Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion How asinine is the US educational system?

Yes, there is a label for people like that, but most of them are so thrilled to be themselves that they don't really seek out such labels to start with.

This is true.

For instance, if I think that the only appropriate way to experience soup is with a certain level of saltiness, then to the extent that you think that you want something else is simply profoundly *wrong*.

And in order to fix your wrongness in terms of what you want, I must endeavor to correct your error for your own good.

Ding ding, task avoidance and perfectionism detected.... Maybe she will work hard at acquiring a growth mindset, and succeed in overcoming her task avoidance and perfectionism...

There's a similar problem in some Buddhism-esque practitioners too.

Me shadow <-----> you shadow

So, neither I nor you are real.

Yep. I'll leave it at saying that these kids aren't really all that smart. No need for me to give details as that would likely ID some of these kids.

I can't imagine every possibility...I realize that. For example, I know one kid who is the most exceptional athlete I have ever seen. My father, who has been around a lot of sports, says the same thing. Kid can pick up a sport and in a few weeks can surpass those that have played for years. Is in HS now and has verballed in the chosen sport, but kid could really have played any sport at a DI level. Unless I had seen this kid, could not have imagined such ability.

But all of this is off topic...how can we help the OP's kid? As I mentioned, my kids have taken additional courses - they take/took two foreign languages. Middle kid has applied to a selective math camp, eldest participated in stuff like Model UN (and chaired a committee this year when her school hosted a HS Model UN event). What might be interesting to explore?

She's done better there in the past 24 months since we've been truly pushing her to work at it, take risks, and improve her failure tolerance, yes...

BUT.

She was a kid who was extremely keen on algebra at 6yo, and then the school spent the next THREE YEARS teaching her... well, fractions, I guess. Because the rest of it? She knew at 6yo when we turned her over to them.

By the time she was nine, she was sloppy in her work habits, and tended to assume that mistakes were an indication that she should give up doing math, and that learning was painful and best avoided entirely.

Also-- I wouldn't assume that high-level thinking the way some have mentioned it here (rigorous proofs, etc) is even taught in high school curricula at this point in the US. Seriously-- do NOT make that assumption. Val and I can both attest that whatever higher level understanding our kids have had (up to calculus) has been gleaned via interactions with us, not with the curriculum or their teachers. Sad but true.


Knowing what I know now, I'd have pressed harder to get her into algebra a LOT sooner-- probably at 7yo-- and searched out the applications-oriented material that she was so clearly keen on, rather than relying upon the school to take care of that stuff. We pulled back later to allow for some math-specific unschooly time, but what she really needed was competent higher level instruction. University level, not this test-focused baloney in AP coursework now.

Maybe this goes over into the underachiever thread instead of here.

Maybe-- but MoN and I are pointing out that taking the well-traveled road has a price, too. I also stand by the statement that once that kind of thing is learned, it is something that one tends to struggle with, much like an eating disorder. It's just always there in the background, and it's hard work to force your thinking away from it as a default mode.

I think you have to consciously rebuild new habits and force them into place over significant periods of time so that the new habit becomes the default.

I agree. It's hard, but it's possible (and the decision to do it has to come from within). Parental units can set an example, but the child has to decide s/he wants to change, or it almost certainly won't happen.