The Kintsugi School for the Gifted and Talented

to continue the Gifted Child^TM discussion from Tumblr.txt:

I don't at all intend to invalidate anyone's experiences with this, and in general I definitely agree that marking out children as Gifted and Special is very harmful, but I have actually not had a very negative experience as a gifted student? I mean, I wasn't officially identified as gifted, since I wasn't ever in the public school system, so that probably helped, but I was in fast-track stuff whenever possible, and my parents, teachers, and peers all probably knew that I was smart. (I should perhaps mention that when I had an IQ test as a toddler, it came back 135+; I'm waiting on the results for another right now, but yeah. pretty smart.) so I was subjected to high expectations and a certain amount of ostracization, but neither was particularly intense or traumatizing. most of the pressure on me to succeed academically has been of my creation. it probably also helps that I haven't hit my ceiling yet, so to speak—I had a lot of anxiety/depression burnout last year, and that impacted my performance, but not that significantly, and I have by and large recovered from that. so yeah, I haven't experienced many problems as an intelligent kid, and I view my intelligence as an entirely positive thing, because I'm very curious and it allows me to understand and absorb and analyze topics of interest in more efficient and complex ways.

 

I've come to regard my intelligence as nothing particularly special. I know plenty of other people just as smart as me, and people noticeably less smart than me who know a lot more than I do. It's cool that you've been able to embrace this about you but I'm wary of idea that I or anyone else thinks in more efficient or complex ways. I'm especially wary of the idea that any of that matters. I may be especially smart, but that doesn't mean I'm any more capable of helping people or being more of a good person.

 

I'm very sorry if my assertions seemed arrogant or like I was devaluing the abilities or contributions of people who would be considered less intelligent than I. I am especially sorry if it felt like it was addressed to you or your situation in particular. that was not at all my intention. fairly recently I was contemptuous of people whom I thought were slower than I and occasionally expressed that attitude, both via implications of my words or actions or directly to people whom I thought would be sympathetic. I decided that that was very much not an attitude in line with my values and morals, and so I've been working to change it. it's certainly not something I consciously believe nowadays, but it is entirely possible that it's something I unconsciously express.

inversely, I try to remind myself that my intelligence is special, statistically speaking—both because it affords me an advantage others don't have that I should take into account before judging them and because it is one of the very few traits my terrible self-esteem can be logicked out of belittling. when I'm in a self-hate spiral, I often believe that I'm stupid, unobservant, etc., and generally speaking I try not to consciously encourage attitudes endorsed by my self-hate, if that makes any sense. none of that means I don't know people as smart or smarter than me or that I devalue people who aren't as smart as I am—I very much admire and want to learn from people are more skilled or knowledgeable than I am, and there are certainly people like that in all three of those categories. generally speaking, I don't care how intelligent someone is, nor do I tend to form opinions about a given person's intelligence.

"efficient and complex" was probably not the best way to describe what I was trying to get at with that statement, so I'd like to try and explain it a little more. first of all, I don't care about cognition as it relates to intelligence for anyone aside from myself; I don't presume to know how other people think or how their thinking is different than mine. I just know that when I'm tired or brainfoggy or hungry or otherwise impaired or distracted, I can't think as well, with "well" being defined by speed and clarity of connections and conclusions. information retention has nothing to do with it; it's what I'm able to do with the information. and the ability to think well is important to me because I have a drive to understand the world around me and my ability to do that is more or less entirely predicated on my thinking skills. I don't think I necessarily understand the world better or more correctly than anyone else, nor do I think that understandings different from mine are less true or valid. it's just that I get extremely frustrated with myself when I'm unable to reach an understanding of something, so I value my ability to avert that frustration. does that make more sense?

 

Yes it does. And it doesn't come across as arrogant to me, but it does seem like... a lot of the shit I heard as a gifted kid. And I resent that a lot, both being taught that I should feel superior and the people around me teaching other kids I should be looking down on them. I was more concerned you were expressing internalized G&T bullshit that would fail you when you tried to find comfort in it than that you were being insulting to anyone.

 

I hope this belongs here. Please tell me if it doesn't.

I didn't go to school past, I think, about second grade (where I did really well - Montessori school) . I was 'home schooled'. I use this term loosely. I had almost no structure and multiple curricula (almost none of them good - almost all of them fundamentalist Christian). I was moved from my state of birth partially to avoid stricter homeschooling laws. There were no standardised tests. As a child I just... didn't do my schoolwork. Some of it because I was bored, some of it (just the math, really) because I couldn't understand the material and asking for more explanations was seen as me being difficult and something to be punished. As was incomplete material. Some of it was because I literally could not sit still and focus on the video lessons I was supposed to be doing. And some of it, well, I just didn't want to do it, besides the English lessons, and I didn't. At some point, hands were thrown up - No more schoolwork for me. I was about fifteen. Yes, this is indeed illegal. I have a GED now.

After leaving the school system, I spent a week once in public school. I was sent as a punishment for bad behaviour (bad parenting - never fails to be surprising in how bizarre it can be). And I loved it. Yeah, I had trouble with focusing/sitting still during the lessons, but the structure! The routine! My teachers found me very pleasant and easy to work with, and I did very well with my schoolwork. Then I was pulled out just as quickly as I was enrolled.

Probably because I seemed happier.

Okay. The part that I think makes this relevant. I was told, constantly, that I was Smart. Very Smart. Smarter than almost all the other people. That I could do really well if I would just do it. This did nothing to motivate me. But it did make me feel like a stupid failure, damaged trust, and made me feel horrible for being a letdown all the time. The worst part is, this came from both caregivers, one who was abusive, and one who was not. And, of course, it came from various activity instructors - Park district art and music teachers, caregiver friends... So from all sides, I was being told, you're gifted, you're Smart, and I had nothing show for that academically. And that was made out to be, and felt like, my fault. And it still fucks with me now when I have a hard time with something. When I don't have a hard time with something, my intense, maladaptive perfectionism takes over instead.

Fortunately, I was capable of educating myself - History, social studies, English (I've won multiple awards for writing, so I do know this at least is certain), all of that sort of thing, I do think I am well-educated on, because I read, then and now, obsessively. After getting my GED, I went to college (community, mind you. I was never going to get into a university with my total lack of a transcript for anything!). I did very well there, the more overbearing and structured the class, the better. I learned quickly and was well-liked by my professors. Except in math.

I failed out of remedial, sub-100 level remedial math - High school algebra - three times before I eventually passed it. I eventually withdrew from college and started to work in a technical field that did not require a college degree because I failed remedial geometry again, and I needed to eventually take one 100-level math course to graduate and transfer to a university, and I couldn't do this again, fiscally or emotionally. I still would rate my level of math knowledge as about equivalent to a high school sophomore. And I feel like if I had been taught realistically, for my actual needs, rather than written off as Smart, that wouldn't have happened. Because then there wouldn't have been the accompanying tag-along of '... but lazy, because you don't live up to it.' And I still feel like a failure. When I told my secondary caregiver I was leaving school to work, he was disappointed. Visibly. I was supposed to be the first one to graduate. I was supposed to have a career, not a job. I hope to go back to college when my work contract expires, but until then, I think I will always feel like a guilty, wasted-potential disappointment.