But after reading Hackers, I had a new purpose in life. I wanted to go to MIT and be a hacker myself. In order to get into MIT, I realized, I needed good grades and a clean academic record, so I made that happen. I was fanatically motivated to go to MIT, and this created a goal toward which I could leverage my energy and learn to control my impulses.

I'm not saying it was OK that I acted like a hoodlum in middle school. I feel bad for my teachers and my parents for all the grief I caused them. But I also suffered. I had a tremendous amount of energy and a craving for challenge and stimulation, yet I was forced to try to sit still in a classroom and passively take in information at a slow pace. School was a boring prison for me, and I did what I could to bring excitement into my life in an environment that seemed designed to prevent it.

At 26, I still have a low tolerance for boredom and consider this a virtue. It's what led me to entrepreneurship and gives me a healthy appetite for risk.

I don't have all the answers for how to fix the situation for other kids like me, and I don't know how common my situation is. My message to educators is simply to keep an open mind when it comes to rambunctious little problem students. Maybe they just have a low tolerance for boredom.

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Fix Boring Schools, Not Kids Who Are Bored

When I came across The Best About Me Page You’ll Ever See on my Twitterfeed I expected to see some funky ideas I could use for my own rather dull “About Me” page. Especially since the “About Me” page belongs to Aaron Iba, the now former CEO of AppJet, the company who created EtherPad which I recently mentioned in 8 Free and Easy Ways to Begin Educating Innovatively. Followers of my blog, Twitter, and Facebook know Etherpad was just acquired by Google for a reported $10 million. Instead of that funky cool idea, I saw a picture of Iba as a child and a link to a clinical psychology report from a 7-year old Aaron that was very similar to my own clinical psychology report my mother shared when I first entered school.

Both reports are trying to diagnose and fix kids who score well academically but were brought in for diagnosis because they don't succeed in school because they are "bored," "hyperactive," and "don't focus or pay attention."

From the report: Aaron's playful attitude toward all school learning will make academic progress very difficult.

It breaks my heart to think about how many bored students are out there whose schools are trying to fix the playfulness, energy, passion, out of them, so they will do school well. Here are highlights from the clinical report for the brilliant, innovative, multimillionaire, Aaron Iba who was referred to a clinical psychologists office to “shed light on the underlying causes of his overly active and impulsive behavior which has begun to present a serious management problem in school.” In his evaluation the clinical psychologist reports:

Regarding school he complains that he feels ‘bored’ he ‘hardly enjoys anything much except lunch.’ He talked freely and showed exceptionally advanced expressive language skills. Often he was quite dramatic in describing his excitement when playing his many Nintendo computer games. Throughout testing he made constant reference to them, as if nothing else in his life mattered or could capture his attention.”

The report also notes that he performs poorly on certain parts of the test because of the inability to focus on a task he did not much care about and suggests that his inability to focus on tasks he does not care about mirrors his “difficulties in settling down in class.” It also indicates that he is oblivious to the reality demands made in a school setting.”

He is diagnosed with “being troubled by an attentional deficit disorder with hyperactivity.”

They find another problem to be that “he readily feels bored and can be expected to function best in a one-on-one situation in which the pace is geared to his needs. The final diagnosis is this:

Aaron and I had similar experiences. These experiences are what lead me to pursue a career that helps others educate innovatively. This is an excerpt from my mom describing my experience as a pre schooler.

Your nursery school called me in to speak to them because they thought you were slow or retarded. They said I should take you for a professional diagnosis because when observing you during classes they noticed you were not participating or doing your work, you were rarely paying attention, you often slept, and that you were not interacting with others the way you should. They were concerned on several levels. They said they thought perhaps you were mildly retarded, your hearing might be impaired, or you had ADD (though I don't think they called it that in those days).

I took you to our pediatrician who referred me to UCLA - Fernald Child Study Center where they talked to you and gave you tests for about 8 hours. 3 weeks later they called me up and asked me to come into the office for a consultation. I met with them and that's when the three doctors (child psychologists etc) told me that the tests all showed that you were not slow OR retarded only BORED. All the tests showed that you were performing well above grade level academically.

I took you and the report to the preschool. They advance placed you into Kindergarten based on UCLA'S REPORT and they wanted to advance you even further, but, I didn't feel that would benefit you socially so I said NO.

Aaron and I both had educational experiences where schools were trying to fix us because we were bored, not paying attention, disengaged etc. Not surprisingly, like Aaron I was also cured once you put a game in my hand, though at the time I enjoyed the pre-Nintendo games on systems like Atari and Intellivision as well as a variety of handheld games that captured my attention for hours. I’m not sure what Aaron endured to “fix” him. In my case they felt moving me to work with students who had a different date of manufacture might help. Fortunately in the 70s ADD/ADHD was not yet a widely available condition so I was not victim to the drug dependency doctors are now pushing to treat today's bored and disinterest kids. Unfortunately, like me Aaron likely spent the rest of his school days bored, sleeping, daydreaming and wondering why meaningless information was shoved down our throat. Like me I imagine Aaron was disappointed that not a single teacher cared about, asked, or helped students discover/uncover/explore passions or talents...and that our love of games and electronics was brushed aside as a nuisance, distraction...whose power was never tapped into and harnessed.

My frustration about this all is what lead me to my career and this blog. I hope to help other innovative educators and parents do what they can to ensure we stop trying to fix the student to fit in the setting of the school and start fixing the schools to engage our children. We need to help students find their passions using tools they choose, use, and know will help them grow their wings and soar to the heights which most of their teachers and parents were never allowed to reach.

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