Were you in the "Gifted Program" ?

Originally posted by Bedlam

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
my program was called signal. Otherwise, the same as the OP

Interesting. About how old are you? Late 40s? I think that's when Signal (have also heard it called Sigil) was running.

40.

I would be interested in hearing what you know.

Not a lot. I dimly recall (was maybe 4) moving from the farm to NCO housing to be with Dad a year before he went to VN, would have been about 1965. Went to kiddygarden, was pulled day two, sent to the base shrink for testing then off to some off-base guy to be evaluated for what I remembered as signal school, which I misassociated with signal corps at the time.

Did a pile of tests at the end of which they were told I'd get a tutor instead because they couldn't mix me in with the group. That was a lot of fun. Did second grade during the morning and tutor all afternoon.

reply to post by Bedlam


i saw a psychologist for awhile when i was in the 7-9 yr range. Nasty divorce, my dad was abusive....mostly mom was concerned because I wouldn't talk to anyone at all (i think i went 9 months without talking). So i was accustomed to seeing the shrink by that time. I think I did see one after a round of IQ testing came back. Never found what that number was, but presumed that it was high as all my teachers began telling me how "capable" I was.

Funny thing....i know I am bright in some ways. But also see how much of an utter moron I am in others. "Smart" is all so relative to the topic....

Hello, sorry for trolling before.

Does anyone have insight on the psychometric tests we were given?

I do, as my family worked in psychological programming for civilian applications.

Just popping in!

*EDIT* I can't say much, as I'd rather you think for yourself. But if you want someone to tell you if you're getting the general gist of things, I'm your man! Sorry, it is not my area of expertise.


Sorry, that is to say the IQ tests, psychometric tests, physical tests, and medical tests. None of this information is secret or classified! I have direct knowledge over a multi-year period. I'd just hate to read through all of the pages + I prefer people think for themselves as I hate being an arse.


*EDIT* for #s and giggles, back when I was like, 6, I tried to harvest jellyfish to use the stingers to poison the bullies at school. Lol. My uncle ended up giving it to the guys at the hospital to use for saving peoples lives. My parents kept a pretty dang close eye on me after that! Good thing that happened too! I would have never forgiven myself.

Last time I tried to pull that kind of thin, I tell you what. Lord, I never want to have a kid "just like me" though. -_-



*edit* I may as well talk about these things before the internet gets totally censored, right? Let me put it this way, my roommates in college were the sons of ambassadors. Let me say however, they never gave me sensitive information. Ever. I value my life.

Honestly, they only thing the told me was how to open a wine bottle against a tree.

reply to post by teachtaire


Teach, you worry me. Not going to lie and not trying to attack you. Just expressing my concern as one human being to another. Not saying it about your little stinger thing either. God knows I had my own dark evil genius moments. I had issues with a peeping tom when I was a pre-teen that I dealt with by building an early warning system out of fishing line and a bell and planting a 2x4 bed of nails partially hidden under the bark. It was...effective.

And you would be correct in that much of the information is not classified per se. However, much of the information is not available in online databases so what you are left with are abstracts (short overviews) of research for at least 90% of the articles on the gifted over the last century and those that are fully available require a subscription or a one-time payment to access. That said, much of the research and thinking behind the programs is kept in plain sight. I just question if anybody ever bothers to really look at it.

Knowing that not everybody has the time to look for some of the psychometric tests. :

Structure of Intellect: www.issaquah.wednet.edu...

CogAT (Cognitive Abilities Test): www.issaquah.wednet.edu...

SCAT: cty.jhu.edu...
Example: cty.jhu.edu...

Spatial Test Battery (spacial ability--kind of like being able to conjure up 3d objects in your head; click on "sample items" tab for examples): cty.jhu.edu...

Standard iq testing--Wechsler (WISC-III) or Stanford-Binet, Jung Typology is also used. Not sure what was used previously but there was some sort of career assessment (that was crappy--I was pushed towards engineer when I had zero interest). They did rectify or attempt to rectify this issue with a Career Thoughts Inventory in the 90's.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Yup, those are some of the tests I was talking about.

Many were designed/tested by college students who were working on their dissertations.

I'm unfortunately related to the people that applied such knowledge to the guinea pigs in the field (they'd take me to work,)

I also have the misfortune of being related to one of the people who was part of a think tank designing/signing off on dissertations for such research as well.

Sometimes, the insight that you get from reading things online isn't the same as what can be gotten from hands on experience. Book learning vs. hands on working knowledge, as it were.

reply to post by teachtaire


I think a good number of us are most likely (or should be) aware that the program was an experimental one. I was feeling like a guinea pig long before I ever looked into the programs. Reading all the research (or as much as one can) only does give kind of a white washed insight into what was going on within the programs. Frequencies for the discussions of specific subjects or behavioral traits also allows a glimpse into what they viewed as problems (ie character building, the issues of isolation). Overall, I'd like to kick most of them in the crotch for being dim-witted and short sighted among other things.

