bloodyrosemccoy | The Shocking Truth

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The Shocking Truth

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The “Draw Yerself As A Teenager” meme has reminded me of something I’ve wanted to touch upon for a long time, and it starts with a simple confession: in school, I was labeled “gifted and talented.”

Yes, yes. Cue the long speeches. There’s a lot of talk about gifted kids, some of it interesting, some of it right nonsense. But me, I want to focus on an aspect of being gifted that doesn’t get looked at very often—it’s a downright elusive fact, something most people don’t know or realize.

“Gifted” kids are lazy buggers.

“But wait!” you say.* “That can’t be right! Lots of gifted kids get all A’s in school all the time! They take AP classes for fun in high school! They always clean up the academic awards for debate and Spanish and National Honor Society and chess club and whatnot! They can’t be lazy!”

See, that’s the thing. Gifted kids don’t look lazy, because we do all those things in high school—win the awards, get the A’s, do the extracurricular activities. But what people don’t realize is that all this intellectual, academic shit? That’s what we’re good at. Unlike other kids, academia comes easy to us. We test well without having to bust our asses studying; an hour on an essay gets us A with honors, and we do all those extracurricular activities because it looks good on a college application and requires minimal effort. And the reason we get all those awards? People just keep handing them to us, even though we’re phoning it in.

There’s another kind of kid at school who gets all these awards and participates in these classes—the ones who aren’t gifted, but work at it. They spend hours on homework, study for the SAT, and run themselves ragged working on all those extracurriculars, either because they’re driven or because their parents are. Some of these kids do well and turn out more badass, the awesome god damn Batman in the face of the gifted loser Superman, but a damn lot of them seem frantic, overworked, neurotic, and unhappy about their work; their only return for this investment seems to be raising the stakes for next time.**

Gifted kids don’t get this. We don’t understand either why these people have to work so hard at school, or why, if it is so hard, they bother. We sure wouldn’t. That looks like work.

That leads to a problem. Gifted kids have a very specific kind of gift—they are endowed with the particular abilities prized by schools. This makes it look like we’re doing hard work, and so people try to lay off of us for other things. And so we never got encouraged to try the things that were hard for us—sporty things, or arty things, or even the academic stuff we weren’t as good at—because we’re good at the things that count.*** So we get lazy. If we’re not good at something right off, we get discouraged, and abandon it, because who wants to spend time practicing something? It takes forever. We conclude that it’s not our forte, and stick with things that are. I’m an awful artist and never tried to get better, because Drawing Is Hard. I hate sports because I lose, and I’d keep losing for quite a while before I started to win. I’m used to always winning by default.

Of course, when we are genuinely interested in something, we will go above and beyond to pursue our interest. But it usually falls in with our forte anyway—like studying—and we don’t consider it work because we’re interested. If it bores us, though, then unless we need to do it we won’t bother either.

I didn’t quite get this when I was a kid. My mom, who read all of those Raising Your Gifted Child books, spent a lot of time trying to Enrich our lives. But when I was bad at things, I would resist her. Who needed that?

I’m not sure how to help any of this. Schools have their hands full with the majority of students who need the help, and can you really expect harried teachers to tailor a program to challenge gifted kids? Parents can try, but they may come up against a Wall Of Uninterest when trying to engage their kids. I just thought I’d put it out there, because I see all sorts of commentary on these kids, and that never comes up. And since I’m a week away of ending school, and entering into a world where I’m not always on top, I had to confess to someone.

*Unless you are gifted, in which case you’re saying, “Shit! She’s outing me!”

**I still think that trying to make your child gifted is a form of abuse. I’ve met parents who will go to absurd lengths in pursuit of the gifted ideal. Making their kids study for hours, signing them up for everything, long disapproving lectures when the kid gets a “minus” next to his A, etc..

***Everyone always says that gifted kids get frustrated with school because they aren’t challenged. That’s bullshit. Gifted kids don’t want challenges. They want to be left alone so they can go back to whatever they were amusing themselves with before you interrupted them with a bunch of damn analogies or math problems.

