Adoption and the Blank Slate

"......ok next, Colin Hart?" said my 9th grade English teacher the first day of class (she was taking attendance).

"yup, right here," i replied.

The teacher then paused for a second....."Wait.....Hart.....i remember that name....are you Laura's little brother?"

"yeah that's me"

Then in a clam and gentle voice she said,"oh that's nice, you look just like her"

The funny thing about that story is that my sister and i look NOTHING alike, after all she was adopted from Korea years before i was born.

It always seemed normal growing up to have 2 adopted siblings, and one biological sibling. it was just the way it was, when i was young that was just how things were. When i thought about what to write about for this posting, and how to relate what we are learning in class, I (as usual when it comes to writing) had no idea what to say. But then it became so clear, what better way to address the 'blank slate' idea than with a family of 4 sibling, all with the exact same environment growing up, the same elementary school, the same middle school, and the same high school. Even as shown above, some of the same teachers.

If the blank slate theory was in fact correct, we should have all grown up to be (in general) very similar to each other right? that could not be further from the fact.

My sister Laura is an amazing painter, I just recently got passed stick figures.

My sister Elinor was a political science major, always reading and writing papers. i'm studying aerospace engineering and find an equation much more helpful than a sentence.

All three of my siblings loved camp growing up, i hated it. Never even went

I guess you would have to see all of us together to notice the differences. So you'll just have to trust me. They're there.

If the 'blank slate' was in fact true, the four of us would act MUCH more alike. It should not matter the least that my sister Elinor and I have COMPLETELY different genes than Laura and John. We grew up in the same environment, that's all that should have mattered. Right?

The fact of the matter is my sister Elinor and I are in many ways (personality wise) very similar to our father. Me even more so than her. For me, this basically rules out the 'blank slate' idea completely. There are clear genetic factors that play into the social development of people. If my brother and sister were to met their biological parents i'm sure there would be similarities to the little quirks that encompass their personalties.

In my book, genetics win.

-Colin