Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

vanadac.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 371 posts

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#121

Post by sejje »

bane wrote: post #107

edit a little stream of consciousness follows Curse of being gifted is very real. I wonder sometimes how many people couldn't break out of it and have ended up in bad jobs, or worse. Probably like many HNers I also suffered from it mightily in K-12 and by the time I realized what was going on, I was already so far behind that escaping school, rather than redoing years of what I missed, was the easier option. It took…

> I'm drawn towards groups that promise an intelligent gathering, but I'm frequently disappointed by what I find once I get there.

Maybe you're looking in the wrong place. I don't think groups promising intelligence are a great place to look for intelligence (unless that "promise" is just your supposition, and not their claim).

Either that, or you're looking for the wrong thing. I'm not sure what you're trying to find there, but I find most people purporting to be intellectuals really just want to spew opinions and not be interrupted.

I enjoy the company of people with passion, more than I do that of "smart" people. Passionate people are experts at something, and they have something to teach me.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#122

Post by wauter »

kevingadd wrote: post #22

Nothing's quite as destructive as being told over and over that you're a natural at something so it'll be easy for you. It's a shame that well-meaning parents and mentors will sometimes undermine someone's potential by discouraging them from learning necessary skills.

Here's a great (and by now almost classic) article on that subject: http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#123

Post by tjr »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #115
taternuts wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely remember the first time I could no longer slack off, take 0's on homeworks, and ace tests to get a C+/B and it was in high-school :( I jumped to AP Calculus without taking the pre-requisite AP class everyone else had taken, and I thought I was so cool and smart. By the weeks end I no longer felt so cool and smart - I was completely lost.

Calculus sucked more for me because here in Brazil the education system doesn't include it in the high-school curriculum, so unless you're on some top private school, you only first hear about "calculus" in college. In the USA and other places there's exposure to it prior to college, which I believe is sensible. As a side note, I can't stress enough how bad the education system is in Brazil (in the sense of lack of s…

I don't know if things differ by location or have differed by time, but in my observation many U.S. high school students don't see calculus either.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#127

Post by khuey »

bunderbunder wrote: post #103
ejk314 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Straight As can mask a lot of problems. I've got a room mate who was put ahead a grade in middle?late-elementary school and missed the whole foundation of algebra. They did so because he got straight A's so obviously he's smart enough; he could just skip that. (They promised to give him a text book so he could learn on his own that summer, but never got around to giving it to him.) Of course, he started struggling i…

I have never, ever, ever met someone who was well-served by skipping a grade. Myself included. Ever. Skipping a grade means giving up a full year of education. If that proposition doesn't give you pause, you probably don't have enough respect for the value of education. Even if you you get absolutely nothing out of that year aside from the soft skills you develop by sitting in a class with other kids and listening to…

I skipped from the middle of second to the middle of third grade. The negative academic consequences for me were negligible. The social consequences were not great though. That messed me up for a while.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#128

Post by tieTYT »

nswanberg wrote: post #65

For those curious about the context: https://lkml.org/lkml/2000/8/23/97 Note that noone replied to Eric and the thread continued on. Also go back and read some of Linus's posts before this. Eric writes using vague generalizations about age and experience; Linus writes with specifics about his experience with the kernel. The former style makes for popularly read posts but the latter seems much more effective. Also, co…

How did your first link give context? It seems to be the same content as the OP.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#129

Post by larrys »

austenallred wrote: post #18

I am miles away from Eric or Linus, but the "curse of the gifted" is very real. Thankfully I wasn't smart or gifted enough that I could ride it for long, but when it comes to math and problem-solving I rode it well into my high school years. I never learned to do algebra "by the book," because I didn't need to. Or maybe because I wasn't smart enough to. The math teacher would teach "3x + 6 = 9." Basic algebraic probl…

"I am miles away from Eric..."

ESR "grandpa" was at the Wharton Computer Center when I was there. [1]

http://www.catb.org/~esr/resume.html

At Wharton, at the time, this was definitely true:

"When you were in college, did you ever meet bright kids who graduated top of their class in high-school and then floundered freshman year in college because they had never learned how to study? It's a common trap. A friend of mine calls it "the curse of the gifted""

I was lucky that I had to work hard in high school. I definitely noticed a bunch of kids that were actually depressed when they were surrounded by others equally gifted and got their first "b" grade. No adversity experience.

[1] APL was big back then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_%28programming_language%29

Post reply on HN