Well bully for you. You make your comments and I’ll make mine. You participate as you see fit and I’ll do the same. If you think my first comment was a threadshit then report it. Why you felt the need to tell me directly, I can’t imagine.
Now, I’m done with your hijack.
Several of the posts above could almost have been written by me too.
I was reading by age three, had various visits with child psychologists with the result that I skipped the final year of infant school and started junior school at 6 instead of 7 (and so started secondary school at 10 instead of 11). I must have been a horribly obnoxious kid.
Got frustrated by how slow classes progressed, and having to share reading books with kids that took 10 minutes to read one page, and consequently I was pretty disruptive/talkative in class.
Being put up a year, and supposedly brainy made me an obvious potential target for bullying, and to keep it at bay I went the other way as much as I could. I made friends with unsuitable kids, slacked off, smoked, did anything to keep the “boffin” image at bay. Teachers kept telling me “Oh, you find it easy now, but soon you’re going to have to work or you’ll fail”.
Well, I got straight As at GCSE without doing a stroke of revision. I did put in a fair bit of effort for the coursework part but only on things that interested me. In my mock A-level exams I got a grab bag of Cs and Ds, because, well, they’re mock exams. Who cares? The teachers of course told me I was on course to crash and burn, and I have to confess I felt rather smug when they congratulated me through gritted teeth for the straight As I got in the real ones.
So I went to university at age 17, checked how much the first year counted towards my final grade (answer: NONE) and did no work for the first year. All I had to do was get a pass grade in the first year. Well, I slacked off so much that I didn’t even realise I was meant to be going to lab for one of my courses. I took the exams, went away on holiday to Africa over the summer, and while I was away, phoned home to find I had failed three exams and had to retake them the day after I got back home. I failed one of the retakes too, but blagged my way into the second year.
That’s when it struck me that (a) I was going to have to work, and (b) I no longer grasped everything instantly. I did a chemistry course, and I still don’t understand some of the concepts. There was loads of stuff to remember, loads of formulas and reagents and equations. This shit was HARD!
Unfortunately, I was also losing enthusiasm for the subject. I was enjoying writing for the student newspaper, which had just launched on a newfangled thing called the world wide web. (This was about 1996.) I had also discovered the university bulletin board system, by which you could chat to people online and generally waste hours of your life.
In the end I scraped a 2:1 degree, and apart from 6 weeks’ temping, I haven’t worked in chemistry again. I got a job on a magazine, and two years later blagged my way into a subediting job on a national newspaper. The pay is decent but I’m never going to be rich.
And that’s the thing. As a “gifted child” I should have been ambitious, but I wasn’t. I deliberately didn’t apply to Oxford or Cambridge - that was what the teachers expected me to do, so of course I didn’t. I don’t recall ever even thinking of going into the City. I kind of wish I had - I work long and unsociable hours as it is so I could at least have a six-figure salary and huge bonuses.
You started it when you felt the need to judge. I’m done too.
I’m not denying that some people post in these threads with that motivation, but I’m not going to accept that the only possible motivation for making such a post is to garner attention/feel special. There’s bragging and then there’s talking about experience. I guess we can’t isolate the true motivation of each individual poster, but I’d like people to believe it’s possible to just genuinely want to talk about it.
I also don’t think there’s anything wrong, per se, with wanting to feel special. It’s sort of the human condition.
For me, the meaning of this thread lies here:
Shared experience can be a powerful way to better understand yourself.
(Not saying you’re implying a bunch of negative things about motivation, Sleeps, but I know some people are thinking it and it’s inevitable that the subject would be raised in a thread like this. FTR, I don’t think there is a single person who posts to this board that is not intellectually gifted in some way. I equate it with bringing up the same topic at a MENSA meeting.)
Hmm.
I do not understand how your “TAG” experience was a cakewalk. The whole point of those programs, as I understand them, is to separate the “gifted” ones so as to keep them interested with accelerated material and harder scholastic standards and demands, not just to say, “well, now you won’t get wedgies every lunch and have a separate locker space for your inhalers”.
I was the smarty-pants of my elementary school (through 6th grade) and felt distinctly out of place. I ended up being selected for a “school for the gifted” in NYC that ran from 7-12 grade (the only one from my school to be so selected in 4 years). It was the best thing that ever happened to me for exactly the reason some of the others have cited, because I never became the “coaster”. The work was geared to push and challenge us. My peers were at least as talented as I was at most things, and several people EXTREMELY talented far beyond even us at certain areas (math, science, music, writing), so I never thought of myself as particularly standout, while the drive to not be embarrassed in front of our peers pushed us all to a pretty high minimum bar of competency in just about every subject.
