At school were you on the "gifted and pleasure to teach" end or "would do well if applied self and stopped getting distracted"?
Somehow both simultaneously
Good multi tasking! I approve
Both, depending on the teacher who wrote the report, or even the subject.
I had (and carried to Uni) a bad habit of correcting teachers and professors. Also asked questions that made educators interpret that I enjoyed bending the logic of what they were teaching.
Great for math and physics, but bad for weak egos and those who didn’t think deeply or creatively about the subject material.
I thought about my answer before opening the comments and I feel validated to find you already posted it verbatim.
asked questions that made educators interpret that I enjoyed bending the logic of what they were teaching.
I had this problem too but mainly for math. I'd do well in classes and tests, but the material just didn't make sense to me. It wasn't until I studied real analysis that everything started to click.
First one, then depression kicked in and I was neither
I was gifted, pleasant to teach, and distracted the teachers by asking tangential questions that were interesting enough for them to answer, thus derailing the entire class. One teacher actually put that in my report card and complained about it to my parents.
🖐️ teacher's pet.
I was the former. It went really well until college when I actually needed to study. I struggle to learn by reading and am terrible at being internally motivated so... College could have gone better.
Same. Honestly, even in college things were OK until social relationships got in the way, and then I couldn't manage. Things fell apart so fast...
Both lol. In elementary school I got very good grades and teachers really liked me. Except the ones that minded that I was constantly writing stories and drawing during lessons.
I got scolded often for not paying attention (who cares, I'm getting good grades, let me do my thing!!!) and some teachers would even confiscate my writings and drawings to keep me from being distracted.
One teacher especially didn't like that I could not pay attention in class and still get good grades. She took away a story I had been working on for a while and never gave it back. I still get mad when I think about it.
Eugenia, if you're reading this, I will never forgive you!!! >:(
That's a pretty shitty thing to do to a child
I was in the “we’re going to put you in advanced placement as a form of special ed, because you get bored and start asking questions that are too advanced for the rest of the class” group.
Yes, those advanced “you’re so gifted and talented, so we’re going to put you in a cool class where you get to do logic puzzles instead of regular math” classes were a form of special ed. They were designed to sequester you away from the rest of your class. Not as a punishment, but because the modern school system relies on students in each class actually being at the same level. If students are above or below a certain range, they slow down instruction for the entire class, as the teacher is forced to spend extra time with just those individual students.
Most people think of special ed as just being the disabled kids, but the reality is that special ed is any kind of class that pulls you out of the rest of the class. Again, because class time is focused on the 80% of students who are at the same level, not the 10% who are above or below it. If you’re too far below, the teacher has to spend extra time rehashing material. And if you’re too far above, you end up asking a ton of questions that the teacher hasn’t built the groundwork to answer yet.
Maybe your class is learning module {A}, and students will tend to ask questions about {A} or maybe {B}. But you immediately grasped the concept of {A}, read ahead to {B} because you were bored, found a shortcut to get to {C}, and are asking questions about {D}. All while the rest of the class is still learning {A}. And the questions you’re asking won’t even be relevant until you get to {C} or {D}, so devoting time to answering them would be a waste of time for the 80% of the class that is learning {A}. So instead of letting you slow the rest of the class down, they ship you off to a “gifted and talented” class once or twice a week, to be with kids at your own level.
Applied self and stop day dreaming. It also didn't help I had two older brothers who were known trouble makers. So by the time I got to school the teachers' perception of me was already skewed. For the most part I just fell through the cracks and was pushed on to get rid of me. I graduated eighth grade with straight Fs.
Yes
In elementary school, the former. I was the darling of the teachers and hated by the students.
I was definitely the latter, I was a disgrace to the school, would never amount to anything etc. Always underachieving and was blamed for it
Yes, second. Thats default polite way to tell that you not very smart when it comes to learning.
the second for sure. once a year there'd be that teacher who'd try to connect and it always went the same way. they'd assume i was feeling insecure about my ability and statements like "i hate touching this paper" or "grades are meaningless nonsense" were part of that. they needle me until i said fine and did a weeks worth of class material in one sitting. then they go "oh see this is amazing you'd be a straight A student if you applied yourself". meanwhile my stress level is at an 11 from all the tactile sensery hell. and from that point on i'd just ditch their class.