EDIT: Speaking of lazy bastards, I edited this to change the font color back to normal. I accidentally turned the text in my LJ document on Word green because I've been printing all my papers in green or blue ink since I ran out of black ...

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THANK YOU! I've been trying to convey this point all my life! Yeah, I graduated high school at 15, having done two years of college work. So I'm a klutz, can't dance, play sports, or draw. No one made me work at it, but they made all the other kids who weren't as good at schoolwork work on *that*.

I plan to "make" my kids be well-rounded. Shine in one area all you want, but dammit, you're going to at least try to be passable in three other areas!

I totally agree with your assessment. I tested into the TAG (Talented and Gifted) program in elementary school, but my mom decided against putting me into it because it would separate me from my friends (I was a shy little bugger, and making friends has ALWAYS been hard) and because she didn't want me to feel "entitled" to anything later on.

But the laziness thing? Absolutely. Until this year when the classes I started taking got HARD, I didn't really understand all the hoopala about flash cards and study groups and practice quizzes. And until this last quarter, when I came across a class that actually meant I needed to study, I'd accept that this particular field isn't the best thing for me and move on.

I had always attributed it to the feeling that I hate being bad at things. It's not that I'm competitive and want to win--it's just that I am so used to being GOOD and things and getting praised for being good that being bad at things just isn't my cup of tea. And that plays into it, yes--but intellectually, I know that I'll ALWAYS be bad at things if I don't practice. But, like you said, practicing takes work. And we "gifted" people are some of the laziest shits you'll ever shake a stick at.

I actually have a story premise that it's the "capacity to be gifted" that takes two forms: if, in early childhood, the gifted child is exposed to lots of stimulation and tutors and such, they end up with a high IQ and go on to win Nobel prizes. But if they aren't identified as such and are treated "normally" until puberty, that latent giftedness manifests itself as the ability to use telekinesis. (Think Matilda, but more murder-mystery-er.)

Now I think that the telekinesis will probably come about (or at least first be noticed) because of the aforementioned laziness. I mean, who HASN'T sat on the couch and figured "oh bugger, I don't want to get up to get the potato chips. I wish they would float to me."?

So, this is a rather roundabout way to say "thanks for clearing that up for me personally, and thanks for bringing about a somewhat logical way for me to introduce this plot development."

I tested into the TAG (Talented and Gifted) program

Did they have elaborate code names for the classes in your school, too? They kept having to change the program name in mine because hysterical crazy parents were getting pissy that their kids weren't in it and the kids in it would get all snotty.

And you're welcome! I like that explanation for the first demonstration of PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWERS.

If we’re not good at something right off, we get discouraged, and abandon it, because who wants to spend time practicing something?

So true. I've always wanted to be musical, but I'm not naturally musical, and so I quit flute in sixth grade because I wasn't instantly fab and I never practiced the required two hours a week. It's one of my greater shames in life.

OMG, it's not just me?!?! I feel so much better after reading this. I thought I was the only person in the world who never learned to work at things. In fact, until I was in my 20s, I never learned that I could learn things-- the hard way, I mean.

I always thought that either I understood something or I didn't, either I had a talent for something or not, and there was nothing I could do to change that. (Mind you, having depression doesn't help one's ability to persist in the face of failure either, but I also knew part of the problem was that I'd never had to /try/ in school, so I never learned how to study or practice things.) I have gotten better at it. I've even learned that I can improve things like my musical abilities. No luck yet with maths and spacial reasoning, but at least I no longer think it's impossible to improve.

Oh yes. This is so true. I had something close to a mental breakdown when I got to law school and I wasn't right off the bat automatically good at it without trying. Suddenly, School was Hard. So I freaked out, thought I was worthless for about a week because suddenly I couldn't even do the one thing I was always good at (namely, School), and contemplated dropping out and just becoming some sort of low-level civil servant secretary because bawwww clearly I wasn't Smart anymore. In the end, I sucked it up and learned how to actually work to be good at School, and I think I learned Valuable Lessons. *cue after school special music*

On the other hand, I've always wanted to write a novel, and even have had the idea for one, several detailed characters, and a skeleton plot outline, for years. But I haven't got the guts to even try to write it, because writing fiction well takes a long time and I'm SURE no one would like it and it would be Hard. THIS IS SAD.

