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

I was one of these kids. I barely squeaked by with average grades not because i didn't understand what i was learning, but because i refused to do homework.

I always aced any tests or quiz that was thrown my way and never needed the homework to learn. I know this is due to being a stubborn lazy kid, but why should i have to do homework when i know the material?

The kids i went to school with who did all their homework, but did horrible on tests got a pass because they had "test anxiety" or some other excuse for why they didn't understand the material. I was labeled a slacker because i learned fast and had no need for extra work outside of school.

This, i believe, is one of the biggest problems with the public school system. Teachers are more worried about expressing their power over the students than they are about teaching the students the skills they need.

DC

Funny subject ..I always thought that when they came up with ADHD that would have described me in earlier years the term was "whats wrong with that kid" when I was in school ...I just couldn't conform to their teachings ,although I immediately grasped all of the stuff they threw at me but would always want to know just why I should learn those things ....I recognized early on in school that it wasn't a level playing field and some of the students and there was a lot of discrimination ,between white/colored and even linguistically french /english as well as the status of some people within the community . A holes was the term we used for them ...

edit to add ..just a curiosity but how many on this thread would happen to be a INFJ type ?

I'll apply myself tomorrow. Right now my gout is acting up and I need to take my blood pressure meds.

I have a genius IQ who was a C average in school. I hated school. Parents obsessed with the Mozart syndrome who think they want prodigies don't realize that half of geniuses utterly fail at life.

The school systems teach to the average. Until no child left behind, it failed both geniuses and those who struggled. Now it just fails geniuses.

I was continually tested for AP because they couldn't figure out why my IQ was so high, yet, I was not excelling. Because school was so boring.

There is a great book for bright children who can't handle the social system and school, and how parents can help them.

The Edison Trait

xDeadcowx
This, i believe, is one of the biggest problems with the public school system. Teachers are more worried about expressing their power over the students than they are about teaching the students the skills they need.

Give me a break. *rolls eyes*
Half of my relatives are teachers and not a single one of them do it for the "power".
If you want power, you become a politician or a CEO, not a teacher. lol

You would be surprised at how little control teachers have over the curriculum and how many are strangled from being innovative and creative teaching because they are not allowed to stray from the program.

reply to post by nixie_nox


I agree. Some just love teaching and my hat goes off to them. I think a lot of times, teachers are pretty curbed in teaching methods. However, I did have a number of megalomaniacs (lol) as teachers. I had a teacher who threw chalk and erasers at us for getting an answer wrong or would slam a long stick on our desks. His favorite thing to do was to smack a girl on the head with a chalk laden eraser. Another teacher also carried a big stick but his had a very pointy metal end. He'd point it like a sword at students and also smacked the desks. I was slapped across the face by two different teachers (one for being weak and the other for being honest). In my experience, I had some teachers like how you describe your family members and others who were tyrannical and would have probably lost their jobs.

Not a fan of "all" statements because it doesn't adequately cover the diverse spectrum of humanity.

i was told this my whole life in school and even when i joined the Corps.
i always had better things to do besides school work or applying myself to every school i attended in the Corps. (caught a lot hell because of that in the Corps.) the only time i paid any attention in school was when it interested me.

i will never forget in high we had a class that was called Americanism verses Communism, or AVC. that should tell you about how old i am.
any way the the teacher MR M. used me and another guy as examples for how bad people's grades were by pointing out that we were doing better in his class than everyone else.

he said i want you to look at C ( the other guy), and B (me). they hardly pay attention in class, never turn in any homework, yet the make A's & B's On quiz's and tests, that's the only reason they are gonna pass this class.

reply to post by the2ofusr1


INTJ. I was the mastermind at getting out of homework and forging progress reports. The typical routine each semester was slack off, get scary progress report and transform D's to B's. Calculate how much "make up homework" needed to be done to make the facade true. Convince the teacher, do the work and then, breathe easy about the final grade.

I think I spent more effort in machining a way to slack off without getting caught by my mother than I would've if I had just done my homework in the first place.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


I too was in that catagory, I always had that label attached to my report cards. In highschool, one year, they wanted to hold me back because they believed that I wasnt as "smart" as the rest of the students in math or english. So they put me in a room and did abunch of tests to see where I was in my education including IQ tests. Well they never held me back because I was able to do all the work, its just that it was boring and too simple for me at the time so I had no interest in relearning something that I already knew. I did three IQ tests that day, my ratings were 121,124 and 128 thats and average of 124.333333333. I excelled at hands on classes but got easily bored and sidetracked in class and therefor always got in trouble.