FWIW, in terms of quantified metrics, I always read at least three grades above my own level, eventually took some kind of “standardized” IQ test around age 13 or 14 and was scored a 140. My PSAT score was a 1510 and my SAT score a 1460. I ended up going to an Ivy League college and actually felt the coursework was relatively EASIER to do well in, until the last three semesters anyway when I was taking graduate level courses to complete my major. The famed “core curriculum” grounding in the areas of (Western) literature, philosophy, art and music were 75% covered by stuff I learned in high school, and a fair amount of the other 25% I had read up on my own out of extended personal interest in the material from the high school syllabus (e.g., we read passages from “the Odyssey” in 11th Grade, and I felt I should read the whole thing and start with “the Iliad” too).
I also endured a 75-90 minute commute by NYC bus and subway EACH WAY every day to get to school, through the mid-1980s (the Bernard Goetz era), which was educational in and of itself – in learning patience dealing with frustrating things beyond my control, working a Walkman in my pocket without taking it out and doing calculus homework while standing up on a moving subway.
I can only imagine how frustrated I would have been, or unhappy, going to my local intermediate/non-specialized neighborhood high school with the rest of my elementary school classmates. I certainly would have learned a lot less.
A lot of definitions don’t use IQ at all. Gifted students THINK differently than most students - they are creative problem solvers. Talented kids often have different - non-intellectual - gifts - music for instance. High Potential kids are achievers - gifted and driven. But its possible to have an average IQ and be “gifted” and its possible to have a relatively high IQ and not be gifted. Early reading is a pretty good sign of being gifted, but it doesn’t mean a child is gifted. This throws parents a lot - my straight A, reads well above grade level, creative, artistic, musically talented son is not gifted. (He is Talented, but our school doesn’t have programs in elementary school for the T part of G&T). My B- getting, distracted, silly, emotionally immature daughter is gifted (and her test scores are high, her grades don’t reflect it because she doesn’t pay attention - hence the “need special services.”
The most successful people I know - the doctors and researchers, were smart, but not “gifted.”
I like the kids who are “twice special” - the autistic gifted kid, or the dyslexic gifted kid. Those are some challenges.
When my daughter got tagged as gifted, one of her friends did as well. They have twins and the other daughter didn’t get the tag and there were some hard feelings. I looked at their mom and said “it doesn’t mean they’ll be successful - it means the school thinks they should be pulled from the classroom in order to be successful - like the kids who need help reading…”
You know, it’s funny, the TAG program I was in during most of my elementary school years (in Yuba City, CA - a fairly rural agricultural town) seems in retrospect to have been a place to warehouse the kids that were outpacing the rest of the class. We were given fuck-all to do, except reading, some creative writing and problem workbooks, and weren’t graded on any of it to my recollection.
In hindsight, what I wouldn’t have done for a program that might have actually challenged me, and provided a continuous education track, rather than provided some momentary diversion for an hour or so a few times a week.
Some of the later posts in this thread are confirming what I was thinking when I asked about requirements for being considered gifted—context and the programs seems to count for a lot.
I guess I would qualify—I, too, read early and showed early creativity. But I went to a private school and there was no gifted program. I was a small fish in a big pond, and wholly unremarkable in a lot of ways. The school I went to was extremely rigorous, so when I went to college, I did have all of the study skills necessary to do well.
That hasn’t made a huge difference in my outcomes. As mentioned in a different thread, I’m a middle-management type and not pulling down the huge bucks. I have 2 very bright kids, but I myself haven’t exactly set the world on fire.
A bazillion years ago when I was in school, no one ever used the term “gifted.” But for my 8 years in parochial school. I was always in the highest level class. We all knew who the “smartest” and who the “dumbest” students were. I was not an exceptional student - mostly Bs with a sprinkling of As and an occasional C.
Then I went to public school. In 10th grade English, they were teaching stuff I’d learned in 5th and 6th grade. The only real challenges I had were foreign language (which I absolutely loved) and Physics (which I worked hard to master.) All in all, I didn’t struggle much in high school, which means I had 4 years to lose any study skills I’d learned. I went to college and dropped out at the end of the first year.
I enlisted in the Navy, went through the aviation electronics training to the advanced level, once again being one of the smarter ones in my class. After doing aircraft maintenance for a year or so, I was selected for a program that sent me back to college where I got my engineering degree. After getting out of the Navy, I landed a job as an engineer working for the Navy, and I’m now a GS-13 who can retire any time I’m ready.
