Gifted Child Syndrome Rant

[AENeuman]

A therapist from a potential student describes Gifted Child Syndrome as: very smart children that are easily bored and fail to excel as befits their capabilities unless both challenged and inspired.

This bothers me so much, adults creating entitlement and victim hood. Imagine this approach as a rebuttal to a work review: I would have done better, but I found the task you gave me too easy and uninteresting. Therefore, you should promote me.

Just wanted to vent, thanks.

[Qwikshot]

Originally Posted by AENeuman

A therapist from a potential student describes Gifted Child Syndrome as: very smart children that are easily bored and fail to excel as befits their capabilities unless both challenged and inspired.

This bothers me so much, adults creating entitlement and victim hood. Imagine this approach as a rebuttal to a work review: I would have done better, but I found the task you gave me too easy and uninteresting. Therefore, you should promote me.

Just wanted to vent, thanks.

I may use that next review...

[chadritt]

I mean...if thats then used to get the child into some more advanced learning then hooray. If its just an excuse then yawn...

[lighthousekeeper]

[Maple Leafs]

Gifted children often have a difficult time in school, especially at younger ages where even the best kids have trouble paying attention at times. There's a reason why giftedness is often grouped in with conditions like ADHD or autism spectrum.

If a kid is diagnosed with any potentially challenging conditions, it makes sense for the parents to make the school/teacher aware of it, and work with them to come up with reasonable accommodations. What that looks like will vary from school to school, but I guess I don't really see the problem with having a fairly well-known issue that a lot of kids (and their families) struggle with brought to your attention.

[Breeze]

Originally Posted by AENeuman

A therapist from a potential student describes Gifted Child Syndrome as: very smart children that are easily bored and fail to excel as befits their capabilities unless both challenged and inspired.

This bothers me so much, adults creating entitlement and victim hood. Imagine this approach as a rebuttal to a work review: I would have done better, but I found the task you gave me too easy and uninteresting. Therefore, you should promote me.

Just wanted to vent, thanks.

I can tell you from first hand experience this is absolutely real. My son does this exact thing. He'll invariably get 90+% grades on all his tests (without studying), but more times than not, he'll get extremly low scores on homework (if he even does the homework at all) because it is boring and in his mind busywork.

Understand, I don't allow this behavior to go unpunished. He is constantly lectured, grounded, or some other method of punishment is enforced. I tell him that it doesn't matter that he doesn't like doing the homework, that in life a majority of the time he'll have to do things he doesn't like, and he isn't given an option. That said, we have this problem every year, on and off all year long. I can count on it like clockwork.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by Breeze

I can tell you from first hand experience this is absolutely real. My son does this exact thing. He'll invariably get 90+% grades on all his tests (without studying), but more times than not, he'll get extremly low scores on homework (if he even does the homework at all) because it is boring and in his mind busywork.

Understand, I don't allow this behavior to go unpunished. He is constantly lectured, grounded, or some other method of punishment is enforced. I tell him that it doesn't matter that he doesn't like doing the homework, that in life a majority of the time he'll have to do things he doesn't like, and he isn't given an option. That said, we have this problem every year, on and off all year long. I can count on it like clockwork.

Do you have the option of getting him in more advanced classes/schooling?

[Breeze]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

Do you have the option of getting him in more advanced classes/schooling?

Good question. We actually battled with the school for years, and they finally agreed to put him in the advanced and accelerated classes. Which did help significantly with his focus in class, and often times helped with some of the projects that he found interesting. Unfortunately, though, the homework issue still exists, and even with the more difficult courses he aces tests without doing homework or having to study hard.

It is a very frustrating dichotomy. You have brilliant kid, but that brilliance leads to an apathy for anything he doesn't find interesting. Often times, especially for boys, puberty can have a big impact on this. The wife and I are hoping this will be the case for Brett. In the meantime, I just continue to enforce the facts about having to do things you don't like, and if you have to do it, you might as well do it right the first time (given that I've made him redo work numerous times because he didn't put enough effort into the initial attempt).

