Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

#51

Post by throwaway942 » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 5:36 PM UTC

japhyr wrote: post #15

Teachers disliked him, because they knew how easily he picked up information. I'm a teacher, and this is one of the things that frustrates me deeply about our education system. I welcome students like this; they're so much fun to work with. But I usually have to make them feel accepted before I can begin to work with them. I teach in a small alternative high school, and by the time bright students get to me, they're…

Thankfully I had some teachers, like you, who thought I was fun to work with. When I exceeded her class, she had a college professor friend of hers slip in work for me, and occasionally supplemental tutoring.

It was awesome. Being able to challenge myself with upper division calculus while stuck in state-mandated algebra was probably the only reason I survived those courses.

Re: Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

#52

Post by maolt » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 5:37 PM UTC

alexpetralia wrote: post #4

I hate to sound trite, but intelligence (for which IQ is a proxy) is not only factor for success. Social skills will always be required - it seems like your two examples lacked these.

High IQ creates barriers that can prevent one from experiencing the social situations that enable the development of social skills. And when you are left behind in social skills, past a certain age, people show much less tolerance for your quirks, and basically think that if you are that way, you must be weird/ have a problem and will not tell you honestly what is the issue with you. Giving somebody with subpar social skills social cues serve no purpose, as they don't get any benefit out of it. So you get a catch 22, as you don't have sufficient social skills to know / get the help needed to develop your social skills.

Re: Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

#53

Post by ryandrake » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 5:37 PM UTC

japhyr wrote: post #15

Teachers disliked him, because they knew how easily he picked up information. I'm a teacher, and this is one of the things that frustrates me deeply about our education system. I welcome students like this; they're so much fun to work with. But I usually have to make them feel accepted before I can begin to work with them. I teach in a small alternative high school, and by the time bright students get to me, they're…

It's not that the teachers _dislike_ him, it's that they are frustrated that he is not following the curriculum and conforming to the lesson sequence and timeframe planned for.

I found US public school education was not about learning and mastery. It's about conformity and obedience. Learning the subject matter is secondary--the key to succeeding at this institution is to do things in the expected way, at the expected pace, even if it is mind-numbingly verbose and slow. It's a hack: You learn the expectations and do the bare minimum of what is precisely expected, because both less than and greater than the bare minimum will be penalized. I had a rough time in school until I grokked this hack.

Do your homework. It's easy of course, just takes a long time to do since so much gets assigned. The point of doing homework is not to learn, it's to show obedience--you were told to do the homework and you did it.

Show your work. It doesn't matter if you can do division in your head, kid. You're expected to write down the specified intermediate steps so just turn your brain off and do it. The point is to follow the prescribed process, not to master the subject.

Class participation. This is a gift to the outgoing/popular/sports kids to inflate their grades. Just figure out how many times you need to say something in order to get full credit, then raise your hand and say something (anything, it usually doesn't matter) that amount of times.

Public schooling is a series of hoops that you need to jump through at no slower or faster than the prescribed pace. The smart kids figure this out. The REALLY smart kids tend not to figure it out unfortunately.

Re: Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

#54

Post by ap22213 » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 5:39 PM UTC

ap22213 wrote: post #36

itnAAnti wrote: post #18

I know of at least two other people from small towns whose IQ and life stories are similar to those shared in the article. I think high IQ individuals becoming isolated, social outcasts is more common in small towns, where accelerated curriculums and gifted and talented programs are more rare. If you know a highly gifted child, refer them to the Davidson Academy, a free public school for the profoundly gifted. http:/…

Got any resources for preschools? I've got a serious pending problem with my youngest. She's 18 months old and already on par with an average 4-5 year old (and even older in some ways). It's really freaking my wife and I out - we cannot keep up with her curiosity and motivation to learn - we just don't have time or resources. We're worried that by the time she starts school, she's going to be so far ahead that she wo…

By the way, although my wife and I are fairly intelligent, neither of us are as intelligent as our parents. For instance, my father apparently taught himself to read and write at around 2 and started to teach himself logic and algebra soon after. At 3, he wrote a math / philosophy paper detailing a complex cosmology and metaphysics in which he used logical arguments to disprove God.

He never did much with his life - got into a lot of trouble as an adolescent and eventually settled down as a laborer. For the past 20 years he's been a recluse and sits in his studio apartment playing FPS games all day.

It's an issue of resources. As a kid, he also lived on a large rural farm, so he had no resources to do anything else. Many of my other family members are intelligent too, but they all grew up poor and ended up being poor later in life. It makes me sad.

Re: Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

#55

Post by patcheudor » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 5:39 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #23

hunterwerlla wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are taking that quote way out of context the next part of the sentence "but then he never made an effort to improve his grades" is the relevant part. They dislike him because he didn't try to improve not because he was good at picking up information.

In fact that may be the curse of the smart kid - things come so easily they won't put in effort when it is required. They become lazy.

I think you've come upon the laziest conclusion possible. I was one of those smart 'lazy' kids & my poor performance in school wasn't in any way due to being lazy, rather it was due to not caring about school. By middle-school I'd figured out grades don't matter. My parents made too much for me to qualify for college scholarships and honestly, I didn't need scholarships anyway since money wasn't remotely an issue in my family. I simply needed to ace one test.

