Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Were you a "smart kid?"

I was one of those smart kids, too. I was always bored in school, and I usually got into trouble when I was bored. I did not have many friends during early childhood until I became the class troublemaker and became popular (or, maybe, infamous). However, social rejection at the start of my schooling may have had more to do with where I grew up (inner city neighborhood) and where I went to school (suburban community) than with my intelligence. In retrospect, I don't think that my teachers expected my test scores from an "underprivileged" kid. I think that a lot of people resented me because I came from that neighborhood and out-performed them.

Even while succeeding in my studies, most of my teachers and classmates thought that I must have been pretty stupid to get into trouble that often--even the ones who knew how high my scores were. I even was advised to drop out of school, as a trouble-maker like me didn't belong in education. I took their advice, as I already had begun researching in my disipline during junior high and part of high school. Fortunately, I came back to formal schooling eventually and have since learned about giftedness (and found out my scores--much higher than I had thought--from my parents). My experiences with school and with my difficulties fitting into my age-peer group make more sense knowing what I know now.



My dad had hated school, too, and attributed it to being the youngest in the class (rather than an IQ of 160), so I was always the oldest in my grade (not a big help for an advanced kid, I'll say). My mom was very bright, as well, but she excelled and was well-recieved in school. My grandparents and other relatives were very bright, too, but they did not receive a formal education much past 4th grade (grand-grandfather helped pioneer nuclear physics, grandfather became a factory engineer and free-lance architect, uncle in particle physics). Education was never a big deal in my family, as we tended to excel in our careers even without a formal background in our disciplines. I guess that was why no one really cared when I decided to drop out of school...