[Breeze]

By the way, please understand, my post was not meant to indicate that people shouldn't be frustrated with parents that use a condition (syndrome seems a bit overstated for what this is) as a means of creating excuses or entitlements for their kids. However, this condition does exist, and making everyone involved aware of the situation, can allow for collaboration that allows the student to be much more productive.

We do not make excuses for our child that suffers with this condition. In fact, as I stated above, we hold him to a very high standard telling him he needs to apply himself to achieve his full potential.

[MacroGuru]

Yeah, I hated homework, it bored me to death and sitting in class did as well. I aced my tests and finals to the point teachers gave up on forcing me to do things.

My ADHD hurt me at times at home and school to the point I skipped classes just to play basketball in the gym and no one really cared as long as I showed I knew what they talked bout in class when the tests came up.

To me it hurt me more than anything, they coddled to me because I played football for the school and I was still smart to pass their tests.

When I hit college, it crushed me and I wasn't prepared for the amount of work that was required and forced.

[Solecismic]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

Do you have the option of getting him in more advanced classes/schooling?

Just to chime in. My son complains about being bored all the time in school. The school district is offering a test, which is coming up next week, to place him in a higher grade for math for next year.

The test isn't hard, but it will introduce concepts he's never seen before. Concepts he could learn in about an hour if he just sat down and studied.

Short of chaining him to a desk chair, I can't get him to study. At least, when he complains about being bored in math next year, I will just laugh at him.

I don't know how you break that cycle. These kids learn at a faster pace, but by the time they hit something they don't learn in five seconds, they are so accustomed to being bored in school that they don't know how to study.

I can't really blame him. I think the more important lesson is understanding, later on, that he has to take responsibility for learning new concepts. Hopefully he'll understand that earlier than I did.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Breeze

I can tell you from first hand experience this is absolutely real. My son does this exact thing. He'll invariably get 90+% grades on all his tests (without studying), but more times than not, he'll get extremly low scores on homework (if he even does the homework at all) because it is boring and in his mind busywork.

This was me, and in many cases, the teachers having incredibly stupid grading systems was a big part of the issue. I recall specifically in 9th grade my geometry teacher writing in the comments section of my report card--which recorded my overall grade for the trimester in geometry as a 98--that I had a 52 homework average. My father looked at it, wrinkled his brow, looked up at me and asked what percentage of the final grade homework was. I smirked and said "15%."

At that point, he just chuckled, shook his head, and said "15%. She's a math teacher and can't figure out why you don't do your homework."

[Ben E Lou]

Oh, speaking to Jim's comment, sports ended up being the outlet that taught me how to work hard. Although I come from an athletically talented family, I am not a particularly gifted athlete. I only made the junior varsity basketball team as a freshman because I went to a tiny private school where no one got cut, and there was no freshman team to which I could be demoted. However, I wanted to play and measure up to some of the more talented athletes in my family, so I had to work my tail off during the summer doing drills. I went from a JV benchwarmer my freshman year to earning meaningful varsity playing time by the end of my sophomore year. Apart from that experience, I think I would have been terribly lazy and not well-equipped to know how to bear down when I needed to bear down later on.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by rowech

What prevents you all from introducing something like programming to your students that open up all kinds of limitless possibilities in developing interests and skills that will show the importance of some of the things they will eventually learn when they run into roadblocks they don't understand? Why not assign your own enrichment activities to add to what they have learned in school? Why not read their assigned books/reading and develop your own questions to meet what you feel your children are capable of? Look for tech camps at local universities for kids.

When they're being ground down to a fine powder by the amount of work (busy, worthwhile or otherwise) that some students see today, I'm not sure how much of that can be added in good conscience tbh.

My single largest concern at this point with my child is mental exhaustion and stress. He's not quite in the category described here in most classes, his course load is probably roughly suitable for his talents, but at the same time that would be close enough to true if there were only one class falling short of engaging him that there I doubt there'd be room to add a great deal more to his plate.