Write write write! If you want an editor, I am there for you. I try to write despite not having characters or a plot or shit-all in the way of writing talent (I'm a good proofreader, though).

Oh, yeah. In high school, all of us "gifted" kids had stories about things we got away with because we were the smart kids. That's why now, when I have the "smart but lazy" students, I don't get upset even though I know they could do better than they're doing if they felt like it. I was that kid. (They're doing fine, of course, but they could be outstanding if they put the energy into it.)

But I always wanted to learn how to play the guitar because it was COOL. So I tried. I didn't practice that much, really. But I did try. I sucked, of course. There is NO musical ability in my family. I can't carry a tune in a bucket with the lid nailed on.

There are times even now, in grad school, when I have to remind myself that having to work to understand something doesn't mean I'm hopeless or bad at this. It just means that I've finally reached a level where I do have to work at some things. Others, of course, still come easily.

Word, man.

My mother figured out how to motivate me in my junior year in high school: she promised me $50 for each report card on which I got straight As. I had been skimming along at Cs for math before that. My last two years in high school contained nothing but As.

Don't even get me started on Gifted and Talented.... In 6th grade, we all took a test to see if we could get into the GT program, and somewhere in the switch from elementary to Jr. High, they lost my scores. So, no GT for me. My once equal classmates treated me differently because I did not get into the program. They thought I was some sort of moron that they could talk down to because I wasn't on the intellectual level. 9th grade, I yelled at my counselor who had - after 2 years of misery - just realized that they lost my GT test scores and qualified for the program. After that, I've always been very wary of the supposedly "gifted" programs, because they are the same classes but with extreme airs that can change people. I know many who think they are too brilliant for words just because they passed an IB or AP test or got into the GT program. GT is awful, because if you're one of the lucky kids who doesn't get in or gets their scores lost, you are doomed to be looked down upon by all those intellectual GODS that those programs create. FIE ON GIFTED AND TALENTED!!!

When in reality we're nothing but a batch of lazy losers with an extremely specific skill set: manipulating test scores.

But while you are in the program, you think that differently. You don't realize you are not a complete and utter genius, and treat the non GT people like dirt. I've beel there. Not fun.

True. I remember that point. It was not cool.

There wasn't a GT program where I grew up (probably because most of the decent teachers went to suburbs where they didn't have to wear bullet proof vests to school), so I breezed through elementary and middle school thinking I was going to win the Nobel Prize somewhere after finding a cure for cancer and polishing my Oscars.* I dropped out of basketball and volleyball because I wasn't good at it, and, let's face it, it was dominated by white girls who couldn't jump.

High school was painful, not so much because I was sent to a snobby academic center, but because most of the kids who had successfully tested in were there because they were insanely ambitious and driven, leaving us lax nerds (At least I think I'm a nerd. I don't know. Fuck, I majored in Medieval Studies!) to be attacked for being lazy. I picked up a few of those traits in high school, and I think the reason why I did so well in college is because I was forced to take classes I KNEW I wouldn't do so hot in, and knew how to respond to bitchy professors.

Has senior year sucked as much for you as it has for me? My GPA went down by .2 points! %$#@ing leftist cultural anthropology department!

Also, I think the lazy nerds are the ones who go on to be the insane professors, and the driven ones are the ones who go on to become lawyers and business people. But that's just something I noticed.

Just wanted to say I love the icon. Is that mallards? I don't think I've seen zoomorphic ducks before. Herons, dogs, cats, horses, eagles, but never ducks.

I completely know what you mean. I was in GATE programs through school as well, and I still don't know if I really know how to work hard. I guess I do, at certain things, now, but who knows..

