Originally Posted by acs
I have been observing testing at my son's school for 6 years. I can tell you that the kids who care about the test do better on the test and those who think it's a waste of time, tend to blow it off and not do well. Many of the kids who blow it off are smarter than the kids who do well. The social circumstances are very important and I be very wary of trying to say anthing about actually ability based on standardized test scores.
I think the same argument could be made for grades.

My daughter totally exemplifies the profile of VSL, but is gifted and perfectionist enough that it really hasn�t interfered with her achievement. She works to meet the expectations of her teachers and to keep up with her high achieving friends, so the higher the standards and rigor at school, the better in her case.

My HG+ son could have easily fallen into the underachievement trap had we not made a concerted effort to minimize the effect to his self-concept of some negative school experiences (due to his ability). He worked primarily to meet my expectations with school work when younger, but has increasing showed motivation to produce highly (at school) in order to achieve his personal long-range goals. He has always been driven to learn outside of school.

My goal has been to validate and explain their perceptions and ensure that they understand that their future success is tied to their ability to produce meaningful and non-meaningful school assignments.