Mail addressed to "Advertising Director" comes to me, as does a slew of email ads offering "opportunities" to place advertisements in major media--usually for thousands of dollars. I throw all this stuff away or delete, because we have huge success with a web-based strategy that capitalizes on word-of-mouth marketing through constituents who know and love the school. In fact, we're the nation's model school for that strategy. The last thing we're going to do is spend money on advertising.



So I received one of these emails from Newsweek Tuesday, offering the opportunity to place an expensive advertisement in the December 10 issue, which features an article entitled, Smartest Families: How to Raise Brilliant Children. Brilliant children....hmmmm. The pitch goes on to claim that the issue will "...feature an in-depth analysis of the latest science and thinking on the best way to raise your child using examples of prominent families who have produced brilliant children." 



I don't know where to begin my rant, (except by deleting the "opportunity.") I'm not interested in prominent families, and I seriously doubt their success with raising brilliant children (relative to the general population of healthy families). The adjective "brilliant" comes from French and Italian words meaning "shining" and "glittering," and we know it to mean--in common speech--something like "smart," which most educators find offensive or meaningless, because--in common use--it melds the concepts of aptitude (measured ability, which is really, truly nonsense,) and achievement (quantity of knowledge/experience internalized and operative). 



Another objection that comes to mind is the fact that brilliance is manifested in different ways in each individual, and--in fact--all people with normal brains carry the potential for brilliance in specific, different cognitive arenas. In addition, someone identified as brilliant could also be miserable, or unethical. Shouldn't our media strive to teach parents how to raise children who may become fulfilled, principled, kind and loving? 



It's likely that I will never read the December 10 issue of Newsweek, but I assume that the formula for raising "brilliant children" includes highly diverse, stimulating learning environments. This does not necessitate trips to Florence or Beijing, but does call for shared interest in the real world in a manner that celebrates mistakes as learning experiences. When measuring "brilliance," mistakes are deemed negative. We know that that's wrong. Over-penalizing mistakes thwarts risk-taking that is essential to learning.



It would be an environment in which individual work is well balanced with cooperation and teamwork, because "brilliance" may not help future adults who can not motivate and inspire peers.