The thing that's hard for me is that my family is discouraging of doing things that one isn't natural at. For instance, my sister is talented at singing and so they completely encourage it, but although I love to sing I wouldn't say I'm naturally good at it, and I never get support from them about sticking with it. I complain sometimes about struggling in choir or music classes and wishing I was better and my parents always tell me to quit because it's only for fun, isn't it, and if I'm not having fun why do it?

I am not sure about the merits of well-rounded education -- I think that people should gain expertise in the areas in which they hope to work, and that they shouldn't be obliged to take gen ed classes in areas that don't interest them at all, but I do think that people who take on extra challenges should be encouraged to persue them!

Well, I'm a bit torn. I think one should have a background in some of the basics of even fields that don't interest them but come in handy (to my shame, I haven't lived up to this--there are tremendous gaps in my knowledge of, say, auto mechanics). But beyond a basic understanding, I do agree that one should follow one's interests. But that should also include interests you're not a natural at--like singing for you, or drawing for me.

As for going above and beyond--hell, yeah, people should be encouraged to do that with whatever interest they find!

Did I ever tell you about the time I failed my APs on purpose?

... No. DO tell.

Well, roughly: the school I was at had a 'tracking' system which no mere mortal could possibly decipher and was designed for maximum benefit to the school's statistics. Anyway it was decreed from On High that anyone wishing to start the AP track could only do so by taking AP European History in sophomore year, amen and yea verily. It was also understood that AP was the Haaaahvaaaahd track, honors for state and small private colleges, and regular was fit only for the menials and the coloreds.

It was a special, special school.

So it was decided by The Mom that I was to take AP track, dammit, because I was certainly clever enough for it if only I would study and do my homework. I did not want to take AP track, because I am lazy, and I don't like my homework; up until college it was all rather stupid. Even in AP Euro. I'd rather read a book.

At the time I was taking AP Euro, Some Other Stuff was going on which is rather long and involved but the short of it is I was being bullied and harassed on a daily basis (this is also why my LJ was friendslocked for years), culminating in being accused of racist vandalism to the school auditorium and having a teacher go the principle and say he feared for his life whenever I was in the class and that was why he'd passed me. Because he was afraid I would shank a bitch if he did not.

I invite you to laugh with me at the high-spirited japes of my schoolchums. Ha. Ha. Ha. All the children responsible for this, mind, were in the AP program. This is probably why mom gave me no shit about failing the test. So come testing day, I was not in the shiniest and happiest of all possible moods

Testing Day was fucking gorgeous. One of those rare days that looks like they stepped out of a travel magazine, where the sunlight's so strong it makes everything seem more real for being touched by it. Probably if it hadn't been so pretty I wouldn't have done what I did. But about the second hour of the test, I began to wonder: why am I here? Why am I doing this? Do I actually care?

And the answers were I don't know, I don't know, and no, no I don't.

I began to ponder the unfairness of it all. I'd never wanted to take the APs. I especially didn't want to take AP Euro. See, my damage is, I have one gift and it's to do with stories and the English language. I've read so much and so voraciously and so obsessively that I can't not be brilliant at them. But I'm also an Aspie, so everything gets filtered through stories. Everything is narrative. Classes taught without story - like math - I can't handle. Curiously, I do rather well at science because there is a story there; the story of everything, you could say. And I do well at history when the emphasis is on the story, and the whys and the wherefores of what we did when and how. But AP Euro was mostly names and dates, because names and dates are what's on the test. I tend not to do so well when taught to the test. I don't test well, either. So why was I here, busting my balls to pass a test I didn't want to take for a track I had no interest in order to improve the statistics of a school that had done nothing to support me?

Bugger this for a lark, said the Id.

You're right, said the Ego. But let's check with Superego, you know what a stick in the mud he is.

No, no, this I agree on, said the Superego.

So I flipped to the essay section and wrote a long eloquent letter explaining how the APs were not relevant to my interests and I'd frankly learn more reading on my own time, please fail me, thanks muchly. Then I spent a merry half-hour vandalizing the exam book and criticizing the grammar on the questions.

