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

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

#191

Post by mcguire » Fri, May 31, 2019, 1:59 PM UTC

chrisweekly wrote: post #54

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…

Good comment - and thanks for the Brilliant.org tip, was new to me and looks awesome.

Because being smart and $1.50 will get you $1.50 worth of coffee.

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

#192

Post by onemoresoop » Fri, May 31, 2019, 1:59 PM UTC

ljcn wrote: post #14

denimnerd42 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm having a hard time imagining that from your example. For example I have several successful project cars, I've built a custom wheel balancer from an accelerometer, and am currently programming the fuel injection and spark on a car from scratch yet I don't know if a career in that would really make me any more income than my current Software Engineering manager role.

The parent comment said there would be a niche for you, not (necessarily) that it would be lucrative. You might be more valued there (in the "we're lucky we found this guy" way if not the cash way).

Not only more valuable but more in control of his growth, a growth to a full potential

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

#193

Post by drbojingle » Fri, May 31, 2019, 1:59 PM UTC

taylodl wrote: post #3

This paragraph sums it up: "My first hint that this was a skewed view came in university. I very quickly learned that, while I may have been the “best” in all of my high school classes, I was now in a place where my peers had been the “best” in theirs as well — and in most cases, their best was better than mine. This realization automatically dulled some of my drive to succeed. I would never gain the admiration and a…

I would disagree with the article. I think the 'laziness' comes from a more well tuned intuition for value. Smart people don't make money because they're smart. Sometimes all smart people want to do is indulge in things that don't necessarily bring value to anyone. However, if you have a knack for seeing the value in something (or a lack of value) I think you'll be more likely to succeed. If you think about it, since grades don't come from a linear expulsion of effort, aiming to get high grades when you don't know what you're ROI is going to be does sound dumb.

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

#194

Post by leetcrew » Fri, May 31, 2019, 2:00 PM UTC

nostalgk wrote: post #67

I really think the gifted program, at least as it was implemented in my schools, is a complete sham. After being able to easily pass multiplication tables and multiple choice tests in 5th grade, I was placed into 8th grade math; pre-algebra. I took pre-algebra 3 times in middle school, never once taking any of the fundamental math classes below it, and as a result never developed the important math skills I needed, s…

> My personal solution would be to keep kids in the normal classes, but allow them to opt-in to more challenging course work if they feel they are not being challenged (with the ability to take a step back if they need it).

I'm not sure this is a great idea, at least not without changes to the normal curriculum itself.

I recall middle school math as an extremely frustrating experience. I always grasped the concepts and problem solving techniques very quickly, but it still took a long time to do the work. stuff like dividing polynomials by other polynomials takes a long time to do on paper no matter how well you understand it. no matter how interesting the extra work was, I would never have signed up for it on top of the tedium I was already subjected to from the normal curriculum.

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

#195

Post by CyanBird » Fri, May 31, 2019, 2:00 PM UTC

bitexploder wrote: post #74

One of the worst things you can do, as a parent, is tell your kid they are smart. I have two kids and one of them is obviously “gifted”. The other is still pretty far ahead. Smart is a bad word in my house. Gifted is not something that is ever uttered. We (as parents) work very hard to instill a sense of hard work, effort, and purpose into our kids lives. They do BJJ, a martial art that is very hard, even if you are…

I wonder how would it be possible to teach young children to not value "being smart" and make that stick as they grown into rebel teenagers, deception is certainly not the way to go, as they will obviously notice it over time. Telling them "it doesn't matter" I don't think that's sticky enough, probably just being upfront and saying to them the reasons behind it, why it doesn't matter

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

#196

Post by cheschire » Fri, May 31, 2019, 2:01 PM UTC

nihalot wrote: post #180

microtonal wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Therefore, I find myself in a situation where making a lot of money isn't my goal, but I feel that I have to do it if I want to achieve my goals. Can't you work remotely? There are a lot of smaller cities (at least in Europe) that have a great vibe, are welcoming to all kinds of people, and do not have extreme housing costs. I live in such a city, a large chunk of the population are students, so there is a vibrant so…

I'm working remotely but living like a nomad. A month at most in different villages across India. I now miss the city life, and am also considering moving to Europe, perhaps a small city in Germany. Can you share more about these smaller cities? What was your criteria for choosing the city you are in presently?

