Talented and Gifted: Notorious Notes – Chapter 25

By
Nick Radford

Notorious Notes – Chapter 25: Talented and Gifted

Yes, we are still in the midst of a global crisis. Yes, we are still severely lacking in wrestling. We are also lacking in any form of live entertainment (or human interactions with the people we want to interact with). Yes, I am still arguing online with people who aren’t taking this seriously. Yes, I am still trying to watch all 11 seasons and 2 movies of The X-Files in a month. Here’s a spoiler: it’s definitely not gonna happen. By the time this silly little blog reaches your eye holes, we will be rapidly approaching or maybe even passed the end of April and at the time of writing, I am about halfway through season 6 of the beloved supernatural sci-fi. I present the talented and gifted.

I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this personal challenge. But I’m having fun and will definitely be finishing up the show. It wasn’t all for nothing because earlier this week the Pentagon officially declassified three separate videos that prominently feature Unidentified Flying Objects (or UFOs for the layman)! That’s crazy! Given, this does not by any means confirm the existence of extraterrestrial visitors from the stars. But it is definitely a huge step in the right direction. 

Talented and Gifted

In other news that nobody really cares about and doesn’t really matter — (but hey, it’s the apocalypse and we’re all supposed to be quarantined at home so what else am I gonna talk about?) I did a tweet earlier this week about being enrolled in the Talented and Gifted (TAG) program throughout grade school —  a program for kids who were getting better test scores and/or reading at a higher level than their peers. We would be separated from the rest of the plebs (kidding, but I will discuss the kind of classist elitism this stuff brings up later) and put into separate classes for part of the day to better “nurture” our creativity and learning.

I honestly don’t remember much about these TAG classes except my friends were in them with me. We talked about DragonBall Z a lot. One time we had a potluck where some kid brought homemade guacamole and it was life-changing. My point is that it probably didn’t do much aside from make us feel like we were special. It probably made our peers like us less. Anyway, I eventually was phased out of the program (or the program just kind of phased out all-together) in favor of Advanced Placement classes and school continued to be pretty easy for me…until it wasn’t.

Boy, when I tell you High School Biology class hit hard, I mean it really hit me hard.

I flunked mainly because you had to study a lot in that class. I’d literally never had to do that. I never learned study skills because I felt I never needed them. Overall, my point here is that my grades suffered immensely. Instead of learning study skills in grade school, I spent free time in TAG writing fan-fic where I was one of Dr. Gero’s creations and I ended up married to Android 18. The TAG program isn’t necessarily meant to bear all of the blame here — there are other factors like my parents’ input and my own self-motivation to consider but I do think this is one of many examples of the program is problematic. 

Talented and Gifted
Weekly Poutine Picture

The whole reason I originally brought up my experience with TAG on Twitter is that I was piggybacking off another thread.  One that discussed the classist consequences and racial undertones contained within similar programs nationwide. As I said, TAG made us feel special and told the other kids that we were special. Therefore creating an unspoken hierarchy within the confines of the school. Feeding into that, viewing the program from with racial perspective, the kids who are often included in these kinds of programs are generally white, which just deepens the divide between how white students and POC’s are treated and the opportunities that they are afforded. 

Now, you might be asking, “how does this apply to wrestling?” That dear reader is a great question.

It is honestly one that I have been trying to work out for myself since I came up with the idea to write about this topic. There aren’t really any “Talented and Gifted” programs within wrestling. I tend to get in trouble with the upper brass if I try discussing classism, sexism, homophobia, or racism within wrestling. Remember, WWE essentially bribed the governor of Florida so they could keep running their shows during the pandemic and then fired a ton of employees a couple of days later…during a global pandemic.

But the connection I can make here, after sharing a story about something coming very easily and becoming increasingly harder as time went on. Wrestling was the exact opposite experience for me. I was never “Talented and Gifted” when it came to the physical aspects of wrestling. In fact, I often felt like I was in the “back of the class”. Wrestling didn’t come easy for me. But it did start to get easier the more I practiced and the more I trained. I know I’ve made this point in a previous blog. But it might help someone to hear it now during these trying times. It gets easier, but you have to keep trying.

No matter what the thing is, even if you’re not good at it when you first try if you keep flexing. That muscle it will get easier. I eventually learned how to study for tests. I still struggle with it but I can do it, and I eventually learned to be at least halfway decent at wrestling — it just took a lot of time and a lot of practice, and by the time this is over, I’ll probably have to learn it all again.

WEAR A MASK!

WASH YOUR HANDS!

The world is your burrito!

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