Were you a "bright child who didn't apply him/herself"?

I've seen this phrase crop up several times in the "Were you in the gifted program?" thread. It was on every single one of my report cards nearly all the way through my K-12 experience, as well as my mother's report cards and my son's. A quick google search on bright child does not apply himself comes up with a number of people talking about their bright children who don't apply themselves. Interestingly enough, I did stumble across an early and reasonably close reference to the "bright child who does not apply himself" phenomena published way back in 1920.

If a superior child does not apply himself his scholarship rating may be mediocre or even poor, although his intelligence score may be high.

Source: archive.org...

So we're distinctly looking at the possibility that, for nearly the last 100 years, the school system has relentlessly churned out bright children who do not apply themselves to this day. Not a very good improvement record if you think about it. I think it'd be fun and interesting to see just how many of us exist here. I'd also love to know why it is that so many teachers used the exact phrase for so many different students across the nation. Was it part of their training? It's pretty remarkable that the wording is almost always consistent. Any teachers in the house want to share if it's part of some "this is what you say when you see this" type of teacher training?

I'm curious as to just how prolific that single report card phrase is and as a bright child who didn't apply herself,

reply to post by WhiteAlice


*Maybe* it's just something shrewd teachers delicately say to worried parents of mediocre, totally average kids?

I can say this - I was one.

I wouldn't say i was "gifted" but when i was in school i was certainly brighter than most.... school was always easy for me, i remember my teachers telling me that it would get harder but it never did, i found it boring so i slacked off lots and even skipped more than a few of my classes, my teachers in their infinite wisdom remarked consistently on my bad attitude and wavering attention span, they didn't realise i was bored they just assumed i was troubled and left me to my own devices. so.... as soon as my exams were over i joined the army and the rest they say is history..

personally i don't think the kids can be blamed for not applying themselves, i would think that in most cases the kids are not being challenged so they get bored easily.. that was the case for me anyway

S+F

Low grades do not equal stupid not by a long shot.

The Education System is meant to turn out slaves not inventors, dreamers or anything but low paid button pushers. If you could actually see that school was a prison and rebelled you were labeled 'bright but didn't apply yourself' why should you? you were not getting paid for your time or effort you were in effect being forced to work without pay last time I checked that was the very definition of slavery.

Heres a quick story,

1'st grade, New school, teacher hands me a math book and says "this is what we will be doing" she walks away.

Young Benrl, looks at this book, and goes, she said we would be doing it, so he does it, all of it.

Teacher returns, and proceeds to browbeat benrl For and I qoute " what the hell am I supposed to teach you now"

By 2nd Grade, Young benrl now receives work, and does not do it, stares blankly, or writes random diatribes into the answer portions of the test, this has now caused Benrl to repeat the 1st grade, and about to repeat the 2nd.

By now, older "gifted brother" is excelling, younger "gifted" brother also.

Young Benrl gets tested by the school for special ed...

Surprise, after counselling months of humiliation, Young Benrl is diagnosed...


Its Boredom, 135 IQ, Math skills at the College lever, Reading comprehension at High school level.

End result, I f-ed off through school, barely graduated, college late,

And to this day, I have an violent distrust of Bureaucracy and Authority.

I have always thought that the bright kids don't apply themselves because they are amidst so many people who aren't very bright that don't believe anything the bright one's tell them, so they give up too easily.

Many times even the bright kids' parents don't even believe in them.

Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers, has a running theme about a genius that didn't apply himself, despite being a genius. He compares him to Robert Oppenheimer (?) who, in contrast, was a genius and was also shrewd (and even conniving). I think that while being a genius is something natural to the human race, I think that our society doesn't have the right tools to nurture genius in a lot of instances. I think that when you're at genius level (or simply above average intelligence), you're left to fend for yourself a lot of times.

Yep! I also didn't 'play well with others' Still don't.

reply to post by alienreality


One of the problems I often encountered once teachers knew I was the "bright one"

Was I became a default tutor, used to ease the load of teachers.

It only increased my disdain for the whole process.

alienreality
I have always thought that the bright kids don't apply themselves because they are amidst so many people who aren't very bright that don't believe anything the bright one's tell them, so they give up too easily.

Many times even the bright kids' parents don't even believe in them.

Worth repeating.


It leaves some bright kids shiftless with no direction......waiting for someone to tell them where to go and how to apply themselves. It's a quandry to say the least.

reply to post by benrl


lol benri, excellent story. I was the problem child as well while my sister did all of her homework. Both of us were labelled as gifted but my lack of respect for ye olde homework was probably what wrought the "bright child who does not apply herself" label upon myself forever after. The bad thing is, amongst those in my family who were labelled thus deem it almost as a badge of honor.

We're rebels, darn it!

If you read that 1920 document found, immediately following the quoted portion in my OP, it says this

Indeed, the novelty of the test situation and the shortness of the effort required frequently combine to secure a performance which corresponds more closely to actual ability than does the sustained routine performance of the classroom.

We should create the Grand Order of Bright Slackers as a counterpoint to MENSA but that'd take too much effort.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


It was always said about me and I know exactly why I never applied myself.

