The Clam and the Butterfly: The Effect of a Little Interest

William, I’ll call him, wasn’t interested in anything.

–What do you want to be when you grow up?

–I don’t know…

–Any ideas?

–No.

–What about college. Any idea what you want to study?

–No.

–Where you want to go?

–No. 

Fascinating, huh? That’s how his teachers felt. Like trying to teach a clam.

I can’t recall a less motivated student. Bright, talented, but a C student and not interested in doing any better. No hobbies. Coordinated, but no real interest in sports. A reader, but no discernible passion. Other teachers and I shook our heads. Such possibilities going to waste. How to reach someone like this? Dismissive of most literature, dismissive of opinions different from his own, a bit of a know-it-all. A year. A year and a half.

He was on scholarship, and the chair of the board met with him to try to help him recognize the opportunity he was wasting. Not a lot of movement. The board questioned continuing his scholarship. Mom was tearing her hair out. Dad was done with him. Teachers rolled their eyes. 

And then he signed up for a photography elective. He could have taken it earlier, but, really, we gave other students priority because they were better students, they had earned it. 

He and another student spent one afternoon a week in our darkroom. At the same time, he was enrolled in a filmmaking class that we instituted this year, for the first time, because our school has grown so large that not every student can participate in the school play. William enjoyed photography. He loved filmmaking. We closed school early for a snowstorm, and William, for the first time, expressed an emotion. He was crestfallen. He would miss photography.

So far, so good. A student without apparent interest found an interest. But here’s where it gets interesting.

William started making eye contact, even smiling from time to time. He went out of his way to talk to the woman with whom he carpooled to school each morning—earlier, he sat in silence. His attitude improved, his effort improved, his work improved, his grades improved, his relationships with teachers and schoolmates improved. A tough, experienced teacher commented on his new life. He started to open, like a clam.

I remember a similar student—this one, Guy, I’ll call him, had a different personality. He wasn’t dismissive and apathetic, he was just goofy. His grades were terrible, his effort was lacking, his attitude—if he paid attention long enough to have an attitude—was, well, like the attitude of a stone skipping over a pond.

And then, who knows why, he started taking flying lessons. (Our school is a couple of miles from a rural airstrip for propeller planes.) He got a job to pay for them. He decided he wanted to be a pilot. He knew he’d have to improve his grades, to learn some math. And he did it, rapidly. It was like watching a butterfly emerge from a chrysalis in speeded-up nature documentary style. He applied to aeronautic colleges and was admitted to every one. And he’s now a commercial pilot.

It’s one thing to believe that we are whole beings. It’s another thing to see how one little movement toward interest gradually opens us like a chrysalis. Or like a clam.