[Julio Riddols]

Originally Posted by Breeze

I can tell you from first hand experience this is absolutely real. My son does this exact thing. He'll invariably get 90+% grades on all his tests (without studying), but more times than not, he'll get extremly low scores on homework (if he even does the homework at all) because it is boring and in his mind busywork.

Understand, I don't allow this behavior to go unpunished. He is constantly lectured, grounded, or some other method of punishment is enforced. I tell him that it doesn't matter that he doesn't like doing the homework, that in life a majority of the time he'll have to do things he doesn't like, and he isn't given an option. That said, we have this problem every year, on and off all year long. I can count on it like clockwork.

This was me too. When I had an engaging teacher who made learning interesting and challenged me I did my homework (usually finished it in class) and generally excelled. When I had a teacher that just got up in front of the class and ran through everything on the blackboard then assigned homework and just sat at their desk the rest of the class, I generally did terrible aside from tests. As an adult, I look back and wish I would have worked hard no matter what, but as a kid I was simply bored to death and just passed my time in those boring classes by drawing pictures or writing terrible adolescent poetry. I was always good at creative things that required thinking outside the box, but structured learning just wasn't interesting. Unfortunately my parents didn't have the means or the interest in really giving me opportunities to do better and I mostly just cruised through high school wasting my potential unless I had a teacher that could engage me.

I wish my parents had cared more or that I had known then what I know now so I personally could have done more.

[Solecismic]

Sadly, and this is a difficult admission for me, my son doesn't like sports. It just doesn't grab him, which means he has no internal incentive to practice.

If there were a Minecraft Olympics, he'd be all in. Might even surprise a few people.

With me, sports were a motivator. I'd play anything. But I have no physical talent whatsoever. So working my ass off, I couldn't even make varsity basketball at a small school.

It really took until I returned to school to get my computer science degree to "get" the reasons for doing homework and studying. It came far too easily for far too long, and I wasted far too many opportunities along the way.

[AENeuman]

Originally Posted by Breeze

Understand, I don't allow this behavior to go unpunished.

And there is the difference between how I read the therapist letter and how to address this legitimate issue. It is a hard problem that requires persistence, humility and creativity from everyone.

My biggest issue was the word "unless." Unless I the teacher constantly give a certain type of interesting and challenging material, the failure of the student is all on me. As a result of the parental permission giving inherent in this syndrome this particular student will not go to a 4 year college, and that's a shame.

[Barkeep49]

This is going to come out harsher than if I hadn't had to battle this week for two my advisees this week because of grade inflation and a recomondation for math placement based entirely on a teacher's gut feeling, but...

Originally Posted by AENeuman

Imagine this approach as a rebuttal to a work review: I would have done better, but I found the task you gave me too easy and uninteresting. Therefore, you should promote me.

Imagine this next work review: "We're going to have to call your wife in since we don't think your work has been up to what it could be." or "You weren't very nice to that other teacher so you're going to have to come in extra early."

We do things (calling parents, giving detentions) with kids that don't have adult parallels for good reasons. They're not adults. Expecting them to act like adults? Unfair.

I got into education to help shape them into adults not because I expect them to act like ones.

Originally Posted by AENeuman

My biggest issue was the word "unless." Unless I the teacher constantly give a certain type of interesting and challenging material, the failure of the student is all on me.

I don't think that's what that says. I think it says that you have an obligation to try and help that student succeed. I think teachers have an obligation to help every student succeed and this gives you an outside, and theoretical expert opinion, as to what triggers are going to help you with this particular student.

[Maple Leafs]

Originally Posted by AENeuman

And there is the difference between how I read the therapist letter and how to address this legitimate issue. It is a hard problem that requires persistence, humility and creativity from everyone.

My biggest issue was the word "unless." Unless I the teacher constantly give a certain type of interesting and challenging material, the failure of the student is all on me. As a result of the parental permission giving inherent in this syndrome this particular student will not go to a 4 year college, and that's a shame.

I have no idea whether you received an extremely unusual letter, or you're just reading way more into it than was intended. But either way, I'd caution against making any assumptions about how the parents feel about this, or what "permission" they think they've been given to let their child fail.

