I had a good bit of trouble when I finally got to high school and hit a challenging academic situation. I was a straight-A student and I considered suicide (briefly) because I got a B+. That's just insane, and I am not an insane person! If I had not been bored to death all along with drill and kill and molded into a perfectionist whose feelings of self-worth hung solely upon perfect scores because everything was always easy, I KNOW that wouldn't have been my reaction.
I had similar perfectionist tendencies even at a young age. I remember coming home from elementary school one day crying because I had made a B on an assignment. Once I got to high school I was able to do the boring, mindless work because I knew I had to make the best grades possible so I could go to college and escape the cycle of poverty and my small town existence. The boring, mindless assignments had value because they were my stepping stones to good grades and freedom. In some ways though it hurt me. I somehow perfected the ability to make good grades without necessarily understanding the material. In college I made an A in differential equations but never understood the concepts until I took thermodynamics. I guess that is why I am a big proponent of the interdisciplinary study of math and science.