School was too easy. Other kids got all the attention. It wasn't until 5th grade that I started trying. My teacher gave us insane projects. He gave us reading books that had levels, and as we passed enough in one level we moved up. By the end of that year it was said I had a 12th grade reading level (course I had an 11 year old maturity/social understanding)... He also let us take 6th grade math tests if we finished our math homework. I finished all of them and skipped 6th grade math, because I tested into algebra.

Basically I always hated school and homework all of it. But then all the sudden when I was being challenged I always wanted extra work. That was the issue all along, it was too easy. Fried my brain, and now I really am mediocre.

WhiteAlice
reply to post by benrl

 

lol benri, excellent story. I was the problem child as well while my sister did all of her homework. Both of us were labelled as gifted but my lack of respect for ye olde homework was probably what wrought the "bright child who does not apply herself" label upon myself forever after. The bad thing is, amongst those in my family who were labelled thus deem it almost as a badge of honor.

We're rebels, darn it!

If you read that 1920 document found, immediately following the quoted portion in my OP, it says this

Indeed, the novelty of the test situation and the shortness of the effort required frequently combine to secure a performance which corresponds more closely to actual ability than does the sustained routine performance of the classroom.

We should create the Grand Order of Bright Slackers as a counterpoint to MENSA but that'd take too much effort.

Same, Older Brother MIT, VP of a bank, Golden child.

Me, the middle one that slacked off, done okay for myself, thats the good thing about intelligence it lets you land on your feet a bit softer than some.

We certainly seem to have created a system that is good at crushing the bright ones who question, its almost as if.. wait let me grab the quote.

"In our dreams, we have limitless resources and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present education conventions fade from their minds, and unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive rural folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning, or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, editors, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have an ample supply…The task we set before ourselves is very simple as well as a very beautiful one, to train these people as we find them to a perfectly ideal life just where they are. So we will organize our children and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way, in the homes, in the shops and on the farm." - General Education Board, Occasional Papers,

The founding of Public education in america is something everyone should look into, its very interesting.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Well I can tell you that I applied myself as a procrastinator. lol
But it would appear that I am an underachiever in pretty much everyone I knows eyes. Except my own of course, to me I can do whatever whenever I choose. Famous last words of the procrastinating procrastinator haha

reply to post by WhiteAlice


"Bright kid who didn't apply him/her self" is really " not a good teacher, failed the kid".
If your a teacher with a bright kid who doesn't apply themselves, you are a boring teacher who most probably reads straight from the Text book and has no clue how to engage with the kid.
Had lots of them through school, waste of time.

Everyone marches to the beat of a different drummer, the school system wants complacent conformity,

The day my first grade teacher slapped me in the face for writing my name in cursive was the day I started hating authority figures, although I was in the gifted program for a while, I never accomplished much with my life.

reply to post by benrl


VP of a bank? That's hilarious. Sister went to top West Coast university, works as a VP/Director of Finance for a bank. I've done okay personally. A few hard times but always land on my feet like a cat and have had a pretty adventuresome and interesting life. Unlike my sister.

Nice quote, btw. Ever read Bertrand Russell's The Scientific Outlook? Education in a Scientific Society portion is pretty interesting, too, in a kind of nausea inducing way.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Ive read some of his works on philosophy, but not that, ill have to look it up.

EDITED - sorry, I'm deleting this because it is just too personal. I'm not comfortable having it posted here.

Let me just summarize by saying profoundly gifted kids (99.9+ percentile IQs) are a challenge. They have special needs in a way, but schools - particularly public schools - are usually not equipped to help them. These kids think differently, relate to the world differently, and often struggle to relate to others.

I was in a gifted readers program in elementary that, with parents' permission & involvement, allowed us a bit of time each week to get together & read college-level literature. Thanks to that program, I still have the works of Plato & Homer on my shelf & a great appreciation for them.

That said, i was bored stiff throughout school. Like Benri, I had a habit of burning through my schoolwork well ahead of my peers, and while most teachers didn't chastise me for it, until a bitchy middle school science teacher who I locked horns with over "doing schoolwork too fast" decided it wasn't acceptable. I wasn't a disruptive student, I did what everyone else did, just...faster. I'd fill my time waiting for class to let out by reading, and that was deemed a distraction somehow. The problem wasn't so much the amount of material as it is the lack of engaging material. My schoolwork was so dull and monotonous that I simply plowed through it just to get it done and boom, Nyiah was done 30 minutes before the rest of the class was.

I feel that for a kid to really shine, academics need to be more approachable and less, well, boring. Observe any kid and see how they learn best about something. It's hands-on that does it, not scribbling on paper for hours on end. We really need to get back to hands-on learning in schools, that's the kind of engagement we're missing and why so many kids roll their eyes and give up applying themselves. Monotony blows.


Edit: Before anyone thinks I was a bored honor roll student, I need to clarify that I was not. I flunked a year, and barely squeaked by the rest. Boredom kills enthusiasm, I had no drive to look forward to the work, let alone do it well. I plowed through it, made errors, got grades that reflected such.