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The Trouble with Bright Kids

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Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#11

Post by chunky1994 »

bane wrote: post #8

Like many HNers, I was a pretty bright kid growing up. I scored embarrassingly well on most aptitude tests, and before entering middle school found myself the subject of repeated IQ, aptitude, learning style, personality style, thinking style, and psychological analysis by befuddled education specialists trying to figure out why I did so poorly in school. Here's a sample of what I endured before entering 6th grade. -…

My god, this sounds so much like me! Although I'm not always miserable, only I'd always done well in school except for the last two years when everything just got very, very boring.

I graduate this year, and everything you've said in: > At 16 I found myself thinking seriously about killing myself. I spent more than one night at my sink with a kitchen knife at my wrist wondering if I should go ahead and make the cut or not. It was not a good place to be. I was saved by my music, and ability to experience frisson (as weird as it sounds). I did plenty of extracurricular I suppose, just none that would work on a university application. Kids who succeeded in school were "losers" (I mistakenly thought), since they didn't have the inner light that led to self-creation (or so I thought). Regurgitation of endless facts and conforming to what the teachers wanted did not impress me. Despite being extraordinarily bright, I was also hopelessly naive. Applies to me.

Could you please tell me how you got yourself out of this? I'm quite desperate here.

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#12

Post by 110101001010100 »

bane wrote: post #8

Like many HNers, I was a pretty bright kid growing up. I scored embarrassingly well on most aptitude tests, and before entering middle school found myself the subject of repeated IQ, aptitude, learning style, personality style, thinking style, and psychological analysis by befuddled education specialists trying to figure out why I did so poorly in school. Here's a sample of what I endured before entering 6th grade. -…

This does not say much for the value of testing _and making presumptions based on test results_. Note the emphasis on the second part of that sentence. Testing is ok. Recognising that all children are not the same intellectually is fine. But making presumptions based on limited evidence, like test scores, is something I have always wondered about. This story only reinforces my beliefs.

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#13

Post by kevinalexbrown »

chunky1994 wrote: post #11
bane wrote: post #8

Like many HNers, I was a pretty bright kid growing up. I scored embarrassingly well on most aptitude tests, and before entering middle school found myself the subject of repeated IQ, aptitude, learning style, personality style, thinking style, and psychological analysis by befuddled education specialists trying to figure out why I did so poorly in school. Here's a sample of what I endured before entering 6th grade. -…

My god, this sounds so much like me! Although I'm not always miserable, only I'd always done well in school except for the last two years when everything just got very, very boring. I graduate this year, and everything you've said in: > At 16 I found myself thinking seriously about killing myself. I spent more than one night at my sink with a kitchen knife at my wrist wondering if I should go ahead and make the cut o…

If At 16 I found myself thinking seriously about killing myself. I spent more than one night at my sink with a kitchen knife at my wrist wondering if I should go ahead and make the cut or not. applies to you, you need to tell someone, if you haven't already.

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#14

Post by bane »

chunky1994 wrote: post #11
bane wrote: post #8

Like many HNers, I was a pretty bright kid growing up. I scored embarrassingly well on most aptitude tests, and before entering middle school found myself the subject of repeated IQ, aptitude, learning style, personality style, thinking style, and psychological analysis by befuddled education specialists trying to figure out why I did so poorly in school. Here's a sample of what I endured before entering 6th grade. -…

My god, this sounds so much like me! Although I'm not always miserable, only I'd always done well in school except for the last two years when everything just got very, very boring. I graduate this year, and everything you've said in: > At 16 I found myself thinking seriously about killing myself. I spent more than one night at my sink with a kitchen knife at my wrist wondering if I should go ahead and make the cut o…

It sounds hopelessly stupid, but it saved me. I'm one of the few percentage of the population that can frisson to certain works of music.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisson

When I was sitting there, knife to my wrist, the thought of all of the music that I would miss, that I wouldn't discover or be able to frisson to (I didn't know what it was called at the time and only learned what it was decades later, but I knew it was very real for me) was the one thing I couldn't accept.

I've never regretted that decision.

What I've found is that outside of academia, the real world problems are so messy, and so complicated, that it takes all of my intelligence to work on those problems and deal with other messy soft issues, like selling my ideas to higher ups, or balancing financials against employees, are so intellectually stimulating that it literally "gets better" if you have the drive and will to find a line of work where you get to work on interesting problems.

(I've always thought the wonderful "it gets better" ads do a disservice to other disaffected members of society by not talking specifically to us, even if the message it true for more than the community they target)

As a matter of fact, it doesn't just get better, it gets awesome. I've gotten a job I never get bored of, I got the girl, I get a pretty nice paycheck, live a nice life, travel as much as I want to wherever I feel like (see the world!), and always work to write a novel of my life that I'd find interesting.

Just remember, if you are as smart as they say you are, you can figure out how to solve your own problems. Not popular at school? That's a solvable problem. No girlfriend? Solvable. Bad grades? You can solve it. Your mind is your most powerful and flexible asset, you can use it to do anything you really put your mind to, even things that don't come naturally once you solve the problem of learning how to grind on boring stuff.

