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Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

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Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#221

Post by loladesoto »

it is a real problem and two things make it worse: 1) ego 2) lack of mentorship.

ego urges you to walk into situations wearing nothing but arrogance. (and why wouldn't you? you've been praised since you were a kid for your precocity. by adults!). and while you may have earned some of that praise, it's like your granny chanting your invincibility into your ear. it's a delusion that prevents you from asking questions (acquiring wisdom) and exploring your outer limits (acquiring experience).

with mentoring, that arrogance could be channelled into something else: humility. because it's really impossible to be alert to truth--academic or otherwise--when you think you know all of the things.

it's just that the educational system doesn't really know what to do with academically-gifted kids who have a bit of rebellion/arrogance in them. and there aren't enough teachers or mentors who recognize this variant even among the gifted.

so they're released into the wild, not having acquired the one thing they needed possibly more than an education: humility.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#222

Post by Crake »

mgkimsal wrote: post #164
thisrod wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you ever read Calculus Made Easy ? If you just want to understand enough calculus to know why a thrown ball follows a parabola, that really isn't hard. The typical university course aims higher than that - it's trying to instill a way of thinking that's required to progress towards a third year course in Generalised Nonsense Theory. That way of thinking is quite unnatural, and makes the calculus course harder tha…

no - have not revisited it at all. I've been encouraged to, and may do that later this year or next depending on my schedule. thanks for the tip.

The Humongous Book of Calculus Problems is also a very good self-teaching resource. It doesn't jump steps so you don't get lost when studying.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#223

Post by ddellacosta »

j2kun wrote: post #135
hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can relate to that. College-level calculus burned me so much , I didn't had the algebra background necessary to grok it, much of it is memorizing heuristics and "tricks", and college professors (specially in my public uni) didn't had much patience either. I even did well in other math-related classes, but calculus was a chimera. Unfortunately, I fell so much behind the curriculum that I had to drop out of college t…

It is very rare for an incoming calculus student to know algebra. In fact, I often tell my students that the first goal of college-level calculus is to make them actually learn algebra. It's an extremely sad state of affairs for me (a mathematician). Relevant (an article I wrote): http://j2kun.svbtle.com/you-never-did-math-in-high-school

I just want to say, as someone who is now re-educating themselves in Math, I really love your Math ∩ Programming site. Thank you for this lovely resource.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#224

Post by dclara »

bane wrote: post #199
Tycho wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The superhuman deduction in the middle, the general tone of self-absorption, and the Batman-villain userid. Maybe I'm wrong.

It's "bane" as in "HN is the addictive bane of my existence". It's hard to get tone across when talking about one's own experiences. In my case my experience is about having the attribute of high intelligence. If this was a discussion about being tall instead of being intelligent, and I happened to be very tall, would it change your opinion if my deduction had been that tall people can dunk basketballs more easily th…

Yes, "dunking a ball". We are talking about "dunking a ball" when you are taller than most of other people.

You have a good metaphor here, but what kinds of ball are you dunking when you have higher IQ than other people? Do you do anything productive to take advantage of your high IQ? I didn't see it yet.

I agree that being super intelligent is a disaster to people around you. But if you can make something to benefit people, you will be accepted as a hero by the people eventually. That's how heroes are generated.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#225

Post by Crake »

bane wrote: post #182
jakobe wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the kinds of problems most people have seem trivially simple to me This sounds a bit narcissistic. If you think other people's problems are trivial, maybe you're just not being empathic enough to understand their full scope. If everything looks like it follows simple patterns, maybe you just aren't looking close enough. When you learn something new, there's often this point where you feel you understand it all. If…

> This sounds a bit narcissistic. I know. That's the trouble with talking about growing up or being highly intelligent, you end up sounding like a narcissistic prick. Even saying something like "I've tested in the top 1-2% of dozens of aptitude and intelligence tests" sounds like I'm lording it over those who haven't. But I don't think it's really all that different than saying "I'm taller than 99% of the population"…

I agree with most of what you're saying, except for "every single person's money problem is solved with the very simple 'don't spend more than you earn.'" Sometimes it's not being able to earn enough money that's the problem--there's a baseline level of income needed to pay for very basic no frills food and rent in any given area.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#227

Post by shalmanese »

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…

There's a Quora question that has some quite interesting varying perspectives on the issue: http://www.quora.com/Education/Do-people-who-have-skipped-gr...

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#228

Post by mamcx »

dclara wrote: post #213
mamcx wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps is "seem (ie: Look to me) trivially simple" instead of "are trivially simple". I find very hard to be in a "regular" conversation. Bored/dislike me pop, realities, and the normal kind of conversation that people have. Even if I understand that some of that conversations are important or are NOT stupid, still, I can't plug in. Neither talk by phone, or use any kind of chat or social app (even before all that N…

Sounds not too bad. But what kind of productive things do you do in a library all days?

Reading. A lot. Pick a book, read (not always fully!), next. Probably I finish all the comics, history, science sections*

* The library was mid-sized, and that was the section for kids. Next I move to the full big one, but then I have get out of school, need work, and that kill it...

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#229

Post by wallflower »

thisrod wrote: post #117
mgkimsal wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost exact same here, except I failed college calculus - twice. It's always been a sore point for me that people who are obviously not as 'smart' as I am somehow all managed to pass it - I couldn't even understand it. Can I lay a little blame on bad professors? perhaps. others complained about the profs too, but ... they still managed to grok enough to pass. I only managed to satisfy degree requirements by taking '…

Did you ever read Calculus Made Easy ? If you just want to understand enough calculus to know why a thrown ball follows a parabola, that really isn't hard. The typical university course aims higher than that - it's trying to instill a way of thinking that's required to progress towards a third year course in Generalised Nonsense Theory. That way of thinking is quite unnatural, and makes the calculus course harder tha…

A long time ago, I struggled in Calculus AB. Having just done a college visit to a school where I really wanted to go and where I sat in a college calculus class for Freshmen, I knew I wanted to place high enough on the AB test to get out of taking that with the other liberals arts majors. My teacher in a gentle manner tried to discourage me from taking the test. As I was a solid B- all year. Maybe he didn't want me to lower his average. I ended up discovering the book below - a book that explained Calculus concepts using stories set in a fantasy math magic land. I studied hard, practiced hard. And I got a 4. And placed out. And showed that teacher that I could do it.

http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Easy-Way-Douglas-Downing/prod...

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#230

Post by dclara »

lawtguy wrote: post #216
nether wrote: post #23

I'm not gifted, I'm actually pretty dumb. Can anyone help a stupid normal person relate to this article?

Lots of good explanations in this thread, but I'll add my own: I'd call it the trap of the gifted, rather than the curse. That trap has three prongs: 1) Gifted people get concepts right away, almost effortlessly. 2) Because it's so easy for them, they never have to work at learning. It just happens for them. 3) Being so good at something earns praise from their teachers, parents, friends, etc. This often becomes cent…

Very good point.
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