It’s time to end the mocking and begin the accepting…

If every individual was the same, this would be a perfect world and we would all be robots. We all come from different backgrounds, traditions and mindsets. Why not accept people as they are? Why do we feel the need to mold ourselves according to societal norms? What are these norms anyway and who sets them? Every human being is beautiful in his or her own way so why don’t we create a society which accepts every person for who they are and cherishes it?

This is the story of a ten-year-old boy named *Ziyad who was blessed with a high Intelligence Quotient (IQ) level but relatively Low Emotional Intelligence/Quotient (EQ) that we needed to work on. While IQ is about intelligence and agility to perform well in academics, EQ is about one’s ability to deal with or assess emotions. When the first one is high, and the second one is low, the person is noticeably “weird” or different in his own society.

“Though he was 10, Ziyad looked like he was seven as he was a petite boy. When I first met him, I instantly knew he had a high IQ level. He would pass the most interesting remarks you could think of out of nowhere,” shares educational consultant Reem Bakheet. “They would be completely out of the box and I would be in complete awe every time he would say something – it was amazing!”

Ziyad would ask questions you wouldn’t expect an average 10-year-old to ask, and as a result, his colleagues/schoolmates weren’t too impressed. “I was training a group of five children including Ziyad and I noticed every time he said something, they would tell him to be quiet, laugh or make fun of him,” says Bakheet.

She decided to speak to the parents as this was a sign the child would or could be bullied in the future, but much to her surprise, it turned out Ziyad was already being bullied non stop in school – and not just by the students, but also teachers. “I told his parents they had to do something about it – bullying cannot be taken lightly. The child has a high IQ level and he shouldn’t have to be picked on or punished because of this.”

“When I asked Ziyad if he was excited to go to school after a long summer break, his immediate response was ‘No!’,” Bakheet says. “He said: everyone makes fun of me.”

What this represents is that as a society, we don’t accept the differences in people, says the educational consultant. We all do not need to be exactly the same or replicas of one another. We come from different backgrounds and are brought up with different values and customs. We need to accept people for who they are.

This message is for all the teachers, parents and mentors – don’t try to twist people according to societal norms, but help build a society which accepts everyone.

In Ziyad’s case, or probably in most cases, he was not a bad boy – he was just different.

*Names have been changed to protect the identity of the subject.