There's no doubt that some parents will use a diagnosis (of any kind) as a kind of "get out of parenting free" card. If you work with these parents and that turns out to be the case, you'll have every right to be annoyed or worse. But there's a good chance that they're far more frustrated with their child than you are, and willing to do just about anything to improve the situation. They're asking for your help. You should do whatever you reasonably can to give it.

[AENeuman]

Originally Posted by Maple Leafs

I have no idea whether you received an extremely unusual letter, or you're just reading way more into it than was intended. But either way, I'd caution against making any assumptions about how the parents feel about this, or what "permission" they think they've been given to let their child fail.

There's no doubt that some parents will use a diagnosis (of any kind) as a kind of "get out of parenting free" card. If you work with these parents and that turns out to be the case, you'll have every right to be annoyed or worse. But there's a good chance that they're far more frustrated with their child than you are, and willing to do just about anything to improve the situation. They're asking for your help. You should do whatever you reasonably can to give it.

I totally get this. I run a program for 11/12 graders who take community college and high school classes. Most of students in my program are what we call bright but bored. This particular student is nothing special. However, the parental rationalization of every C and D (which was a lot) was "it's the teachers fault because..." And this letter sent me over the top. Also, due to a recent divorce each parent was being overly accommodating to the student.

I'm just upset because that I think this student can pull it together. Middle Colleges are very successful in what they do. However, I think the student will have to do it despite these adults in their life.

[Izulde]

This described me before college - would ace all the tests (except math and science) yet not do any of the homework because it was a waste of time. I remember when I was getting my associate's, I aced all the Accounting and Math tests but did none of the homework because it felt like pointless busywork. Got a C in Accounting because the prof was a hardass about the numbers (typical beancounter in a lot of ways), but got an A in math because the teacher recognized it was bullshit for me to spend time on the homework when I obviously knew all the material.

[revrew]

This sort of thing was actually the primary reason my wife and I started homeschooling our kids. Had nothing to do with our faith or anything like that when we started. It's just my wife and I were both so incredibly bored by school (she was the one who didn't apply herself; I skipped grades, graduated early and still was valedictorian) that we didn't want our kids to experience the same mind-numbing system.

[Danny]

A student needs to be taught at their instructional level. The typical instructional level is meant for the average student. Its a reason why we have special education, to provide individualized content at a students instructional level who has an identified educational disability. Often no such thing exists for those with high ability.

One of the main causes of poor classroom behavior is a mis match in instruction and a students instructional level, so its not surprising these high level kids will act out.

[thealmighty]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

This was me, and in many cases, the teachers having incredibly stupid grading systems was a big part of the issue. I recall specifically in 9th grade my geometry teacher writing in the comments section of my report card--which recorded my overall grade for the trimester in geometry as a 98--that I had a 52 homework average. My father looked at it, wrinkled his brow, looked up at me and asked what percentage of the final grade homework was. I smirked and said "15%."

At that point, he just chuckled, shook his head, and said "15%. She's a math teacher and can't figure out why you don't do your homework."

As a math teacher, it would be impossible to receive a grade of 98 given that 15% of your average is from a 52 homework grade. You should have made, all other things being perfect, a 93, I would think.

[nol]

Originally Posted by thealmighty

As a math teacher, it would be impossible to receive a grade of 98 given that 15% of your average is from a 52 homework grade. You should have made, all other things being perfect, a 93, I would think.

Oh no, it's one of those math teachers that doesn't have an extra credit problem on the test to continue to enable those gifted students who don't do the homework!

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by nol

Oh no, it's one of those math teachers that doesn't have an extra credit problem on the test to continue to enable those gifted students who don't do the homework!

Yup. She whined about me not doing homework while at the same time making it very easy for me to earn an "A" by doing half of my homework.

And in her case, there was even more to it than that. You could get an automatic extra point on your final grade each trimester simply by participating in a Georgia Math League contest and getting at least one answer out of six right. There were two contests that trimester. Getting four or more right in any one contest (which was very uncommon and typically placed you in the top 10 in the state) earned one more point. I got four or more right twice that trimester for four extra points on the final grade.