The thing I remember most is the peace when I had made my decision. Writing the letter was cathartic; when I got up to turn in my test I felt, for the first time ever, as though I was doing exactly the right thing. Serenity poured over me like a soft spring rain. And then I went to the park and read a book. It was a much better way to spend an afternoon.

And that's how I failed my APs.

Good for you!

I completely agree with this. I was that way through most of school, and I suspect my laziness is getting worse. During my high school and undergrad years, there were at least some classes that I had to work a little harder for (e.g. math in high school, economic translation in university), because I didn't really enjoy them and they didn't come to me as naturally. But ever since I've started literally reading books for a living (a.k.a. being a grad student), the amount of unpleasant tasks has largely diminished, because most of the stuff I do, I care about. Hence, whenever I happen to have to do something I'd rather avoid (like a boring translation), my griping and moaning is through the roof.

But at least I'm aware of it, and I'm working on developing a better work ethic.

I'd write a longer response on being both gifted and learning disabled, but that would be like work.

Most of the time, to be accosted as learning disabled, one must have higher than average intelligence in one category, and be short in another. I didn't really realize how common this was until I became a teacher myself. My most talented students are disabled (one has ADHD, another speech issues).

Back in '72, this wasn't really taught.

There was actually legal action about my status, and I was the 1st one "diagnosed" in PA.

Since its somewhat related, have you seen this article? I'm not really sure what I think of their view, but given that it's been so long since I was in a formal academic environment, I was wondering what your impression was.

Oh, my! I DID see that when it came out! I'd completely forgotten. Explains where the seeds of this entry were planted, though.

I think they actually do have it pretty close ... for me, having to expend effort felt like failure. The idea was that my abilities were innate, so having to try meant that my intrinsic ability had FAILED me.

Praise is not completely bad--like they say, it's the type of praise, as well as the frequency--that matters. I think "You're smart" even works, but you've got to emphasize that there's more to it than that. (Although it doesn't always work. Mom tried Enrichment crap with me, and I resisted.) And too much praise starts to sound empty. You've got to reserve it for when you really mean it.

Since I started this writer's group, I've been learning more about the balance thereof. If you don't praise anything in the story at all, the person feels like there is nothing worthwhile in it; but critiques would help improve it and make the praise sound genuine. It's an interesting balance to strike.

God, this is so right. I was in the Gifted & Talented program in grade school, and ended up dropping out of college. In hindsight, I was a lazy little schmuck in GATE: I gravitated towards the "learning stations" that I was good at (mainly because I already knew the material), avoided the ones I wasn't good at, and most of the time just sat at the Macs playing "learning games"* and Tetris, and sometimes fooling with a music composition program**. Mostly Tetris. The one time we had to do a project, it was a geography thing where we had to do put together a presentation on another country. I drew Uganda, but their consulate never got back to me, and I didn't really care. It didn't affect my grade, I wasn't interested, and it was a hassle, so why bother?

I never really developed the ability to push myself, so when I got to college and didn't have my parents there to push me, I slacked off like whoa.

*like Space Invaders clones where you have to shoot the numbers that match a formula

**I didn't know jack about music theory; I barely had an understanding of notation. But I could experiment with it, make noises, and get praised for it.

Yup. That's me all the way. Sure, people think I'm smart--I keep going back to the shit I'm GOOD at already!

I admit, I would get bored and try to "level up" at things when they got too easy, but it usually came with the confidence that I was ready for the next level.

Yup. Accelerated track all the way through (although I failed my calculus AP exam pretty much on purpose). Got to college, didn't know how to write an essay, didn't know how to study, nada.

In hindsight, I should have probably majored in history, but I would have floundered just as thoroughly there as I did in religion so I don't know if it would have been different.

Thank holy crappity; I'm not the only one. I always found school (except maths classes) ridiculously easy. There was no *point* trying because, duh, stuff just went how I wanted it to; essays were just a piece of piss cos I could bullshit with a big vocabulary, and science made sense.
Turns out, being at uni's different and you like, have deadlines and difficult stuff to do and, like, thanks to being lazy at school I now have no attention span in lectures (I fall asleep) and don't pay enough attention reading scientific papers because being able to read the book *fast* at school was usually more impressive/useful than actually taking it in. Also, I am completely pants at any kind of physical exertion. And I don't know how to study for exams, cos I never had to do it before.