Smaller cities present issues in Germany (and Europe as a whole) for a multitude of reasons, for example healthcare[0], reliable bandwidth, older populations[1], etc.

Choosing a small city with a train station, however, can dramatically improve your access to most of these things as the trains typically imply population, which typically begets services such as internet, pharmacies, etc.

So honestly my first recommendation is filtering small cities by that.

0: https://www.thelocal.de/20181221/germans-turn-to-medibus-as-...

1: https://www.handelsblatt.com/today/politics/divided-nation-g...

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

#197

Post by onemoresoop » Fri, May 31, 2019, 2:01 PM UTC

sanxiyn wrote: post #183

bitexploder wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One challenge is kids will figure out they are smart all on their own. As a parent you have to almost actively repress the notion in a kid’s head that they are “smart”.

Why? Being smart is good. Why wouldn't you let your kids know?

Because it does more harm than good in the long term

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

#198

Post by humanrebar » Fri, May 31, 2019, 2:01 PM UTC

portroyal wrote: post #184

toyg wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is an educator > North America Hardly a good box to tick, by most reports.

Your comment is grey and I don't think it should be. People care so much about being "a good person" while also acknowledging corporate psychopathy and other "bad guys win" scenarios that are so normal to the human existence. Meanwhile, if you ask an educator about their situation, I'm not sure they'd tick the box. The educators I know are fulfilled by their work, not their work environments.

Let's ask short order cooks if they are fulfilled by their work environments. They'll probably complain about coworkers, the hours, and say their feet hurt.

That's not to say teachers don't have the feelings they might have, but it's a pretty privileged position to be in to expect your work to fulfill you in some deep way.

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

#199

Post by pdimitar » Fri, May 31, 2019, 2:02 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #94

caser wrote: post #15

In many ways, this was my story growing up until I got really into soccer. I started playing late, but loved the game, so clawed my way up through practicing in much of my spare time, whether down by the field or in the street in front of my house. Soccer pre-season conditioning also was probably the hardest thing I’d ever done, and left me in the best shape of my life. This instilled the feedback loop of effort = re…

Sport is a double-edged sword. I was shit at calcio but in Italy it's the only true religion, so I got to play it anyway. I built my role on hard work and tactical awareness, rose to team captain, then... my ankles just checked out when I was 18. My mood never fully recovered, I think. Nothing really compares. Outside a football pitch I'm the laziest person ever; the sort of hard-work mentality one gets on the pitch…

There are a ton of other sports to practice -- and some are not competitive at all.

Keep looking, you will find a physical activity that will fulfil you. You might never get the same high as with football and that's OK. There are many other things to do!

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

#200

Post by magashna » Fri, May 31, 2019, 2:04 PM UTC

turk73 wrote: post #62

augustl wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately I spent a lot of that free time playing video games. It was fun but i could've achieved way more. I'm currently beta testing a new optimization - I'm only allowed to play WoW Classic after my todo-list is done. One if the items on the todo-list is "do something productive for 30 minutes" (and currently, there's no shortage of things to fill those 30 minutes with). Maybe I can use the extreme gravitati…

You should throw out all the games. I'm serious. I never really began to succeed until I stopped playing stupid games and became a man. Now I'm managing younger guys who can't put down the controller. Last fall I had to fire someone who was clearly staying up all night playing video games and was never prepared for work nor doing an adequate job at it. Sadly, his own sense of privilege prevented him from being able t…

It's not so black and white. There are plenty of successful people that "play stupid games" and are full grown men, likely with the same responsibilities you have, if not more.