If you were a teacher and were trying to get the best outcomes for kids like you, what would you do?
my son is in a great communication and interaction program with dedicated space inside the school. lots of sensory adaptive tools and quiet areas. theres awareness that some of the kids just dont care about being praised, but making the content contextually relavent and assuming they have the self awareness to decide does work. though praise definitely works with my son. had a lot of really interesting discussions with his teacher. i may very well have had a wildy different experiance if that space had existed 30 years ago. at the time all that i wanted was to do self paced remote classes where i could submit everything via computer. which by highschool was an option. but at that time the only goal was me in a gen-ed classroom with my behavior adjusted to make everyone else around me comfotable. allowing me to do what would work for me was seen as failure by everyone making decisions.
for the tactile part specifically. e-readers, stone paper for writing and terraslate if i need printed materials. have significantly improved my life.
I got sent to a special ed school that didn't even have actual classes cause they thought us autistic kids were too stupid for that
Both. You'd get different answers from different teachers.
Teachers who knew their shit and were flexible, would say the former.
Teachers who were authoritatian and barely knew enough of their field to pass minimum standards for teaching would claim I was "lazy" or "obstinate".
I was the "gifted but needs to apply himself more" stereotype up until mid-to-late teens when depression and anxiety got the better of me for real. I also always struggled with holding presentations in front of class, and that only got worse over time which did impact some of my grades.
The first one K-5th grade, the second for the remainder.
Interesting. What caused the change?
My mom stopped being a sahm and went back to work. This resulted in a significant increase in processed foods in my diet, due to the ease of providing these foods relative to home cooked meals, and my unsupervised access to an essentially endless supply of junk food and soda. Additionally, it resulted in less time outside performing physical exercise and less time spent positively socializing with other people. And also, reduced attention given to my sleep habits and personal grooming. These changes resulted in me going from a fairly happy and bright, if odd, student; to a rather poor but untroublesome student who was overweight, ungroomed, constantly sleep deprived, had poor executive function, and who suffered from somewhat severe social anxiety and depression.
Depends on which class lol. My art teachers thought I was a dream, math and english not so much.
Wow, I never took art seriously (was always screwing around), but was always great at math (at least when I wasn't lazy).
I think my whole report card the entire time i was in elementary was NEEDS TO APPLY HIMSELF MORE.
Yep you could play bingo with it on my report cards!
In middle school, I was in learning disability class and the gifted program at the same time. In retrospect, the LD was probably just due to organizational ADHD stuff. I was first diagnosed ADHD in the early '80s, but my parents didn't tell me until 20-something years later.
I got sent to saturday school at the high school when I was in 4th grade (which meant my mom having to cancel anything and drive me there to a place I've never been leaving me in complete horror) because I would finish my work and couldn't just sit still and do nothing. My mom asked them to give me more work to do and the teacher refused.
The first one ☺️ and I still like being called a good boy to this day 😇
The second half. I’d get failing grades in final projects (e.g. math) because I failed to read the instructions, would complete only one side of a test because I forgot to the check the other side, would tell long stories to my teacher in class, would just not take science seriously, but studied my butt off for history (which was so much reading). I don’t think my teachers generally liked me (some didn’t at all), but that sort of changed when I moved states from red to blue and got better instruction.
Hey, nice seeing you here.
Teachers usually said I was gifted but a pain to teach and I'd get in trouble frequently for disrupting class, this went on even in university. My psychiatrist says it's likely I'm actually gifted, but I don't want to know if I am or not because I'm already too arrogant
Heeeeyyy! Nice to see you too 😊
#2 but I wasn’t distracted. I just didn’t care and didn’t like school. Passed anyway, but was a C student.
"Not working up to his potential." From the teachers in the gifted program I got bussed across town to attend.
I was the "does not work well with others"
Mostly because they excluded me
I was "would do well if applied self and stopped getting distracted" when - things were too new, too hard, too boring, too distracting (not engaging), too much memorization of random facts and rules (history/geography/language).
I was "gifted and pleasure to teach" when - I got all the support I needed and I was shown that there was a system that was logical that I can understand if I just tried (math/physics/chemistry).
Well, can I be both? At least I was until this year (second half of high school). Now I'm just lazy and half-ass everything.
Quiet and polite in class. Bored because she can do the work. Once I was unable to coast, they got mean.
I was such an insane trouble magnet that I've gone to about 10 different schools over the course of my life. Something about me is just incredibly provocative.
If the general public is anything to go by. Pissing me off is the most fun you'll ever have.