But even without the extra credit, 90-100 was an "A," and though the school chose to report the numeric grade on report cards, for GPA purposes, any "A" was a 4, so it really didn't matter. As a math teacher, she should have known that strong math students would figure out that they only needed to do roughly half the homework if they knew the material. I don't know if it's the case today, but in the math textbooks, the problems at the end of each chapter/section got harder as they went along. So to make sure I knew the material, I'd just do the last half or so of the problems each day and turn those in. My mom was initially upset about the 52, but when I explained that strategy to her, even she came around.

Jim, what about musical instruments? Guitar was another thing that wasn't "easy" for me but where I wanted to excel, so that required the kind of focus, drive, practice, etc. that helped teach/reinforce working hard.

[Alf]

You have to "feed" the kids if school isn't giving them enough material to work with.

- sports, music, acting, learning another language, whatever makes them realize that there is more than school and that sometimes, you have to make an effort to succeed. Otherwise, some might find it difficult when the time comes that they really have to work to succeed

[Tekneek]

Originally Posted by Breeze

I can tell you from first hand experience this is absolutely real. My son does this exact thing. He'll invariably get 90+% grades on all his tests (without studying), but more times than not, he'll get extremly low scores on homework (if he even does the homework at all) because it is boring and in his mind busywork.

Sounds like what it was like for me. The best classes I had were those beyond the core curriculum or those that were based entirely on quizzes and exams. If I could go back, I would knock out all the homework assignments. However, at the time, I'd usually do enough to make sure I understood it and then go learn something else. I spent a lot of time learning things that were not covered by my classes. That came in handy when there were chances to go off-script/off-syllabus with speeches/projects. Teachers would say, "How did you learn all that?" The truth is that I was learning that instead of doing the dozens of mundane repetitive assignments they liked to dole out, or when I had finished the novel on the second day and was otherwise bored while it took everyone else weeks to finish.

[kcchief19]

I'm largely torn on this. I'm too modest to call myself "gifted," but I finished in the top 3 percent of my high school class and the people who finished above me included some pretty successful types, such as a tenured professor, medical professionals and a lawyer among others.

There was a time in the first grade I was kicked out of the advanced reading group because I refused to do "dittos." The advanced reading group had to do tests on mimeographs and I supposedly hated the smell and the ink getting on my hands. I kind of think that I didn't like that I was in a different reading group from my friends. In the fourth grade, my mom was told I was an overachiever. Part of that is that in the fourth grade I was trying to make friends with the "cool" people and blew off things from time to time.

Was I bored with school work? Hell yes -- it was work. There are very few people who actually like school work. Everyone who finished ahead of me in my class worked hard -- no one just got by on their brains alone. But I can also say there were no geniuses left behind. Out of 500 kids in my freshman high school class, I can safely say I never ran across a single one of them that was much smarter than their grade card. Yes, there were C students who could have been B students if they worked harder, and there were B students who could have been C students if they didn't work as hard as they did.

"Bored" is the word that blames the system and the teachers but absolves the parents and the students. But how often is it really just "lazy?"

I've got a cousin who tests off the charts but his grades are so-so most of the time. He has been called "bored" by school and homework. But the reality is that he's lazy and unfocused -- he would rather play video games and build Legos than do school work. He does his own thing in class and won't pay attention to his teachers. I love my aunt and uncle, but that's largely because he's always allowed to do his own thing. We go out to dinner and he has his headphones in and playing on his phone the entire time.

I'm not a parent and I don't know how you focus kids who are unfocused. Some do it on their own and don't need help. Generally, my experience has been that if a kid is unfocused, he or she will always be that away unless they change it.

For example, one of my best friends was a slightly above average student while we were growing up. He didn't work real hard, but generally made As and Bs. In high school he wasn't in honors classes, and would have been out of his league if he were. But he got involved in debate and decided he wanted to be the best, and he worked his ass off like I hadn't seen him do our entire lives. Then he decided he wanted to be a lawyer and be a great one. He is, and it's entirely because he decided to focus and work at it. Based on his IQ alone, he couldn't do that. His hard work made it happen.

