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However, if she were in a school that did not have a separate G&T track, I could see some of the lower performing kids teasing her.
My child recently scored very high on a part of his NWEA math test. It is done on computers and the kids see their scores when they are finished. Another child saw his score and was impressed, and soon the word got out around the class what he scored, and then on the bus home as well. No one was teasing him but he felt very uncomfortable because they were talking about it and looking at him.
I explained to him that he should not feel bad about how well he did, as everyone has a talent, and that most kids were simply impressed, kind of like when a kid hits a grand slam in little league.
I don't think he actually got teased, but the attention made him feel very uncomfortable.
I was watching the National Spelling Bee on Television last night and noticed a few things about the kids who were participating. Many of their families were from India and others were complete nerds. I could see them getting beat up after school or not having any friends.
The impression many adults have about people over 20 who have a real high IQ is they lack common sense and social skills. Many are perceived as just plain weird. Is this true in the high school or college level also? How were the kids who were the top of their class? Did they have any friends or social skills? Did they have any emotional intelligence, or ability to handle life's challenges?
It depends on what "group" they are interacting with. If you are talking about your "Mean Girls" group for example, maybe the smart kid doesn't fit in because they don't want to be around them and don't find anything they say interesting. Dang, I have this with my own sisters! And I'm socially awkward to them because I have a huge garden, I hate American Idol and other mind numbing shows like this, I like to sew, hunt, hate pop music but like rock music and classical music, hate Mcdonalds, and I could go on and on. But some people think we live a healthy lifestyle and comment "I wish we had the time to be more like that."
SO, lets look at IQ and compare by age mindset. Now this is just an example, not concrete by child or IQ. If you have a class of 30 first grade students and you have one with a IQ of 70, they are probably giong to act or think like a student that is down two grades. If you have a student that has an IQ of 80, they will probably think or act like students down one grade. BUT you may have students in both these IQ levels who can interact socially well but acedemically slow and some other yet may be both and even act out "like a baby" as the other students would observe. The students may struggle inside because they do not understand the work in front of them and feel less adequate and act out because they don't know how else to deal with that feeling.
If you have 25 of the students with IQ's ranging from 90-120, they will all act and think on what we call "age appropriate." Now you have a student with an IQ of 130, they may think and act like students one grade up. They will probably fit in well but may be bored academically and may have some advanced humor that gets the other kids laughing. You have one student that has an IQ of 140 and is like a student two or three grades ahead. This student will probably wonder why students their age don't think like them. They will wonder why they can't read as quickly, do their work as quickly, ask more indepth questions, ect. They may feel like the other students are slowing them down. They don't fit in as well because they don't like the same thing the kids do and the kids don't understand the things they like. They may seem to fit in if they suppress themselves just to fit in but inside they feel ackward. They may have more racing through their minds, and become disruptive asking questions when they pop into their head that just doesn't fit with what is going on. Now times that by 10 with a child with an IQ of 150+ and has the understanding of a 6th or 7th grader. The child does not feel like they fit in because they do not. The other children do not quite know what is different but recongnize the differance. For example, my 7 yr old daughter's vocabulary is really big for her age. When my 6 year old neice saw her she says..."Nothing has changed about you, except your accent." (We're from the same state with the same accent.)
Now lets reverse this...you take a 6th or 7th grade student and you place them with first graders....will they fit in? How long do you think they will go being expected to act and think the same before they do act out in a way that may not even be age appropriate for the 1st graders? It's torture for them.
The idea that children should fit in with kids the same age all the time is stupid. Children should be encouraged to find were they fit, with children who think and act like them, not with kids just because they are the same age. How sad and boring for the really, really smart kids. I remember being that age and just sitting quietly becuase no one knew the answers to my questions, often not even the teachers. I was shy without a lot of friends, all though I got along with everyone, I felt like I was doing "baby" stuff. At the fair when everyone my age was ridding the kiddie rides, I was embarrassed. I felt I was too old for them. When the children my age were reading beginner readers over and over, I wanted something new to read...and while my class were learning sight words through their books, I was yelled at by my father for pronoucing Geppeto incorrectly for the millionth in the Pinnocio although I was reading the entire full length book. In the second grade, my teacher took books out of my hands and told me they were too advanced for me and I was not the winner of the reading contest because instead of reading 100 beginner reading books I only read 20 chapter books. In the 7th grade, when the core 4 teachers brought us together individually, they did not understand my hatred toward Goosebumps books or why I like to read Steven King and Walden Pond. They thought I was a strange girl...yet somewhere during our 30 minute converstation I was able to make them comfortable enough to say this to my face because they knew I wouldn't be offended. They wanted to know if I had friends and told them I got along with everyone. But when I named my friends, many were from older grades up to seniors and that really made them look at me wierd. They of course asked if I had a boyfriend then and I said no because I thought the relationships were really immature at my age and I didn't like anyone my age that way anyway and wasn't really emotionally for anyone older, besides, I wasn't about making a bad rep for myself to start off HS. Then they REALLY looked at me weird.