For the sake of documentation, I was in the Talented and Gifted program (TAG). Being in this program allowed me to participate in further programs ending with the TIP program by Duke. We were administered the SATs in the first year of middle school, I made a perfect score on the English portion of my SATs but had dismal results in mathematics due to not ever seeing the equations before.

i was in the dafty programme i am dyslexic and was considered stupid when i was in school as they did not understand it then .

great at reading but ask me to write anything and the brain goes to mush but guess what the dafty retired at 42 and i see all the smart one's in my year working like slaves and stressed out .

i worked hard and barely went to school after 13 left school at 16 got a trade and did well now i enjoy my life while looking at my school mates who look old and grey working for the man..

if i was anymore laid back i would be horizontal who needs brains

reply to post by geobro


Maybe you should look a little deeper into some of what people are saying in this thread. Not everybody views the experiences in this program was a positive experience. Some would say that they would've preferred being left alone or simply learned that standing out in the slightest may be more trouble than its worth. I'd say the opinion is rather mixed on the issue. I met a mother of a former TAG student that was certain that the program somehow irrevocably altered her son. She said he was successful, had a nice life, nice car, but that he lost all of the empathy that she had previously cherished. She blamed it on the program and said that "they tagged and bagged my son". My mother would say it was the greatest thing ever so even among parents, it's a pretty mixed bag of response.

My cousin is dyslexic. He didn't let it stop him from doing well either. And just a fyi, I look remarkably young for my age (couple years older than you). That kind of thing is more a mix of lifestyle and genetics. Out of the "kids" that I was in the program with, all but one are aging well and that one is a total nature nut. So, different observation from where I'm sitting but then again, I actually know who was in my school's program and who wasn't. A lot of kids make assumptions about who are supposed to be the smartest in a school and presume that they would be the ones in it. On the contrary, most of my group were extraordinary slackers who did just enough in regular classwork to earn a decent grade.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Truly?

Everyone else in my group looks many years older than they are. They seem to be aging before their times, much as their minds did.

"I think a good number of us are most likely (or should be) aware that the program was an experimental one. I was feeling like a guinea pig long before I ever looked into the programs. Reading all the research (or as much as one can) only does give kind of a white washed insight into what was going on within the programs. Frequencies for the discussions of specific subjects or behavioral traits also allows a glimpse into what they viewed as problems (ie character building, the issues of isolation). Overall, I'd like to kick most of them in the crotch for being dim-witted and short sighted among other things."

That is a truth, as I said, I had personal experience with what was actually happening.

An example:

many students ended up thinking they had "special powers", this was perhaps exacerbated by questions regarding "psychic powers" on some tests.

These questions, rather than looking for X-men among us, were in fact looking for psychological aberrations. Some of which were desirable to a certain degree.

So just to make sure the crazies among us understand....

reply to post by WhiteAlice
i agree brains do not make for a guaranteed great life anything but dont get me wrong i got a certificate from mensa i am anything but daft but say the word dyslexia and you were branded stupid .

i have the neatest writing of anybody i know but when i was in school the teachers were old girls who still tied your hand behind your back if you were a leftie .

or put you in the book cupboard for days on end and the number of times i had my hand slammed in a desk for using my left hand to write or draw this should have stopped in the 50s but we were well behind the times .

i hated school for this reason but know we were experimented on people of my age from other areas i speak too never learned the same things in school and i find some of them quiet stupid and that is from someone who was in the special education class .

over the years i have met some bright people in the course of my work and have found that too much brains equals dim in daily life a small problem and they fall to pieces or are introvert and are unable to handle life .

i know a few professors i struggle to spell it and they can not work a washing machine or do ordinary things i am happy being me .

reply to post by teachtaire


Yeah, truly. I catch a little private hell for it because I have a son in college (worse yet, he started college early). What inevitably gets assumed is that I wasn't just a teen mother but a woman that had a baby at age 12. Thankfully, people say that I don't "appear" to be a person who would get pregnant at that age so they basically end up doing an age check. It's kind of complimentary and humiliating at the same time. If I wasn't so much of a private person, I'd post a pic to prove it but then I'd probably just have a paranoid apoplectic fit. We all kind of have that "issue" save that one. Could be partly to do with where we live though as the area is noted for more youthful complexions but even those "kids" that we went to school with outside of the program are showing typical aging. Maybe they were just giving us the elixir of life mixed in with the kool aid. Teaches that one girl to not drink it. Kidding on that last bit.