Oh thank you thank you THANK YOU. So many people don't get this. I was in the G.A.T.E. program at school, and was one of those kids who could ditch most of my classes in high school just to show up on test day to ace it.

If we’re not good at something right off, we get discouraged, and abandon it, because who wants to spend time practicing something?

This just summed me up to a frightening degree. I've had this discussion with many of my friends over the years.

Do you mind if I quote this entry in one of my own?

Go for it!

Well, I can't have been quite as gifted as you (and I've never really come into contact with this whole Gifted And Talented™ thing, but I was always in the smartpeople classes etc) because there was a point a few years ago when I suddenly actually had to start working for school and it was really weird (it still sort of is, which is rather unhelpful. I still end up doing the reading for a writing my essays at the same time, despite all attempts at planning), but I know something like the sort of mindset you're talking about. I get frustrated far too easily when I'm not good at something. Or even worse, when someone else is BETTER.

I'm not as bad as I used to be with that, though. When I was taking voice lessons in... 9th grade or so, my teacher tried to explain something or other about scales and keys to me, and I couldn't understand WHY these notes HAD to go together and it annoyed me so much I ended up crying. Poor woman was completely confused. She probably should've explained it with math, or something. XD

I say I'm better, last year my boyfriend tried to teach me some of his computer programming stuff, and not immediately getting that almost made me cry, too. Though I was in a bad mood to begin with that day, and my mistake was trying to understand how everything worked from the words on my screen right down to the mechanics. Too ambitious for my own good, as usual.

Edited 2008-06-07 01:50 (UTC)

Well, the thing about me is that I managed to take all the classes where I didn't have to work. There's plenty of stuff I'd have to work at, but I can avoid it like a ninja. So I was good at looking gifted.

I've gotten better, and oddly it's on random things that I'm not used to doing. Interestingly, of all the classes I took this term, I think I got the most out of the silly ones. When asked how I was at tap dancing, I'd reply "I'm awful! It's fun!"--and with juggling, I'm actually learning that Practice Leads To You Getting Better. I need to keep consciously reminding myself of that.

I usually think that our more specialised from the beginning university system is better than the one in the States, but I would support the introduction of juggling and tap-dancing classes for all degrees 100%. Sure, I could take one module from another department, but none of them have classes that cool.

I always knew my drawing got better by practising, but I'm always drawing anyways, so it's not like I can help practising. And people have always spontaneously come and asked me how I got so good at drawing, which always confused me because I never thought it was a special skill or anything, and yet boosted my ego immensely.

There's another thing I always do, which might be another feature of being 'gifted' or whatever (or just a feature of me being bad at people) I always have to remind myself that everything I know is not common knowledge. I'm trying to think of an example here but I can't come up with one. I am that bad. XD I don't know if any of the facts in my brain is especially rare. Mitosis? Does the average person know how mitosis works? How fossils are made? What Neanderthals ate?
It also leads to me sometimes over-explaining things and accidentally patronising people when I do remember.

Yeah, I think that is just me being bad at people.

Well said. I didn't realize until I was well into adulthood that this was an experience I shared with others.

Way back in the dark ages, when I was in school, there were no gifted programs. I was pretty much left alone to do my own thing, as long as I turned in my work on time. Boring at times, but not nearly as frustrating an experience as what I hear coming from friends and family involved in G&T programs.

I am amazed and astounded at how many people wrote in to say they identified with this. I had no freaking idea. Mind you, I went to entire schools of gifted kids, and many of them worked hard on top of being smart as fuck-all. All the same, it was a real shock for me when I got to college and was finally challenged for the first time. I was miserable-- I lost self-confidence completely when I started doing poorly at things, and am still working to get it back. It sucks, too, that I can't be a professional student for the rest of my life-- to my dismay, I've discovered that it's what I'm best at (ie, as opposed to any real life or marketable skills).

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The Shocking Truth

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