When did you realize, vis-a-vis other kids, that you were "smart"?

In My Humble Opinion
21

For me it wasn’t realizing I was “smart” so much as realizing I wasn’t retarded. I always had this odd almost consuming feeling that I was retarded but others were too polite to say anything about it. (In my self-esteem’s self-defense, I knew I was at least high functioning retarded.)

Of course part of it was something that my father said, which was “Jon’s borderline retarded so I don’t expect as much”. He actually believed that pretty much as well because I “flunked” (if you can flunk) an IQ test when I was about 5 that was given for grade school admission to the private school where my mother taught. I still remember that day- the proctor would stack blocks and say “Now make this pattern”, and I’d duplicate the pattern- he had four on bottom, then three, then two, then one, and I did likewise- I had no frigging clue he wanted me to do “bottom ones red green red green, then red green red, then two green, then one red” and I thought my design was prettier. Anyway, from that day my father considered me the spare parts for the other kids. (Once when I was with him, just the two of us, and he ran into an acquaintance who said “You have another son too don’t you?”, the old fart answered “Jon is my other son actually, you’re thinking about Daniel”.)

So, true story: when I was in 9th grade my English teacher, Mrs. Jennings, loved my writing. (I’d had compliments on my writing before, but before 9th grade I’d never had to do term paper type assignments.) She recommended me for the advanced English class. Today this is known as AP English or Honor’s English or even ‘Gifted Class’, depending on the school.

In 1980 in Wetumpka, Alabama, the advanced class was known as…
Special/Alternative Education.

Special & Alternative Ed. even then included the paste eaters and navel contemplationist Americans, but it was the cloaca class- the term referred to any students whose interests were served by ‘alternative’ classroom settings.

My father read her recommendation, which required parental consent, and went through the roof. She had an unlisted home number, but he worked for the state Dept. of Ed. and his secretary used a connection to get it and he called her at her house that afternoon. Actual quote:

“I am a reasonable parent, I quite realize Jon’s no Tennyson or Oppenheimer, but I think he’s capable of normal school if he’ll apply himself.” When she informed him that “that’s not what I mean”, he was actually surprised, and from then on actually regarded me with a bit more curiosity. (He declined to sign the placement form because he thought it was silly to “take a class that requires more work for the same credit”.) He died soon after having accepted me as possibly capable of college for the first time (until then he’d wanted me to be a preacher [because I liked acting and he didn’t think it took great brains to be a minister] or an undertaker [which having now been on the planning end of several funerals, I’m inclined to think I should have taken his advice] or, if that failed, a teacher [my father, himself a teacher for 25 years: “A trained monkey could get a B.S. in Education and the insurance is good”]).

So with me it wasn’t a realization that I was smart so much as a realization that I wasn’t retarded that is the standout memory from childhood. And God bless Mrs. Jennings (who I really need to find out if she’s still alive and if so send her flowers sometime).

Mrs. Jennings looked just like STAR TREK’s Nichelle Nichols, incidentally- I wonder if now looks like Heroes Nichelle Nichols. I think one reason she liked me was I thought she was funny as hell when most of the class didn’t get her jokes. My favorite memory of her, though, is her pretension; she spoke with a sort of Caribbean lilt to her voice- not a full fledged “Hey mon”, but more like Eddie Murphy/Raheem’s mother in Coming to America, unless she was pissed. One day she was speaking to us as when we kept hearing a hammer or something pounding against a wall, and during mid-sentence she went from Madge Sinclair/Queen Aoleon to Shirley Hemphill: “ahnd another thing clahss is thaht you will find ‘WHO KEEP BEATIN’ ON THAT GOTTDAMNED WALL!’ pahdon me, ahs I was saying…”

22

I still feel this way. It’s oddly comforting to know I’m not the only one who’s felt this way.

23

I realized that I was smarter than the other kids when I was in first grade in Catholic School and I went the first 4 weeks without getting severely beaten by a nun. Even when I lost the card where I write down my daily Hail Mary’s I didn’t get hit. It was like I was “made.”

That all came to a screeching halt when I was caught climbing on the huge pile of newspapers that we were collecting for a paper drive.

That nun made up for lost time. You know you are on the wrong end of an God- inspired epic beatdown when the nun has to rest for about 10 seconds right in the middle of it.

24

Well, in 1st grade I would always finish reading w/e book I had early during reading time, and then I would take a nap. The teacher didn’t understand that I had already finished. Then, in 3rd grade I was reading at a 10th grade level or something like that.

Unfortunately, it seems everyone I know has caught up now, and I’m sure I’ve killed enough brain cells with partying to lower my intelligence also :frowning:

25

First grade, when I was sent upstairs to the fourth grade for reading class.

26

First grade, when the teacher used to send me off to the library on my own to read while she taught the other kids how to read.

27

I realized I was smart when I got in to college and found out there were many people smarter than me.

28

In grade 3 !
When MENSA called my dad and told him they were offering me honorary membership !

:stuck_out_tongue: :smiley:

29

In graduate school. I’d gotten some hints during college jobs, but it wasn’t until grad school that I realized I “saw” things others, as well-trained as me or in theory better, didn’t.

No, serious!

In childhood, Dad expected perfection; Mom wanted to “normalize” me. There were things I could do that others couldn’t, and things I would help other students with, but it didn’t have any value. In college, when we were having our “Yearbook Dinner” (no book but I think it’s the closest US concept), one of the professors at my table called us “the elite” and we all looked at him as if we were thinking on calling the cops on him for drug use. He laughed and told us “you guys are so used to competing with the best that you don’t realize how good you are, wait until you go out into the world.”

