Here, you ought to consider my credentials important. My academic pedigree and professional (and just work) experiences ought to be important to you. So I provide them with some absence of the usual modesty with which I typically would engage this topic.
GRADUATE WORK
University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education granted me my M.S. Ed. (2011) in Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Development. I graduated with 11 courses, only needing ten. I took additional courses during my 3-year attendance; all courses had a strong focus on the process of research and the analysis of research methodology. Cognitive development was my principal interest. Additionally, I took a course in Systems Neuroscience in University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. This course is an intense review and advancement of the composite of components for the new appointees to Perelman School of Medicine’s Neuroscience PhD program. All other students had at least the knowledge gained from bachelor level degree in either Neuroscience or minimally, the Biological Basis for Behavior. The department was paying these elite students $35k a year to attend.
Later, I was accepted into the Statistics, Measurement, Assessment, and Research Technology M.S. program, also at University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Specifically, this program prepares student for the process of research: how to ask the right questions, how to think in the field of research, how to collect the right data, process and analyze the data, interpret it, author the results, and assess the research methodologies and analyses of others. Though I attended all the lectures and completed all of the coursework, personal issues interfered with my completion of some of the final papers. I did not complete the program. My mother’s fight with Alzheimer’s ended with her passing less than a month after I left. I needed a break and returned to the world of work.
UNDERGRADUATE WORK
Penn State granted me my B.S. (2002) in Human Development and Family Studies. However, I attended several universities and Penn State campuses, and took a few breaks since starting at Kutztown University in 1987. I graduated with over 75 credits beyond the degree requirements. Though I was one course from a minor in Organizational Development/Communication, I spent a great deal of time in Philosophy. I spent more time talking one-on-one with Philosophy professors outside of the classroom than there was classroom time. They were teaching me the “art” of Philosophy, rather than the “history” of it that is taught for a degree.
MILITARY
During the unresolved conflict between continuing my education and not wanting to sit behind a desk so early in my life, I knew I wanted to write a book. I wanted to follow and realize the belief of Ernest Hemingway that a writer must write from personal experience rather than just a desire … so I enlisted in the US Army as a Paratrooper. For my job classification, I was an Ammunition Specialist when medically discharged in 1997, but I began in Military Intelligence as a Voice Interceptor (Linguist) in training, studying Modern Standard Arabic (the military’s most difficult language program).
The Department of Defense granted me a TOP SECRET SCI security clearance. I spent about a year being indoctrinated into the methods, thinking, reasoning, and so many more aspects surrounding the gathering, assessing, maintaining, retention and protection of information. Minimally, I fully understand why citizens will never learn about critical pieces of information that lead to a decision that doesn’t seem to make sense in the media. I understand enough so that I can think on a remarkably different level than what is accessible through the media outlets (and whatever people are posting). While I read in social media and even news outlets, this distinction becomes quite evident. Too many people think they understand, but are unaware of so much and are prevented from even realizing that they are probably incorrect. [I am amply proficient at ensuring you will not learn information you are not meant to learn, no matter how much easier it would make supporting my position. So don’t ask, because my answer will always be that I don’t know.]
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
After earning my undergraduate degree, I worked with underserved populations, from urban to neurologically disabled, before attending graduate school. At one point, I worked in the position of supervising and managing the daily logistics for a 108-bed juvenile shelter/detention facility. Corporate promoted me to working in a position of advising the facility regarding laws and internal policies, investigating and tracking all incidents, being the facility inspector, training staff, and … well, no day was less than 10 hours long.
After grad school, I began as a Master level Clinician assessing, and developing, implementing and teaching treatment plans for children receiving public medical insurance (fitting some underserved population or populations). I developed a specialization in working with individuals with autism, currently have my license to provide master level, clinical services to children with autism, and had taught social skills to autistic kids in both an After School Program and a Summer Therapeutic Activities Program. I have multiple advantages, from having both developmental and research approaches … and carrying an Asperger’s Syndrome diagnosis (diagnosed during my first year of graduate school).
WHY COGNITION AND INTELLIGENCE … and AUTISM?
My academic interest in intelligence, gifted intelligence, and the multiple aspects of cognitive development began with traditional teachings in Philosophy, Eastern philosophy, and teaching myself meditation … the traditional way. From my combined understanding, I dislike the Bohemian approach that reached the West in the 1950s and became popular in the ’60s. I remain more traditional.
My interest in intelligence emerged from knowing that my father and older brothers all tested at the “gifted intelligence” level – meaning that each scored remarkably higher than above average intelligence. I, however, did not. There are a few reasons why. But I always seemed to intellectualize, think extensively, and examine multiple points of view surrounding what my (Army and later) peers had an interest in doing [obviously with some exceptions].
While writing my fictional memoir, while engaged full-time in completing my undergraduate degree, I started reading books about thinking philosophically … from which I found and developed my reading in gifted intelligence. My undergirding in all of this: my participation in All-Star soccer teams in my youth, and my understanding of and pursuit of being a member of Army Special Forces/DELTA … the military elite. In general, I always saw life as being about “reaching potential.”
I had never been satisfied with just doing what others did, at the minimalist level they seemed to be willing to accept. If my peers were already able to do it, I needed to go several steps further, or choose something entirely different. I already didn’t fit in, as my peers ostracized me … but I remember that I never tried to impress people. I did what I did for me. My peers, my family, the school – they created environments [ecologies] in which I felt perpetually antagonized. I learned not to seek their approval. I pushed myself for me. I remember always thinking that I felt alone. I only saw myself and my potential.
It wasn’t until my last 2 years of finishing my degree in Human Development and Family Studies at Penn State (after my medical discharge from the Army), that my belief about my academic ability started to change. One of my professors, Dr. Cindy Dell Clark (B.A. University of Pennsylvania, M.A., Ph.D., University of Chicago) pulled me aside and asked why I was at Penn State. She told me that they couldn’t teach to me, here, at Penn State, but an institution like University of Pennsylvania would. I told her I didn’t believe her, and explained why. She returned to this conversation, a few times, though. But my argument always returned to beginning with kindergarten. I was told that I couldn’t be successful at school/learning. I was young. I listened and accepted. My peers “told” me that I couldn’t be successful at “social” …. I listened …. It hurt, but I listened. So I pursued athletics. I could be alone … and push myself … and it was easier. Physical was easier than school.
The military elite provide for me an easy-to-understand formula to meet their standards. Pay attention. Stay focused. The enemy won’t stop just because you feel pain, so you cannot stop.
The military was physical. I could do that. I didn’t know how to switch to this academic thing, but I wanted it. I started getting better, but too late. But I graduated, having spent a good deal of my own time reading about reaching potential. This time, it was cognitive potential. Then in graduate school at University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education … I applied what I had learned about cognitive potential, and the professors, staff and other students provided me with an environment (ecology) that dwarfed anywhere I had ever been. It felt like it was the first home I ever had. I didn’t want to stop learning from them. I held on as long as I could. After my first graduate degree, I returned for another. Both degrees, coupled, taught me a great deal about how to analyze, assess, use data … and I’ll get into some of that in one of my first blogs.