I’m not a great engineer, but I’ve had a few rather inspired designs, if I may brag on myself. I’m still learning, and I’m frequently humbled by some of the engineers who come here right out of school - they’re sharp kids. I’m not a genius, but I have a working brain, and for the most part, I think I’ve used it well.
As a post script - my daughter’s best friend since kindergarten was in the Gifted program all the way up through selection for International Baccalaureate. She dropped out of that. Then she dropped out of the university. Then she dropped out of community college. She’s got a retail job - kinda sad for a girl who wanted to be a lawyer…
I was in gifted programs for most of my time in the US - from preschool to 7th grade. I was also very socially awkward. I had some friends, and oddly enough was very active in the student council and whatnot, but a lot of the time I preferred reading to human interaction - enough to worry my parents a bit when I was in 3rd grade.
Then we moved to Korea and my mom made me attend a Korean school. Now THAT was a humbling experience (my Korean was not great at the time and I lacked the basic knowledge Korean students learned in elementary school). I scored in the bottom 5% of my class on my first midterm exam. My teachers would beat me for my low grades. It was humiliating for someone so used to being on the top. It took me four years to get anywhere close to where I used to be (by high school I was in the top 10%) and during that time I had to work my ass off for the first time in my life. I also had to learn better social skills in order to survive being a student in a Korean school, where differences are not treated kindly at all. If you give any indication that you have a good opinion of yourself those kids will cut you down to size.
I guess the experience was good for me, in that I was thrown into a situation where I couldn’t get by with coasting. I dunno how much my life would be different otherwise though. I have a grad degree and a pretty happy life, but nothing anyone would call wildly successful. I actually think my experience in Korea killed a lot of my ambition. I suppose that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Which school? I don’t know anyone from my junior high class who went to a specialized school, but our high school had the best scores in the city outside of those ones, so we had little incentive. And, like I said, my experience was much like yours - lots of other smart kids, excellent teachers, and enough respect for us so that we never got bored.
Example: In the first month or so of AP History, we did fairly normal things. Our teacher discovered that we didn’t need to be told to read the book, or watch the TV show from Columbia. The rest of the time we had mini internal debates (often about Vietnam) or general discussions - and we all got 5s on the AP test with no problem.
When I was involved in our school district GATE parent support group, we learned that the secret was differentiation - teaching to where each kid is, not to the average. The example they gave was to not make the kid who gets all the spelling words right on the first test do all the busy work to drill them in to his or her head. That is pretty much what our history teacher did for the entire class. I love history to this day, and read it for pleasure.
NYC schools seemed to be doing something right.
I was in the TAG program at my elementary school. I believe you had to score in the 99th percentile on an IQ test to get in, although I haven’t seen my school records in years and couldn’t tell you what that score was. I do remember doing very well in standardized tests, such that anything under a 95th percentile I considered bad.
My school years and my college years I found easily summed up by Dr. Carol Dweck’s Mindset research. I stumbled upon her book this summer and it explains my underachieving self to a T in the “fixed mindset” sections. I did the very minimum I had to do to get the grade I wanted. Luckily I wanted As, so I did all the work, but I didn’t do my best on anything, ever. Even in college. I was still turning first draft papers to my college professors my last semester of my senior year. (Papers I wrote the morning they were due.)
I would say that I have not lived up to my potential and I’m working on it. However, I’m not beating myself up about it either.
The book was eye opening for me and I’ve been working with my own children since then trying to undo my fixed mindset parenting. We’ll see how well it works this coming fall. I hope we get past their “zeros on assignments don’t matter” attitudes.
At the school I went to, the Gifted and Talented track was 2 days a week. Looking back on the experience, I’m of two minds.
On the one hand, I was a quirky, weird kid who had a hard time getting along socially in class, and was often bored with the work because I would finish too quickly, start doing my own thing, and then have no idea where the rest of the class was. It was pretty miserable. So, going to G&T two days a week was this wonderful relief from the anxiety of always being the class nerd who was picked on and teased.
At the same time, I now rather wonder if my two days would have been better spent getting remedial assistance in the social and cooperative skills needed to thrive in regular class. (I did eventually grow into better social skills on my own, and did very well in this area by the time I was in high school, so I wasn’t completely hopeless it seems :D)
I practiced law for 5 years and am now getting my MBA to go work in financial services. Pretty mundane. Reasonably successful and together but it’s not like I’ve cured cancer.