He was right.

30

I’ve known I was smart as long as I can remember. I was a pain in the ass about it when I was a kid though. Sometimes I would argue with the teachers about the subject at hand, or ignore them and read whatever the hell I felt like in the back of the class. I didn’t get very good grades though - I aced the tests and didn’t do much homework, so I mostly got Cs. No one ever called me “teacher’s pet”, since I was more of a thorn in their side. I was an odd sort of belligerent nerd, but still a nerd. No one quite knew what to make of me. I was never popular, exactly, but everyone knew who I was. In high school I gravitated towards the outcast crowd. My bad study habits caught up to me though - I still aced tests, but homework was worth more of the grade and I actually ended up failing senior English because of it. I missed graduation and had to make it up in summer school.

31

I first realised I was smugger than the masses of children around me when at the age of four I would reel off Wildean ripostes to the jibes of my ‘peers’.

32

In the womb.

I was breech, and I was like, “Feet first? No fucking way is that right.” It’s in my journal from the time. So, I turned myself around. When I came out, I played a game of chess against the doctor.

33

I did think I was smarter than the average bear for a while. My grandfather sure seemed to think I was. I was an early reader, which gave me an edge in grammar and spelling. I wrote lots of stories and poems and drew pretty pictures as well!

About halfway through my third grade year, I decided to finish up my grammar workbook just for the hell of it. Also my brother’s. Also the workbooks of the kids who rode my bus. Then I got in trouble. :slight_smile:

In sixth grade, my teacher discovered I was writing a book. She borrowed it to read, and then showed it around to the other teachers. I never did finish it.

A-a-and that was pretty much the last gasp. By middle school, I was getting my ass kicked in pre-algebra, though everyone else seemed to get it. I could still read a lot faster, but once everyone was up to a basic level of competence, so what? By high school, I’d realized that lots of people were smarter than me, and also that the world wouldn’t come to an end if I fucked off and didn’t do my work.

Now I just hang around here watching y’all be smart.

34

My entire family is above average, and my parents told me how smart I was for as long as I can remember, so I always thought I was smarter than my classmates. But I was lazy, and never really got the grades to show it, so I didn’t always feel like I was smarter.

But in my junior year of high school, I went to a high school for gifted students. One of the things they told us when we came was that a lot of kids were disappointed because at their old school they were the top of their class, but there, they weren’t. I kind of expected that to happen to me, but it didn’t. In fact, my grades improved. Apparently, I just hadn’t been challenged enough before then.

35

When I was in first grade, and Mrs. Wilms separated the class into the Red and Blue groups according to reading ability, I ended up as the sole member of the Pink Group. I realized then that there was something odd about me, but like Sampiro, I believed I was “slow.” Then she started the rest of the class reading aloud from “Dick and Jane” books, and I realized that the rest of them could hardly read at all. So I guess I found out then that I was at least smarter in one area than most of my peers.

Halfway through 2nd grade I realized being smart wasn’t really very useful, especially for a girl. There weren’t any programs back then for “gifted” children, and they wouldn’t let me take metal shop, so I got bored by 7th grade and dropped out. Taught them a lesson, I did.

36

I was never a good grades kid, I didn’t have enough motivation. I started reading before Kindergarten, and went to a fairly good school for Kindergarten and First grade. Then I switched to a rural school in second grade and was already way past the material they were working on. Somehow I wound up just sitting around and reading and doing nothing for a year or two, and my study habits never developed, I was a lazy student from then on.

I did pretty well on tests and could churn out a grade “A” essay without even being familiar with the subject matter, but I basically did no homework, so I wound up a solid “C” student.

But as far as being smart and knowing the answers, I usually did (except in Algebra II), but I found it was best not to speak up too much. There’s really not a lot of advantage in answering every question. In fact, when I corrected my computer teacher in high school too much I got sent to the Principal. :mad:

37

I won some awards for best grades in my class in certain subjects, like reading and science. I used to win or at least come in second in a lot of the class spelling bees. But the thing I remember most is at age 12, Nixon was on TV resigning and a friend of mine came over with a friend of hers and I made them wait while I watched the whole speech. They looked at me like I had two heads but I told them it was history in the making and I wanted to see it.

ETA: Watching was my idea, not my parents. As I recall I don’t think anyone else in the house was paying much attention. My dad may have been in the room but I don’t think he was that intent on it.

38

I first started noticing it in third grade. We would have “Math Races” where the teacher would split the class into two lines and hold up a flash card with a math problem for the two kids in front of each line. Whoever gave the answer first stayed in and the other kid was out. We played math races all the time and I always either won or was in the final four.

This thought cemented in sixth grade when we used to have “Geography Races” where the teacher would let us break off into teams of 2-4 and give us a list of countries we had to find on a map. My best friend and I were always a team together and we won every time we played the game. We won so convincingly that the teacher had to split us up.

I knew I was smarter than everyone else because the team I was on still always won.

And I’ve been an egotistical little snot ever since.

39

Well, in kindergarten, I interrupted the teacher to read something aloud for her. Instead of being angry, she was delighted. I was pretty convinced I was brilliant for awhile. I’m pretty good with the reading and the spelling and whatnot, but I now know that there are plenty of people way smarter than me. I’ve got my area of specialty and all, but in some things I’m not so bright. This upset me for a bit when I realized it, but I’m okay with that now. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself…

40

When I started Kindergarten and found out that most of the other kids couldn’t read yet. Having started reading at 3 myself, I found that really odd.