Because I knew grades didn't matter and that college was covered I didn't do the work, not because I was lazy, but because it was busy work & I had better things to do like running a regional BBS, cracking software, and writing demos in 6502 assembler.

Re: Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

#56

Post by Frondo » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 5:45 PM UTC

throwaway942 wrote: post #48

narrator wrote: post #31

Warning! /r/iamverysmart post ahead! I normally wouldn't engage in this, as it's extremely poor manners and terribly arrogant, but it's on topic here and I think other potential /r/iamverysmart posters might benefit, so here goes: One of the problems of being intelligent is learning how to tolerate and accept boredom. I used to rebel against being bored and being ahead of the class. I would think: "this is all so eas…

Throwaway for obvious reasons. I do not mean this comment as a brag. Far from it. I am one of these people - I tested with an incredibly high IQ (nearly 200 at the time, though I know that fades). I graduated with a 4.2 GPA, and a 3.9 average (because on semester I chose to 'punish' my mother who was taking credit for my high grades, and got a D just to prove it) I have a very hard time with life in general. People b…

I have known/worked with a few people who, in confidence, expressed something similar to what you just said, about having to "dumb everything down" for everyone around them.

They were bright, of course, I wouldn't quibble with that, but they were also really lousy communicators. It wasn't so much that everyone around them was just a dum-dum, but that they weren't very good at explaining things. They seemed to misattribute those folks not understanding them to people being dumb, not their inability to express ideas.

Re: Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

#57

Post by _yosefk » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 5:47 PM UTC

throwaway942 wrote: post #48

narrator wrote: post #31

Warning! /r/iamverysmart post ahead! I normally wouldn't engage in this, as it's extremely poor manners and terribly arrogant, but it's on topic here and I think other potential /r/iamverysmart posters might benefit, so here goes: One of the problems of being intelligent is learning how to tolerate and accept boredom. I used to rebel against being bored and being ahead of the class. I would think: "this is all so eas…

Throwaway for obvious reasons. I do not mean this comment as a brag. Far from it. I am one of these people - I tested with an incredibly high IQ (nearly 200 at the time, though I know that fades). I graduated with a 4.2 GPA, and a 3.9 average (because on semester I chose to 'punish' my mother who was taking credit for my high grades, and got a D just to prove it) I have a very hard time with life in general. People b…

Honest question: if you're so smart, why not make a few tens of millions, then fill your day with whatever suits you, instead of making enough to get by and contemplating suicide?

Re: Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

#58

Post by throwaway942 » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 5:49 PM UTC

Frondo wrote: post #56

throwaway942 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throwaway for obvious reasons. I do not mean this comment as a brag. Far from it. I am one of these people - I tested with an incredibly high IQ (nearly 200 at the time, though I know that fades). I graduated with a 4.2 GPA, and a 3.9 average (because on semester I chose to 'punish' my mother who was taking credit for my high grades, and got a D just to prove it) I have a very hard time with life in general. People b…

I have known/worked with a few people who, in confidence, expressed something similar to what you just said, about having to "dumb everything down" for everyone around them. They were bright, of course, I wouldn't quibble with that, but they were also really lousy communicators. It wasn't so much that everyone around them was just a dum-dum, but that they weren't very good at explaining things. They seemed to misattr…

Sometimes that is certainly part of it. Do you go out of your way to explain calculus or particle physics to children?

Or do you simply not bother?

When a person has spent their entire life trying to communicate whatever they were excited about to people who are only interested in the fad du jour, they don't develop the skills to communicate well once they do find people bright enough to understand.

For example, go walk around MIT, Harvey Mudd, or Cal Poly and see how poorly freshmen do with their initial social gatherings.

You personally are probably extremely smart (this is HN after all, where I seek refuge from the total fucking paste eaters of the world) - but that just means that you were dealing with someone who had never had an opportunity to learn those communication skills. Unlike you, presumably.

Re: Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

#59

Post by astrodust » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 5:52 PM UTC

brianwawok wrote: post #40

leeoniya wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> online options as well. fairly certain this is the opposite of what they need

You should sit a genius 10 year old with no social skills in a class of 20 somethings? That seems not a path to success.

It's not the age of their counterparts, but the social structure you can build for them.

It's probably better to have a kid like that with others that can understand where they're coming from than a bunch of ten year olds with no clue.

Re: Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

#60

Post by throwaway942 » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 5:53 PM UTC

_yosefk wrote: post #57

throwaway942 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throwaway for obvious reasons. I do not mean this comment as a brag. Far from it. I am one of these people - I tested with an incredibly high IQ (nearly 200 at the time, though I know that fades). I graduated with a 4.2 GPA, and a 3.9 average (because on semester I chose to 'punish' my mother who was taking credit for my high grades, and got a D just to prove it) I have a very hard time with life in general. People b…

Honest question: if you're so smart, why not make a few tens of millions, then fill your day with whatever suits you, instead of making enough to get by and contemplating suicide?

I'm sure some people do that. That's business acumen, however, not my personal forte.

Not many brilliant people ever become rich. To become rich takes not just cleverness or even genius, but the ability to convince others to invest in it and not simply fuck you over.

For myself, I'm just not interested in inventions. I'm far more interested in math and geology, so I spend most of my free time just being amazed by the earth. I'm no better at inventing a million dollar idea than the next guy. Probably worse, since I have literally spent hours investigating the wear patterns and flaking on a rock outcropping and considering the forces involved in it.