Some teachers just dont know how to connect to students to make them want to learn, which is why I think that they give these kids (including myself) that label.

Below average IQ and struggled with school. But I was cute and funny then and some still think I am!!

go figure...

benrl
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.

edit on 20-2-2014 by benrl because: (no reason given)

I feel your pain. Secoundary school (your high school) same story, infact i got so bored i skipped half of it,

Things picked up in uni luckly. But I picked up some bad habbits from secoundary that I had trouble breaking, never got put in special ed as I aways aced by exams, instead i was treated as a problem to be ignored.

brazenalderpadrescorpio
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.

Especially when you have low life parents or people in your life.

I was in gifted programs when I was young. Would usually read through a history or science textbook my first week of the school year. I had an IQ of about 138. However, my mom was an unstable druggie/boozer who switched boyfriends as often as I changed my socks, moved me around a lot. I never had anyone to help with homework, or get involved in my school life much. No mentor, no role model, just a bunch of neurotic adults and their drama. The only thing that inspired me growing up was seeing what kind of person I didn't want to be.

There are many of us out there. But as it has been stated, our education system isn't geared towards intelligence, it's geared towards indoctrination.

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

Yeah, I suppose my parents saw that one across more than one report card over the years. I got a bit tired of hearing it myself, since I applied myself just fine to my thinking. It just wasn't toward the same activities the teachers thought it should be. (shrug) Some people have no sense of humor, indeed. I thought I applied myself quite well in finding ways to smoke on campus and never being caught by a teacher who didn't ask for one themselves, and join the guilt club. People wouldn't believe how hard I had to apply myself to having a 99.9% success rate in avoiding the truancy officer. (Okay, he got me once...and he earned my respect that day too. A decent guy in a crappy job).

To be totally straight and honest though, with all the above kidding (or not... -grin- you guess which) aside? Intelligence wasn't simply shunned a bit or teased where I went to school, it was outright stomped into mush on the playground and left for dead as good riddens to bad rubbish. Some exceptions existed, and they were usually Asian, not well understood with even less desire to try by most I recall in those years. It shouldn't be that way, anywhere ..and I've never considered myself THAT intelligent, anyway. I excel in some areas and I suck eggs in others...like most people, I imagine.

Kids learn not to fully apply themselves and learn that young, IMO. That much hasn't changed over the intervening years. If anything it's become more pronounced, not less of a problem. I think society has an expectation that kids aren't capable of critical thinking or even being taught how to, so why bother. Conformity makes for less work all around and standardized tests make even less for demands in producing original material.

What do we expect, but what we get...eh?

Yep, in all of the reports I had ever obtained those words were in there somewhere. Alsong with 'distracts the other class members' and 'has great potential but cannot focus'.

etc.

If one really wants to delve into this 100 long scam one needs to look into the Rockefeller-Carnegie system of education. They created public school as a way to provide workers for specific jobs in industry. Each decade is factored and the school systems are adjusted to produce the workers needed for that coming decade. When the "good" jobs are filled, those disciplines are discouraged as those workers do not want to loose their jobs to younger brighter graduates. Your education in the 50's was vastly different then today as the jobs were different. Since 2000 menial labor is what is required, so the schools now produce dropouts who's aspirations and skills do not extend beyond walmart.

John Taylor Gotto has some really great stuff on all of this.

In the end the system is brilliant. A group of industry titans were worried about how to keep their machines going, so they created an educational system to do it. The problem lies in the fact that people birth children without any regard to how they will care for an educate them. When the realize they cannot afford private school they give them over the state to do as the state pleases, the state is the industry giants looking for workers in exactly the same way the NFL uses colleges football to train their workers. Private school kids get the reality the public school kids are promised. The difference is private school kids are taught an ENTIRELY different system. If you rely on the state, you get what you pay for.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


In grade 9 I took Earthscience 10/11 and aced them. In grade 10 on the first day of my Geography 11 class my teacher (Mr. Gibson) handed us 2 old final exams, one at a grade 11 level the other at a grade 12 level, he asked us to finish as much as we can in class and do the rest for homework to see what we remember/know. Well I had the first exam done in 30 mins and the second one was done in about 45 mins. I handed them into Mr. Gibson, he was shocked and udderly amazed that I was able to complete 2 provincial exams in one class, and to top it off I aced them one at 99% the other at 100%.

