“He’s so bright, if only he’d apply himself”
\n
\n“He’s almost<\/i> a genius” “He correctly answered questions that no
\nstudent of mine has answered correctly in the past decade, including
\n[redacted (my primary competition in this particular subject in high
\nschool)], but he needs to do his homework” “His vocabulary is better
\nthan mine but he has motivation problems” The above are selected,
\nrough (the praise is word for word, the rest was blurred by repetition
\n=), quotes from elementary and secondary school teachers of mine
\nsaid in front of me at parent teacher conferences. It should be noted
\nthat these were relatively rural private schools. It’s easier to be a
\nbig fish in a small pond.<\/p>\n
“Why don’t you wait for the rest of the class”. That was a quote from
\nSister Dorothy Gerlica, principal of my school at the time, when I
\nwalked in and clearly displayed a mastery of the basic principles of
\nalgebra while we were working on multiplication and division problems
\nin 7th grade. It may well have been the first time I tried to push my
\neducation ahead “through proper channels”, and I was rebuffed.
\nClearly, school wasn’t about maximizing human potential, it was about
\nkeeping the kids from having fun, and maybe dropping a scrap or two of
\nknowledge along the way. <\/p>\n
As a kid who was reading the blue and brown books of fairies (fairy
\ntale collections, don’t get any smart ideas =), bulfinch’s mythology,
\nthe narnia chronicles, the prydain chronicles, and more “choose your
\nown adventure”s than you can shake a stick at, and then reread them,
\nbecause there was nothing else for me to read, that I wasn’t
\ncompletely bored with, and that helped me escape the misery that was
\nmy life, you can bet I was disgusted with having to copy ‘pretty’ 20
\ntimes on paper to prove that I knew how to spell it, and didn’t do it.
\nI realize that the intent was not to prove, but to teach, but for me
\nit was only proof of what I already knew.<\/p>\n
I can count the teachers who really challenged me prior to college on
\none hand. With fingers left over. Fortunately, I can also count the
\nteachers who kept me from challenging myself on one hand, if I cared
\nto. (though I might have to step into binary counting on this one \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n
But the point is, I recognize I’m a little brighter than the average
\nbear, and definitely brighter than the average twink. And I take on
\nchallenges, like this political economy class. If I go in with the
\nright mindframe, that this is a _learning_ experience, not a _proving_
\nexperience, I do alright. But so often, I get trapped into thinking
\nabout it as something I _ought_ to already know, and running in a
\ncycle of panic. After all, I never needed to study in spelling,
\nright? =)<\/p>\n
“You can do anything you set your mind to” That’s a lie, which my But the real point here is that I don’t feel like I’ve come anywhere “He’s so bright, if only he’d apply himself”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nparents believed to be true. And it’s not a total lie. It’s probably
\ntrue as they meant it, but it wasn’t true the way I heard it. I knew
\nit wasn’t true, because I couldn’t walk through walls, change shape,
\nread minds, or move things without touching them (and I accuse my
\nlittle sister of having a strong attachment to fantasy, ‘hi kettle,
\nthis is pot, you don’t seem to be reflecting much light’). Maybe if
\nI’d set my mind to convincing myself that my life was really worth
\nliving.
\nclose to using my potential, or my abilities. Maybe this is egomania,
\nme still believing that if I try hard enough, I’ll turn into an X-man
\nor, more to the point, one of Niven’s Protectors. Surely it’s not so
\nhard for me as someone bright to find something that challenges and
\nengages me. I don’t really object to being in pittsburgh, but I do
\nreally object to working tech support. It’s a noble field, helping
\nothers with your skills, knowledge and intelligence (swampland,
\nflorida, you figure it out). But the pay is crap, and the field is
\nnot what I’m interested in. And I feel like I could be doing more for
\nthe benefit of humanity. (hence the volunteering for the aclu,
\ncanceled this morning, btw).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"