The fact is that nothing I (or my even more OCD and hardworking sister) do really compares to my parents. They’re both ridiculously, profoundly gifted and nearly every one of my accomplishments pales in comparison to theirs. My father has 80 patents and graduated third in his class at IIT where he was on full scholarship. My mom works in financial sales and has easily won her org’s national salesperson award for the last decade or so. They grew up in freaking mud huts! Both my sister and I tested as gifted, but we have about 1/10th of their EQ + IQ. Talking to my father is insane. He’s humble and never makes me feel bad or anything-but it’s staggering to consider what he has in his brain and how paltry my knowledge is compared to his at times. This is someone who learned English at 18 and then read Moby Dick at 19. It’s crazy.
Yes, I have read about “gifted” programs where the kids are basically allowed to set their own curriculum. Which is maybe fine at a HS level, except for elementary school kids who in all likelihood, are kids in other respects and are just as happy to watch four hours of Pokemon episodes, even if they can sit down and crank out a couple of pages of simple algebra that somehow is beyond the capability of a majority of adults in general society. There has to be some leader figure to challenge and push them.
There is definitely a need to have good teachers who can “hold their own” against such students, also. As my wife (who was a HS classmate of mine and is now an academic research mathematician) emphasizes to her students who are Math Ed majors, it is CRITICAL for a teacher to know at least two courses beyond the level of material they are expected to teach in order to really be a good teacher. Many a teacher has literally only (barely) mastered the highest level of coursework they themselves are assigned to teach. Any probing by a bright student as to “why’s this” or “what would come next” or “can you explain that a different way” that is met with stalling or provably false answers gives rise to a loss of respect that is nigh impossible to ever get back.
Most if not all of the regular subject matter teachers at my high school fell into this category, but the savage testing and subsequent browbeating a substitute teacher (even a longer term one) would get from us had to have been, in retrospect, something new and disturbing to them. They were used to having to deal with kids who wouldn’t sit in their seats… Not ask them embarrassing questions that they (the students) themselves would go on to answer when they faltered…
The 7th-12th grade school I was referring to was (and is) Hunter College High School. Also well known in NYC are the specialized high schools that start in 9th grade, chiefly Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech. All are free and public to anyone who meets the (stringent) criteria for admission.
I now live in the same neighborhood I grew up in in large part to give my own three children the opportunity to have a similar education as I did. (Even after I swore after graduating that I would never, NEVER endure that commute into the city again, and yes I do work in the city, with only a slightly shorter commute… I just don’t take the bus/subway
I figured that out soon after I posted. A girl from my sixth grade class went there. But no one I know went to Bronx Science or the like. I lived in Bayside, and the Bronx was quite a hike for us.
Huh. Are you about 42 years old and was your elementary school right up against the Clearview Expressway? 
ETA - Never mind - I re-read your earlier post and see you mentioned a daughter pursuing grad school - so, not so likely 
Yes, our part of NYC has a number of excellent schools even without the trek of going to one of the “Big Three” specialized ones. Another reason I am happy to live where I live now (again). Where did you go to high school in the end, may I ask? Cardozo? Bayside High?
Lets see…read by age 3, was in G.A.T.E. as a kid, always told I was so smart. But I had horrible study skills and coasted through high school without ever taking notes just below the top cadre of kids who were smart and tried hard (and graduated with almost 5.0 GPAs because they only took Honors or A.P. classes). I was too cynical or lazy or both to go that whole “gifteder than thou” route.
As a result, I got into a good, but not Ivy League-quality college. I was not focused enough to get top grades (had a B average), and ended up graduating at the middle of my college class. I was clueless about what I wanted to do the rest of my life, but kind of felt I’d be letting myself and everyone else down if I didn’t “go far” so I immediately jumped into a PhD program in biochemistry. That took 6 years. Then postdoc-ing took another 4+ years, so I was over thirty before my career really started.
I’m making better money than most people my age now (although nothing special for where I live), but I lived on a pittance for so long that I’m in my mid-30s and only really starting to save, whereas many, many people I went to school with are already settled down, have a nice house, married, 2.1 kids, a couple hundred thou in retirement savings, etc. It will take me the rest of my working life to catch up.
There are certainly more ways to look at success in life than that, but my goal of being financially stable, owning a home where I can find peace and solace, and still have the ability to travel internationally regularly remains elusive. I feel that if I hadn’t been told so many times that I was going to go far, I wouldn’t have felt so compelled to spend so much time in school and would have gotten out into the real world earlier without any guilt, and would have been better off. But it is all water under the bridge.