Some were serious about the subject of the paranormal in the program. Don't be a fibber. The program did have that flakiness in there and a tragic number of those involved also really liked Esalen (the institute of flakiness). Krippner, Gowan and some other fellow with a weird name wrote a good deal on the subject of parapsychology in gifted research. Hell, even Mary Meeker chimed in on the subject, albeit tentatively and with reservation. What you say though, from what I could tell, was a half truth. They did also look for (and sometimes cause, according to Gowan) schizophrenia but even gifted schizophrenics could be useful. Apparently, they can make for potential religious leaders.

That's all in the time when the gifted program seemed to be having issues with an infection called the human potential movement. Even that was published in peer reviewed academic journals on the subject of gifted education which kind of undermines your attestation that they were simply looking for psychological aberrations.

We're not your guinea pigs, teachtaire, so drop the plea to authority. I don't mess around.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Actually, no.

Like I said, field work.

The psychometric tests asked about such things purely to test for psychological aberrations.

This is because the IQ tests generally selected for sociopathic tendencies.

Basically, the students were supposed to be just crazy enough to be psychologically self-isolating.

And sure. You aren't *MY* guinea pigs, but what do you expect when there are so many of you in one place? Even the regular civilians on this site are like play dough! SOOOO MUCH FUN!

reply to post by geobro


I know they did that with dyslexics. It tore my cousin apart for a long while when he was a kid. He really went through a rough time feeling like he was stupid and a failure. He ended up going to Cambridge on a full scholarship in the end. Guess he showed them, right? Very proud of him. My fiance has issues with reading as well and was in a special needs pull out for it, too, along with being held back a year. He's one of the smartest people I know even if he can't spell worth a damn, lol. A lot of the IQ tests are prejudiced against those who may have difficulty reading whether from dyslexia or other because many of them require the ability to read and comprehend quickly. Sometimes I think the reason why I scored so high on mine was less because I was a genius and instead due to my being a really smart speed reader. I tend to be my own worst critic.

I can understand the negative view when you were placed in the "other" group. Just try to remember that what it really means is that a bunch of idiots decided who was what and our choices/opinions as children on either side of the hall had little say in the matter. I didn't like it and neither did you.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


i sound a lot like your fiance kept back a year in school but it was the best thing that happened to me but when i told the school i wanted to be a vet it was a case of forget it kid brought up with your grandparents no collage for you .

so at 12 i worked 40 plus hours and went to school and got out as soon as possible i used to take months off and nothing was said i taught myself more than they could .

but o the books thousands were absorbed happily and i know people who have only read maybe 3 or 4 in life i do that in a week .

i love it when people ask me why i am not working any more and i say i am retired have been for 4 years now and i am as happy as larry own a load of ground and just do 6-7 hours week of my hobby and can quote hitler i paint for pleasure not for profit or was that churchill george

reply to post by teachtaire


ISTJ would've been the ideal personality type, wouldn't it? As far as the isolation goes, the gist that I got from the papers was that they were "concerned" about the isolation that takes place for us but instead of attempting to rectify it (face it, pull out in a school setting where conformity rules the day is, by nature, isolating), they just wanted to make sure that we'd still be willing to be beneficial to society at the end of it all. They didn't care that we were isolated. They just cared that we would still be motivated to help society. They didn't want the Kaczynski type of isolated genius but people that would be able to pathologically follow the rules and orders without much question--iow, purely logical people who'd not likely be swayed by sympathies or emotion.

The funny part is when you start reading Dabrowski because he basically discusses how extremely sensitive and empathetic gifted children are. Ergo, positive disintegration. Hell of an oxymoron. I'd say that a good portion of us didn't make the "cut" but I'd also hazard a guess that we really should be comforted by the fact that we didn't meet that particular expectation.

I also find it interesting that you really like to dish out the "crazy" line a lot. Last I checked being an introvert as a MBTI isn't equated with "crazy". I'd be more impressed with your jabs if they weren't so obvious. All you're doing is attempting to pour salt on the whole "fine line" wound. I don't have that wound.

reply to post by Roundtree


Dude.. I was in the gifted program but quit because I hated taking trips to other schools. I had forgotten all about it I was also in a class in highschool that was for people that tested high but had become bored with classes. It was basically a study hall where we all hung out.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


That may have been written on papers, but it sure as hell wasn't what was actually happening.

reply to post by GogoVicMorrow


It was meant as a testing ground for psychometric tests.

That is an oversimplification.

Granted, due to funding and other issues, it really basically WAS "just hanging out" most of the time. But we were all "hanging out" together to make data collection expedient.

This has been stated repeatedly by others as well.