Smarty Pants, Redux

Seth Freeman just wrote an awesome article on The Huffington Post titled 'Gifted and At-Risk,' which provides a much more cogently-worded article than mine on the 'tragedy' that befalls the ingenious.

Notable excerpts, for those who don't want to read the whole thing:

Everyone is aware of the dire straights in which our school systems currently operate, but as bad as things are generally, they are sometimes even worse for our students with the greatest potential. It turns out that this population, the very people our society will most need in the future to be competitive with other countries and to solve our toughest problems, is one of the most underserved. Less than 1 percent of the funds for special programs in our schools goes to meet the needs of gifted kids.

What may be less obvious is that gifted children often have a tougher time in school specifically as a consequence of their intelligence or talent or unique way of seeing the world.

In our schools, which are presently struggling to educate so many children to a basic low standard of knowledge and skills, the curriculum can be so boring and inane for bright kids that they become restless, occasionally disruptive but more often tuning out or not even showing up. A gifted kid who comes from a family living in poverty, or from a discriminated against minority, or who is burdened with other social disadvantages, faces a double dose of adversity. And yet, despite facing these difficulties but precisely because gifted kids are capable of understanding the material and keeping up with the work, they frequently receive less attention than their peers.

It is a tragic situation for these kids. It may be an even greater tragedy for our country's future. 

Smarty Pants

I'm smart. It's undeniable, and may sound more than a bit narcissistic and egotistical (I am both), but it is also a true, scientific fact. I have a high IQ, faster than average neural reaction time (leading to faster comprehension), high test scores, and a (relatively short) lifetime of cognitively stimulating environments thanks to Mom and Dad.

When somebody tells me I'm smart, though, that kind of flippant remark makes me very angry. It may seem very complimentary, on the complimenter's side, but what exactly does it mean to be on the other side?

For me, personally, as I've said, I'm angry. I'm annoyed. It's like pigeonholing me with a single word, reducing me to a single aspect that implies I have no depth beyond understanding what goes on in class. It's like, Wow, it must be great, to be soooo smart. Except for, of course, the stereotypical schoolyard bullying and lacking adequate social skills.

If you wanna try and treat me like Millhouse, I'll eat you.

Image via HiddenGlasgow.

I am decidedly not your stereotypical 'smart kid.' I'm a pretty normal kid who interacts pretty well within society, and what really sucks the most about being smart is just that--in school (K-12 for the purposes of my commentary), being smart meant I was rarely challenged by schoolwork and I could get by relying, more or less, on my short-term memory or natural sponge-like quality for absorbing information passively. On the rare occasion I had to study for a subject--'studying' being defined for my peers as poring laboriously over notes taken in class in addition to amending the notes handed out by a teacher--'studying' for me meant sleepily flipping through the notes handed out the ten minutes before I sat down for an exam and got somewhere in the 90s, no sweat.

Seems great, right? Less time studying, better results than 90% of the other students and more time to lounge around and do anything I wanted... but no, being smart has backfired, and no, it may not be as saddening or heartbreaking as those who don't have the opportunity or the cognitive potential for a great education, but it stinks to be smart.

For the smart kids, but not genius-level students, average schoolwork is still not challenging enough such skills as perseverance and focus, such skills that are a). important for life in general, and b). really, really hard to develop nowadays, regardless of intelligence level, a long attention span when the television, the cell phone, the Internet are all calling out simultaneously. Instead of actively working to develop study skills and learning to apply oneself at the time where the mind is most fertile for learning, I didn't.

In college, this has definitely bit me in the ass. Focus, yes, should largely be on improving opportunities for the under-privileged to get the education they need, but don't forget about the students who aren't being adequately challenged by school-material and are floating by in life, because that's not preparing them for the future either.