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#15

Post by bane »

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #13
chunky1994 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My god, this sounds so much like me! Although I'm not always miserable, only I'd always done well in school except for the last two years when everything just got very, very boring. I graduate this year, and everything you've said in: > At 16 I found myself thinking seriously about killing myself. I spent more than one night at my sink with a kitchen knife at my wrist wondering if I should go ahead and make the cut o…

If At 16 I found myself thinking seriously about killing myself. I spent more than one night at my sink with a kitchen knife at my wrist wondering if I should go ahead and make the cut or not. applies to you, you need to tell someone, if you haven't already.

Absolutely. No matter how bad it seems right now. It gets better. Don't ever give up, no matter how trapped you feel.

Feel like the entire Ocean is over your head and drowning? Just wait a bit. Even the tides fall to the moon.

Talk to someone. But just as important, don't give up. There's very few things you can get yourself into that you can't work your way out of.

I'm thinking of particularly recent cases like poor Ilya Zhitomirskiy.

Don't give up, don't give in, you are stronger and bigger than the emptiness you feel inside of your heart right now.

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#17

Post by nod »

chunky1994 wrote: post #11
bane wrote: post #8

Like many HNers, I was a pretty bright kid growing up. I scored embarrassingly well on most aptitude tests, and before entering middle school found myself the subject of repeated IQ, aptitude, learning style, personality style, thinking style, and psychological analysis by befuddled education specialists trying to figure out why I did so poorly in school. Here's a sample of what I endured before entering 6th grade. -…

My god, this sounds so much like me! Although I'm not always miserable, only I'd always done well in school except for the last two years when everything just got very, very boring. I graduate this year, and everything you've said in: > At 16 I found myself thinking seriously about killing myself. I spent more than one night at my sink with a kitchen knife at my wrist wondering if I should go ahead and make the cut o…

Chunky, do you have a role model? A mentor? Whether a PG-type or someone successful in some other dimension, I'd encourage, nay, exhort you, to find and talk with a mentor who can tell you about the world that awaits your beyond your "beach of dreams" and current educational straight-jacket. Please, please don't assume that your smarts are all you need to see your future from your current vantage point.

Many have walked through your dilemma. There are a ton of people here who would help you out. Even me.

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#18

Post by chunky1994 »

nod wrote: post #17
chunky1994 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My god, this sounds so much like me! Although I'm not always miserable, only I'd always done well in school except for the last two years when everything just got very, very boring. I graduate this year, and everything you've said in: > At 16 I found myself thinking seriously about killing myself. I spent more than one night at my sink with a kitchen knife at my wrist wondering if I should go ahead and make the cut o…

Chunky, do you have a role model? A mentor? Whether a PG-type or someone successful in some other dimension, I'd encourage, nay, exhort you, to find and talk with a mentor who can tell you about the world that awaits your beyond your "beach of dreams" and current educational straight-jacket. Please, please don't assume that your smarts are all you need to see your future from your current vantage point. Many have wal…

Indeed there is, but even when I do talk to that person, it's seems to just highlight the fact that I'm stuck in a place I don't want to be, and though I want to get out of it, there's no conceivable way to do so. There' so little time to do anything, and this year's going to decide my future. It's really hard to not think of it like a noose around your neck, and whenever I do think about it, I keep wondering whether I shouldn't have tightened it long ago.

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#19

Post by chunky1994 »

bane wrote: post #14
chunky1994 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My god, this sounds so much like me! Although I'm not always miserable, only I'd always done well in school except for the last two years when everything just got very, very boring. I graduate this year, and everything you've said in: > At 16 I found myself thinking seriously about killing myself. I spent more than one night at my sink with a kitchen knife at my wrist wondering if I should go ahead and make the cut o…

It sounds hopelessly stupid, but it saved me. I'm one of the few percentage of the population that can frisson to certain works of music. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisson When I was sitting there, knife to my wrist, the thought of all of the music that I would miss, that I wouldn't discover or be able to frisson to (I didn't know what it was called at the time and only learned what it was decades later, but I kne…

>Why did I do so poorly in school despite the tests? It was probably the tests. I was told I was so smart so many times that the effect mentioned in this article seems particularly germane. I didn't work hard, so I didn't do well, but I tested high, so I thought the system was broken, not me. I was already smart, so I didn't need that fact positively reinforced, but I did need instances of hard work reinforced. I had no work ethic coming out of high school, I simply did things that interested me and dropped things that didn't.

That I think is the most essential point you've made, how did you get around that? If I know that then I certainly wouldn't be this depressed.

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#20

Post by 110101001010100 »

dragonsky wrote: post #6

Could it be that the problem is not, the way we provide feedback to children, but that the expectations we place upon children has more to do with our own expectations than the child's innate ability? Take a class of 30 children, they will have a wide range of intellectual abilities, ranging from borderline intellectually disabled to the highly gifted. Give them all the same task. Some will achieve well, and have no…

Maybe we just set the bar too low. By doing so, not only do we hurt the bright kids by boring them to tears, but we presume based on test scores(?) that certain children could through sheer effort never exceed what level we presume they are capable of reaching- we lower our expectations of them. We deny the "bright" kids a reasonably stimulating education and the other kids the chance to prove what they can do.

Standardised testing does not test for ability to improve.

It's one thing if a kid fails because he didn't try hard enough. That can be explained to him. And it's a good lesson. But it's another thing to give him a standardised test and decide a priori what's he capable of. That just creates a strange value system where all kids, bright or not, may be denied an opportunity to show what they can do and they learn to think of ability as fixed. And it creates a lot of fascination with "innate" ability.

Is it true there's growing evidence that ability is perhaps not as "fixed" as we think?

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