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Ha! I remember reading a Highlights Magazine bit where there was a picture of a dog trotting and a dog galloping, and it asked, "Which dog is going faster? How can you tell?" I seriously thought they wanted a biomechanical explanation, and I felt stupid!

One day as a young adult, I idly worked out the biomechanical explanation in my head (opposing front legs vs. back legs gives a longer stride than opposing left legs vs. right legs, which makes a gallop a more efficient gait). And THEN I realized that Highlights Magazine just wanted an answer like "because of the legs." LOL!

I never thought of myself as exceptional, I thought of myself as normal. When you think exceptional is normal, then normal looks pretty stupid. It didn't do a lot for building respect for peers.

I still have a very clear memory of my first reading group session in first grade, because the experience was like water torture to the ears. It didn't help that I'd already read this very reading book from cover to cover one morning two years ago, when my older brother had forgotten it on the coffee table. I sat there listening to five kids stammering endlessly over "the" and "and," and I thought, "Are you kidding me?" When I was finally called on, my reading dripped with scorn, and my teacher got this look that said, "Omigod, what am I going to do with this one?"

I was shipped off to a 2nd grade class for reading and spelling every morning, until someone put together a 1st-2nd combo class and I was sent there. And that was the only intervention I received in 7 long years (K-6) of painfully excruciating elementary school. We moved and I changed schools for 2nd grade.

I might be suffering from the same kind of blinders described in the article/underlined by ABQMom (I think we all like to think we are normal, or rather the lazy proposition is to assume people think the way you do) but:



Duh?

I had the same reaction to an article posted a while back about managing bright people. I mean, isn't treating other people with respect something that works with everybody, not those who make the cutoff of a standard score of 130 on an IQ test?

Yes, but in order to treat everyone respectfully, you have to understand what respect for that person looks like. It would, for example, be disrespectful to expect average employees who might need a lot of direction to accomplish their work well to function under the same loose guidelines and autonomous working conditions that you might rightly give someone who was working creatively at the cutting edge of their field, just as it would be disrespectful to expect the creative innovator to work under the close management supervision of someone who might not even be able to understand their work or its greater implications. The key is to understand that individuals vary greatly in how they think and what they need, and then act on that individualized understanding...but that understanding is often precisely what is lacking.

I remember thinking these same tings when I was growing up too, and getting that sort of "duh" reaction from my older brother (probably PG) when I needed more explanation for things than he did.
We have had many discussions with DD8 about the rate at which she learns and how many times there will be others who need more explanation than her before they get a topic. It hasn't always translated into understanding however. She still has days when she gets very frustrated about trying to find some deeper meaning in a really simple question or instruction.
We have had to work on how she reacts to others who ask for more explanation too. (Think exasperation at the "stupidity" of the questions )