I'm not defending the current system. I firmly believe kids learn in different ways and it's crazy to put kids into a one-size-fits-all curriculum. But the reason most kids fail isn't because they are bored, it's usually because they won't commit.

[Solecismic]

I was a terrible discipline problem for a long time. My third-grade teacher even locked me in the closet a few times. I wasn't mature enough to handle frustration with lessons that were taught at too slow a pace.

Ben, band shows some promise with my son. He took up french horn this year. A couple of months ago, I thought he was going to quit, but then they started working on a band concert, and he did very well. Now he's talking about sticking with it - even wanting to take lessons this summer.

[cuervo72]

I went through some of my old report cards a while back, and they were littered with comments about "self-control." But, I always got good grades. About 4th grade or so though I started slacking off on homework; my teacher said I had an "apathetic attitude" that got in the way of my learning. The thing was, when I was into something, I ate it up. I could do an entire math workbook in a day or two; each one was a new challenge. Other work? May not be quite so interested.

All through elementary school I would go once (?) a week to an academically talented/mentally gifted class. This is what my 5th and 6th grade teacher in that class, Mrs. Rock, had to say about 6th grade me:

Originally Posted by Second Marking Period

cuervo can understand any concept I throw at him, or memorize any facts or learn any knowledge I ask. His test scores are excellent and it all seems so effortless to cuervo. cuervo however is not perfect. He tends to procrastinate and he isn't always completely prepared for class. If he improves his work habits, he'd be a phenominal student.

Originally Posted by Third Marking Period

Cuervo does what cuervo wants to do. I assigned a book he liked, and he had superior comprehension. I assigned a book he disliked, and he didn't read it, and consequently failed the test. He didn't submit an independent project this marking period. When he is prepared, his grades are superior. The problem with cuervo is motivation and self-discipline. The grades above reflect the consequences of cuervo's choice of not doing the assigned tasks.

He is capable of superior work. His skills are excellent, and he is knowledgeable.

Originally Posted by Fourth Marking Period

cuervo is his own man. Nothing can motivate cuervo, unless he wants to be motivated. Presently cuervo possesses the skills he needs to be successful, and he has gotten them with little effort on his part. I fear that his lack of work habits will have a negative affect on academics in the future. Jr. High is tough because he'll be competing against kids in his class, all of whom are as gifted as cuervo. If cuervo doesn't work then, he could easily be left behind, because new knowledge will be built on the knowledge just taught. I hope he gets in to Jr. High and gives it his best shot. There are companies looking for kids with the type of math talent which cuervo possesses, I hope he develops it to its fullest. If he does, his salary some day could be in the 6-digit category.

She was spot-on, of course. Yes, I could be lazy. But often I think I was bored, and when I was I slacked off and found other ways to entertain myself (the self-control issues).

[Maple Leafs]

Originally Posted by kcchief19

"Bored" is the word that blames the system and the teachers but absolves the parents and the students. But how often is it really just "lazy?"

There's a way to find out: Give the kid more challenging work (which is not the same as just giving a higher volume of work). If they're still not showing any interest, you've probably got your answer.

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Oh, speaking to Jim's comment, sports ended up being the outlet that taught me how to work hard. Although I come from an athletically talented family, I am not a particularly gifted athlete. I only made the junior varsity basketball team as a freshman because I went to a tiny private school where no one got cut, and there was no freshman team to which I could be demoted. However, I wanted to play and measure up to some of the more talented athletes in my family, so I had to work my tail off during the summer doing drills. I went from a JV benchwarmer my freshman year to earning meaningful varsity playing time by the end of my sophomore year. Apart from that experience, I think I would have been terribly lazy and not well-equipped to know how to bear down when I needed to bear down later on.

Same here. I'm athletic enough, but was by no means special. If I wanted to play in HS - and I sure as heck did - I had to work. More than I had to in school, more than I had to for piano.* I had to prove myself to my teammates, to my coaches. Oh, and the coaches had a leg up on the teachers as far as motivation went - they could yell, make me do hit-its, laps, scrambles (crab walks)....


