Assets Rather Than Deficits

The last chapter with the same name in the book An Anthropologist On Mars by Oliver Sacks told the fascinating story of Temple Grandin.

Temple Grandin is an autistic biologist who has a doctorate and teaches at a university and has her own business. Temple ended a lecture saying, "If I could snap my fingers and be nonautistic, I would not--because then I wouldn't be me. Autism is part of who I am." She is alarmed at thoughts of "eradicating" autism. She wrote in a 1990 article:

"Aware adults with autism and their parents are often angry about autism. They may ask why nature or God created such horrible conditions as autism, manic depression, and schizophrenia. However, if the genes that caused these conditions were eliminated there might be a terrible price to pay. It is possible that persons with bits of these traits are more creative, or possibly even geniuses...If science eliminated these genes, maybe the whole world would be taken over by accountants."

Temple's words are a great commentary on how to look at our Esperanza scholars and their families. Rather than seeing deficits that need to be overcome we need to recognize that what may appear to be deficits could very well be assets.