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I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

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Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#41

Post by barry-cotter »

vfc1 wrote: post #37

Probably the simplest would be to not designate a child as gifted. It marks them as different, which can act almost like a social stigma. Just let them grow up at their own rhythm, and see what happens. If they are good at school, they can always take online video courses on things that they enjoy. For example, have them take as many courses as they want on https://brilliant.org or Coursera on any topic they like. Le…

Normal school is pretty easy for children in the top 5%. For children who are much smarter than that following a curriculum designed for average children is not just a waste of time it’s incredibly boring and frustrating. Being bored all day with things you knew already or picked up three days into a six week unit is not a good way to get children to enjoy school.

If they’re good at school school is unpleasant because it’s not set up for them. Orders of magnitudes more money is spent on special education than on gifted education because no one cares about children who’ll already do fine academically except maybe, if they’re lucky, their parents.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#43

Post by chrisweekly »

duxup wrote: post #18

The education system provides fairly clear and predictable paths to affirmation, success, and a sort of grade based people ranking system. Life outside that system often very much does not. Everyone has to come to terms with it at some point. I can understand how for someone who school makes a strong impression on them it can be a real struggle without what was such a clear and predictable system.

Agreed.

Education has two complementary goals:

1. content curriculum (body of knowledge)

2. learning curriculum (how to learn)

The latter is more subtle, and IMHO doesn't receive the attention it deserves.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#44

Post by david-gpu »

duxup wrote: post #18

The education system provides fairly clear and predictable paths to affirmation, success, and a sort of grade based people ranking system. Life outside that system often very much does not. Everyone has to come to terms with it at some point. I can understand how for someone who school makes a strong impression on them it can be a real struggle without what was such a clear and predictable system.

> The education system provides fairly clear and predictable paths to affirmation, success, and a sort of grade based people ranking system.

> Life outside that system often very much does not.

Work does. There are salaries, titles, a hierarchical structure. Plenty of people get sucked into the cycle of wanting "just a little more" salary, recognition, promotions, reports. Not very different from a videogame addiction, where as soon as you level up you start feeling the desire if reaching the next step.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#45

Post by zip1234 »

yomly wrote: post #39
yomly wrote: post #20

People blossom at different stages of their lives - sometimes it's physical/technical, other times it's emotional, but in any case sometimes these advantages/head starts end up evening out after the first 30 years for people. To tell some anecdotes of people living at the pinnacle of piano: There is a pianist called Aimi Kobayashi who was a real piano prodigy - she was performing big concertos by the age of 9. Here i…

If you prefer stories about sports people, the rags-to-riches story of Jamie Vardy is a personal favourite[0] Here is someone who never gave up despite apparently lacking the "talent" when young and yet went on to win the Premier League, be called up to play for his national team and beat the record of a world-class player (RvN) for scoring consecutive games in a row. Meanwhile the sad story of Ravel Morrison[1] is o…

Jamie Vardy with his famous pre-game rituals :) http://www.espn.com/soccer/leicester-city/story/2961756/jami...

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#47

Post by kdelok »

jshaqaw wrote: post #36

Part of the issue here is defining what it means to “achieve”. I was a gifted child and graduated at the top of my fancy Ivy League university. Did I go on to conquer the world? No. And many days I stress and feel bad about that. But that’s mostly when I allow myself to judge myself by the external validation system of society. Society values a big bank account or fancy awards which is fine. A happy life spent with f…

It's great that you encourage this attitude in your kids.

I had a similar high-achieving story until I experienced some mental health issues during my PhD. I came out the other side realising that what made me happy wasn't a high-octane, top-of-my-field job, but a bunch of other stuff that I went for instead. I mainly feel lucky that I was well-placed to do that, even if some might say I'd wasted some potential.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#48

Post by [deleted] »

S_A_P wrote: post #17

One of the first articles I remember reading on HN was back in 2009. The gist of the article was that you shouldn’t praise your kids for being smart, praise them when they work hard. Rewarding hard work will better serve them in the long run since being smart will plateau at some point. I have a 9 and 11 year old and I still bristle a little bit when my mom says y’all are so smart.

[deleted]

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#49

Post by gpvos »

thomaswang wrote: post #16

Point being. Grit is what gets you places.

True, but an important corollary is that many people who could serve our world in wonderful ways aren't learning grit, since our school system isn't set up for it and neither are most parents, even if they're smart and have recognized the problem. This is a huge waste of human potential, and also makes them much unhappier than should be possible.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#50

Post by dillonmckay »

dougmwne wrote: post #24

I think the central problem here is not asking more of gifted people during early school years. I was pretty disengaged with school before college. It just wasn't challenging enough in the right kinds of ways. I flourished when I got to college since I was finally in an environment with unlimited challenge and rewards. I learned to set my own standards for achievement and be less worried about how I would be judged e…

I had a bit of an opposite experience, intellectually engaged throughout high-school, and extremely disappointed with the lack of academic environment in undergraduate.
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