* Piano was funny. By the time I quit lessons when I was 11, I could barely practice for 1/2 a day. When I got my keyboard, I would play along to the radio and tapes for hours.

[Fidatelo]

Originally Posted by kcchief19

I'm largely torn on this. I'm too modest to call myself "gifted," but I finished in the top 3 percent of my high school class and the people who finished above me included some pretty successful types, such as a tenured professor, medical professionals and a lawyer among others.

There was a time in the first grade I was kicked out of the advanced reading group because I refused to do "dittos." The advanced reading group had to do tests on mimeographs and I supposedly hated the smell and the ink getting on my hands. I kind of think that I didn't like that I was in a different reading group from my friends. In the fourth grade, my mom was told I was an overachiever. Part of that is that in the fourth grade I was trying to make friends with the "cool" people and blew off things from time to time.

Was I bored with school work? Hell yes -- it was work. There are very few people who actually like school work. Everyone who finished ahead of me in my class worked hard -- no one just got by on their brains alone. But I can also say there were no geniuses left behind. Out of 500 kids in my freshman high school class, I can safely say I never ran across a single one of them that was much smarter than their grade card. Yes, there were C students who could have been B students if they worked harder, and there were B students who could have been C students if they didn't work as hard as they did.

"Bored" is the word that blames the system and the teachers but absolves the parents and the students. But how often is it really just "lazy?"

I've got a cousin who tests off the charts but his grades are so-so most of the time. He has been called "bored" by school and homework. But the reality is that he's lazy and unfocused -- he would rather play video games and build Legos than do school work. He does his own thing in class and won't pay attention to his teachers. I love my aunt and uncle, but that's largely because he's always allowed to do his own thing. We go out to dinner and he has his headphones in and playing on his phone the entire time.

I'm not a parent and I don't know how you focus kids who are unfocused. Some do it on their own and don't need help. Generally, my experience has been that if a kid is unfocused, he or she will always be that away unless they change it.

For example, one of my best friends was a slightly above average student while we were growing up. He didn't work real hard, but generally made As and Bs. In high school he wasn't in honors classes, and would have been out of his league if he were. But he got involved in debate and decided he wanted to be the best, and he worked his ass off like I hadn't seen him do our entire lives. Then he decided he wanted to be a lawyer and be a great one. He is, and it's entirely because he decided to focus and work at it. Based on his IQ alone, he couldn't do that. His hard work made it happen.

I'm not defending the current system. I firmly believe kids learn in different ways and it's crazy to put kids into a one-size-fits-all curriculum. But the reason most kids fail isn't because they are bored, it's usually because they won't commit.

This strikes as very true to me. I had a B+ average throughout K-12 without ever doing much of anything outside of class (homework or studying). My report cards always said the same stuff "does well, could do better if he applied himself". This was never some surprise to me to read, but what the hell was the incentive to try harder? I saw the kids that got straight A's and they fell into two categories: really, really naturally smart (something I'm just not), or very, very studious (IE hard workers). Ok so I could spend 2 hours a night doing homework like those kids most similar to myself, but why? So I could have an A instead of B? What does that get me? Oh, nothing you say? That's right, no one fucking cares if you got an A in grade 8 social studies or a B.

So if my 13 year old self can choose between playing Sega Genesis with my brother all evening or burying my nose in a book, I knew what I was choosing. And looking back I still think I'd make the same decisions again. I will say it burned me in University, because I was not prepared to do the work. But I think parenting could have prevented this. My parents were EXTREMELY hands off in this regard, which is nice in some ways but went to the point of being too hands off. I think some guidance from them could have made all the difference, though ultimately I learned my own lessons, learned to work hard, and have made out ok. So who knows.

It's going to be very interesting to see if I change my tune on any of this stuff as I start dealing with it first-hand as a parent. My two boys (3 and 5) have both spent the last year at a Montessori school and I've been astounded by the progress they've made during that time and how they just eat up all the stuff they are learning at 'school'. My oldest will hit public school kindergarten in the fall and it will be interesting to see how things go. I'm hoping I can find a good medium as a parent, somewhere between my own parents idea of just letting me do whatever the hell I wanted all the time and of being some overbearing douche that is trying to control the future of his children like a puppeteer.