My next class directly after that was Geology 11 with the same teacher. We did the exact same thing and I finished both exams with better scores and time then the so called geniouses in my class. Those were my favorite classes because from day one I never EVER had homework. My teacher Knew my capabilities, so he gave me projects and experiments to work instead of the normal course work. I just wish all my teachers would have done that. By far Mr. Gibson was and still is the best teacher I have ever had the privilage to work with.

I also excelled at all the cooking classes aswell. The school even sent me to compete in skills canada for cooking. I completed foods 8\9\10\11\12 before I was done with grade 10. I also worked in two 4 star restaruants and one 4 star catering business. I was so good at cooking that at the age of 15 I was teaching my teacher how to cook, (and because I am from bc, I would always sneak weed butter into my recipies at school and get the whole class fried haha yeah I was a little # disturber)

You know your smarter then the average person when you can ace a course before you even start and if your able to teach your teacher.

My school was also a school where the teachers would try out new experimental courses like History thru film (we would have to watch hollywood movies and then determan how historically accurate they were or were not)
Classes like that really got my attention because I was able to choose my own movies to research as most kids in that class were in every sence of the term 'Retarded' and I could not work at their pace.

Some of the greatest minds on the planet never graduated highschool or even gone to college.

Just look at BC's own John Hutchinson. He is considered a "mad scientist" he never went to school to learn science, but he managed to get military contracts to work on High powered lazers (project starwars) He has also discovered some thing called the Hutchinson Effect I urge you to look into him and his findings and discoveries as he is truley one of the greatest minds of the 21 centry.


AHHHHH Im sorry for rambling, I just get caught up in these threads and forget that I typed quite a bit. My bad

My youngest was/is very bright, but wouldn't 'apply' herself in school. Teachers didn't think she was capable, and we should hold her back. I discussed it with a long time friend, a high school teacher who knew my child well.

He felt she was a 'gifted' and bored child.
The public school gets $5,800 per student enrolled, and all but 1 in 100 learn best by rote. That other '1' is the gifted child who can't be taught by rote, so they fall through the cracks.
They are the 'abstract' thinkers, according to my friend, and if you don't have the financial resources to pay for private schooling, they just fall through the cracks.

Me? I just spent the few years I was in school daydreaming about the day I wouldn't have to be in school.

School always came very easy for me, but I had a lot of outside interests that kept me learning new things. I put forth enough effort to get good grades though as I just felt like I was being disrespectful if I didn't. I was not genius level, but definitely knew I had it easier than most. I graduated valedictorian in HS, and this is where the problems began. You aren't really allowed to not go to college when you do well in HS. I had no idea what I wanted to do, but had to go anyway. I had never developed good study skills, so when you actually need them in college (engineering), you can do pretty poorly when you try and wing it. 6 years later, no degree and a 2.0 gpa, I quit. Worked my way up in several good blue-collar jobs and felt pretty decent about things.

20 years after HS, I decided to do it right. I wen't back to school and finished top of my class in mechanical engineering, got a good job and now am about 1/3 of the way through an MS in electrical engineering. I think the main thing I learned is that it is my own responsibility to respect myself enough no to waste a good inborn ability. Nobody can make you see your potential and it is easy to get bored etc. and do a bunch of stupid stuff thinking you are somehow smarter than most. I have to give a lot of credit to Falun Dafa practice as it has provided me with a clear head among things.

I am also very grateful that my parents encouraged outside learning or I am quite sure that I would have been among the ranks of those who really wasted a large bit of talent even though they were/are brilliant. If you have kids that seem exceptional, but have issues, find out what they are interested in and nurture it. Buy books and whatever you can to keep them from being bored. There is definitely challenging material out there no matter who you are.

I certainly wasn't gifted or showed great potential at school. Originally my schooling came from home, my parents traveled constantly and we lived overseas for a while. When I was a little older they put me in regular school. That was a nightmare. My first two teachers were wonderful and I enjoyed learning, after that came some horrid ones.

I ended up closing down and not learning. Paid no attention to the work given.

Although life has been pretty good to me, now I wish that applying myself was at the top of my list. Especially when it comes to my writing skills. There are none! LOL

Our oldest is in school now, after she was home schooled for the first 7 years. She seems to be doing very well, but I would have to say its the school themselves. They are one of the best charter schools available and the teachers have come out of professional backgrounds.