MyGiftedLife.org

** This thread discusses the Content article: Gifted Adolescence **

It's an excellent article and this isn't a criticism of it - just a sharing of my own experiences that differ from it.

My mother did not groom me or push me for or towards anything. Apparently she once made me sign a contract saying I would be a teacher in return for her continuing to read books to me, but I don't think she ever considered that binding or anything and I don't remember it.

I don't think any adult at all ever expressed interest in making me a good little capitalist corporate drone.

Also, at TIP (which I went to sessions at Duke every summer after the first one) I hung out and had fun with people and it didn't feel at all like competition was the point - except in International Relations when we would read in class and it was sort of like everyone had to prove how fast they could read. I went at my own pace and retained more of what I read and knew an answer on a test that no one else in the class knew.

I do remember one instance of being upset at failure - in sixth grade when I missed being in the first math group by making a 92 instead of a 93 on a test, I cried. But that was a very isolated incident and I never felt pressure about anything.

Basically my experience of being a gifted teenager was "School, even TIP in the summers, is ridiculously easy. Yay, I win awards and people tell me how smart I am and how good I am at writing. I wish I could talk to my friends about serious stuff, but oh well, they like me and we have fun. Even though it's utterly ridiculous that seniors in AP English don't know that angst is a word and I had to explain 'exonerate' to them in AP Biology and they make my eyes roll when they talk about the terrible tortures of being smart when actually they're quite stupid."

I am sorry that your father treated you like that.

...when I missed being in the first math group by making a 92 instead of a 93 on a test...

I got an A instead of an A+ on a test. (Gee, I rarely
did well at all in school - no motivation.) Anyway,
the teacher informed me that so and so had gotten a better grade.

Now, I know "so-and-so" had crammed and crammed for this
test. I had done nothing, and suggested he give the test again in a few weeks and see what's what.

The teacher did. Again, I had done nothing. "So-and-so" did very poorly compared to the first time. Meanwhile, I aced the test...

Sometimes our rulers are poor instruments of measure.

Nice article - thanks for sharing.

When a Junior in hi-school, an English teacher (old, addled and couldn't retire) once gave me a semester grade of B tho' I'd easily aced all her "tests" and commented that she'd graded me that way because she knew I wasn't "working up to my ability"!
Now there's some motivation (not!)

Next semester, another English teacher(!) corrected my word usage of the word "'expatiate' his guilt" re: main character of "Crime and Punishment." In that this was an "oral book report" she corrected me in front of the class, mid-sentence, that I should have said "expiate." She was so dead wrong and so famously evil and irrational, I said nothing, fearing her authority if I were to "argue" with her. I'd been kicked out of class for less.
Then there was Mr. Rothlisberger: he gave real tests in history and I came in to "wing it" as usual and flunked it! Now that was a shock; it had been multiple choice which were usually so lame that I never dreamed, even after it, that I was capable of an F.
But he asked me to stay after class and said that he knew that this grade did not reflect my ability and he'd disregard it in my final grade. He did. That extraordinary act of kindness and support was unique in my public education. It still revives my spirit just to recall and that's why I remember his name.

This reminds me how my teachers seemed to give grades according to how much interest I'd paid in class, rather than my actual ability or achievement. I hated school and showed it, and actually used to get moved to lower sets just because I didn't/couldn't enjoy the lessons. No one sought to ask why, but merely thought they could force me to engage my interest through punishment.