[judicial clerk]

I think maybe we overemphasize the value of academic-setting intelligence. Being smart is good and we can consider it as "gifted", but I think that being "driven" or having pride in performance or being "self motivated" or whatever you want to call is the more rare and valuable trait.

The kid who does all of their assigned homework, or does all of their chores, or puts in the time on the practice field because they refuse to give less than 100% in whatever they do, that is the "gifted kid."

[Izulde]

The Type A personality you mean.

[rowech]

Originally Posted by judicial clerk

I think maybe we overemphasize the value academic-setting intelligence. Being smart is good and we can consider it as "gifted", but I think that being "driven" or having pride in performance or being "self motivated" or whatever you want to call is the more rare and valuable trait.

The kid who does all of their assigned homework, or does all their chores, or puts in the time on the practice field because they refuse to give less than 100% in whatever they do, that is the "gifted kid."

I cannot for the life of me find the article I want to post here about how Asian cultures rarely give praise and when they do it is for work ethic of students -- not their grades or how smart they are. Contrast here is that we constantly tell kids how smart they are which eventually translates to -- I really don't need to work that hard because I'm smart enough already.

[Jughead Spock]

Originally Posted by judicial clerk

I think maybe we overemphasize the value academic-setting intelligence. Being smart is good and we can consider it as "gifted", but I think that being "driven" or having pride in performance or being "self motivated" or whatever you want to call is the more rare and valuable trait.

The kid who does all of their assigned homework, or does all their chores, or puts in the time on the practice field because they refuse to give less than 100% in whatever they do, that is the "gifted kid."

Exactly true. Hard-working trumps 'gifted' every day in the real world. And privilege tends to trump them both...

Hopefully our culture can move away from telling kids they're special little snowflakes. Trick is finding that balance of preparing them for the 'real world', and still letting them be kids. The workload and expectations these days are way more than previous generations.

[CU Tiger]

I think this is a fascinating thread.
Lot of the stories here have me nodding my head. I was probably the typical smart but lazy kid. Dont think I made a B on a report card until 8th grade. Never did homework or did it in class after doing whatever the class was doing.

Sports however were much more of a challenge and for whatever reason I felt good grades were either something to not be proud of ('I didnt really do anything God made me smart' my child brain would reason) or something to hide or even be ashamed of. I was cleaning out my moms old house and found an award I won my senior year where I was named academic athlete of the year for the region. I never displayed that plaque because it recognized the academic portion of me and was not based on athletic "skill" which I equated to hard work and something to be proud of. In fact that plaque was still in the box it was given to me and in a box of other stuff marked "junk" while trophys from little league on were in a "memories" box. (I sorted all this once at like 21 when mom moved out)

Even into college I did just enough to skate by. Got a 2.5 GPA and studied minimally. Remember a junior class that was a "weed out" course and the professor was a notorious hard ass. For some reason it resonated that I better buckle down here, I made a high A (96-97 maybe) average for the semester while simultaneously making Cs and Bs on classes that others breezed by with As.

So I guess I had the ability but lacked the drive. Still true to this day, when I had my own company Id work hours, tirelessly at a task that I deemed important that others might not even think needed to be done. But nearly got myself in trouble for not doing critical business tasks (IE filing taxes)...I learend early to identify what I didnt want to do, and wouldnt otherwise do and hire it out. Fortunately I enjoyed hiring and training so I was generally good at finding and on boarding employees.

The only real job I had before going into business for myself, Ill never forget my last review. It was Essentially "CU can do near anything he sets his mind to. He is self motivated and self driven. Unfortunately his focus can not be directed by management or financial reward so the challenge we face is finding out how to make him value what we value. Once this is accomplished he regularly achieves it."

That was one of the more honest evals I ever got and still rings true. I am not particularly proud of that trait but have learned more to accept it as "who I am" and have given up trying to be something I am not.