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CHARACTERISTICS OF 'SUCCESSFUL' DROPOUTS
Combining resilient-student research with what educators know about gifted dropouts, many of whom test in the concrete-random learning style (see sidebar), we finally understand why the very things that gave Murray grief in school were those that won him the Pulitzer Prize.
Resilient-student research shows today that those who succeed in life despite the odds have a knack for turning circumstances to their benefit. Murray was no exception.
So what did he do that was different? First and foremost, he did not change his learning style, that internal mental wiring that rendered him incomprehensible to the schools. Rather, he adapted consciously and unconsciously many of the negatives, "remaking something new out of what did not work before."
"I think I have succeeded because of the negative influences in my life," Murray concedes. "They gave me the materials for my writing but more than that, gave me the emotional hunger, the needs, the drive to express myself, to discover myself, to exist, to influence, to shout I AM HERE." FOOTNOTE: 3
Murray hungered for in-depth immersion in a subject of his own choosing. What mattered were topics he cared passionately about. He was motivated for a career in writing, for meaningful work that would point him in that direction, but he was not motivated for high school, which did not expedite his cause. When topics of interest captured Murray's attention, days would pass until he surfaced again. He reflects on the situation, "I was a compulsive reader held back by my ... teachers since I read more, far more, than was required. I knew I could learn what I needed to learn." His sense of efficacy, the knowledge that he could do what he determined to do, is characteristic of resilient children.
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