In the end, I found a way to fit in. I earned the respect of my (most)teachers early on and usually they were the only ones to understand and laugh at my jokes. Some students my age however, thought I was to be protected like a little sister just because I didn't talk or care about the things that made them popular, so somehow that made me niave. My last couples years in high school though, changed their minds and they still have a lot of respect for me for who I am. I never belittled anyone but definitely preferred to have conversations with the teachers than the students.
Nerdy kids dont HAVE to fit in with kids their age. They are different...just like a kid at the opposite end of the spectrum. You don't expect a handicapped kid with a low IQ to fit in with kids their age but rather with kids at their playing and thinking level. Why can't the kids who "don't fit in" get that type of freedom?
I just hope my children NEVER feel like I am one of those mom's who say "I want my kids to get good grades to get into a good college but I don't want them to be TOO smart. You know know how nerdy kids are." How ignorant.
Studies have shown that gifted children often have a hard time fitting in with their peers, partially because they have a heightened sense of morality and sensitivity. For example, they would be reticent to stoop to use the term "nerd" to describe someone for fear of hurting the other person's feelings. HTH
However, based on personal experiences of my own and my kids', few would hesitate to call someone a "retard", or stop someone else from calling somebody that. I'd like to see a link to such studies; I have never heard of that nor experienced it.
Ran with the ultra smart in a super-competitive high school and also ran with the jocks. Did not notice any more deviant social behavior in the nerd group than in the jock group. Did notice that the nerd group was more likely to spend time hanging out playing games or going to the museum vs drinking/drugs.
Why is it then that college students do more drinking than same-age kids who are not in college, according to the research?
Quote:
Originally Posted by TabulaRasa
We had academic eligibility requirements for athletics. If you weren't a good student, you weren't on the team.
The academic requirements in Colorado and at the individual schools (which can set higher standards) are not very high. Basically, a 2.0, and passing grades in five classes during the sport's season.
I was watching the National Spelling Bee on Television last night and noticed a few things about the kids who were participating. Many of their families were from India and others were complete nerds. I could see them getting beat up after school or not having any friends.
The impression many adults have about people over 20 who have a real high IQ is they lack common sense and social skills. Many are perceived as just plain weird. Is this true in the high school or college level also? How were the kids who were the top of their class? Did they have any friends or social skills? Did they have any emotional intelligence, or ability to handle life's challenges?
This is purely anecdotal, but my cousins are math geniuses, and one of them won the spelling bee at his school AND they all played sports, were attractive, well-liked and popular. Being really smart and being socially capable aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.
This is purely anecdotal, but my cousins are math geniuses, and one of them won the spelling bee at his school AND they all played sports, were attractive, well-liked and popular. Being really smart and being socially capable aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.
Agree.... most of the gifted kids I know fit this image. (The kids are at a gifted magnet school and must achieve above 99.5% nationally on IQ/assessment tests.) However, I've met a few kids of above-avg. intelligence who are very condescending about how "brilliant" they are and they dress/act the "social outcast" part. I think this kind of "know-it-all, too-smart-for society" attitude can be very damaging to the flow of knowledge and to academic/social growth. Some parents foster this type of intellectual elitism in their children.
However, based on personal experiences of my own and my kids', few would hesitate to call someone a "retard", or stop someone else from calling somebody that. I'd like to see a link to such studies; I have never heard of that nor experienced it.
I really don't have a few hours to plow through that to find the articles. However, it's certainly not my experience that gifted kids are morally superior.
Social skills tend to be more important for sales-oriented jobs, which tend to be less IQ- and quant-intensive
But many of wealthiest young guys of past 25 yrs are financial quants and engineers (hedgies and techies); most social skills become less relevant for a high-IQ guy who has a skill set that can generate profits (and personal wealth) via financial or tech innovation
Suspect most of top grads of places like Stanford Computer Science or Wharton Finance would never survive in many parts of general business world but it doesn't really matter; similarly, leading-edge tech cos. and hedge funds require a quant skill set and creativity that most "sales" guys with smooth social skills lack
Smartest guys need to be shrewd enough to figure out which career paths will maximize their odds of success; different career paths require different skill sets
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