The Prodigy Puzzle

theodp writes "Once neglected, the NY Times reports that America's smartest children have become the beneficiaries of a well-organized effort to recognize their gifts and develop their talent. Programs like those offered by the Davidson Institute, run by Bob and Jan Davidson of Math and Reading Blaster fame, have sprung up to nurture the intellectual development of profoundly intelligent young people. But do we know how to identify the child whose brilliance might change the world? And do we really want to?"

Comments

Re:The children will ask themselves

[MarkRose]

I was one of those gifted kids (nothing exceptional, just precocious). I found school itself rather accommodating. For the most part, I was either giving more challenging work or simply challenged myself. The real issues I had were dealing with peers. I simply could not relate to anyone my age as they were all interested in mentally unstimulating things. Of course, I have adjusted in my adult years and now get along with just about anyone, but I wish I had had more like me growing up. Finding things ridiculously easy did have its effects. Until I went on to post secondary education, I had a great deal of hubris. Not having needed any studying skills for the very relaxed pace in high school, I was quickly blown by by those who high school was geared for. Of course, I could have done the work, but didn't. I am not blaming the system, but I think the system could use adjustment. Smart kids are definitely left out.

It's about time.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm posting anon so no one can claim I'm bragging. My IQ was pegged at 176 when I was 5. This was enough to get me a scholarship to a private school. By the time I was 8, I'd not done well enough in the private school to keep the scholarship and transferred to publich school, which was no better, despite scoring 188 on another IQ test. Why? Because despite the better curriculum, there was still the cookie-cutter, assembly-line, mass-production mentality of teaching: "All kids are the same, churn them through the machine, no one needs special treatment." And that's not true. Really smart kids need special attention just like kids with learning disabilities or mental handicaps. Later in my school career, I did manage to find some teachers who recognized different kids perform differently, and with some adjustment, I wound up with 100+% scores at year's end.

With the proper attention paid to these smart kids' needs, we can help their brilliance flourish, and we WILL find ourselves in a better world for it. I knwo my life would have been significantly different had the proper resources been spent on my development. Not every kid grows up with two rich parents who can spend the amount of time/money to tailor an academic curriculum to their kids.

Hell, in general the US could use a major overhaul of the educational system. It's way too focused on conformity and process than on results.

Re:It is not IQ

[blincoln]

It is a good thing we have ritalin to fix them.

I have AD(H)D, and I take Concerta (time-release Ritalin) because it lets me focus on things long enough to actually get them done. It hasn't made me less creative, or less odd, just less flakey.

I'm an adult, and I never tried it when I was a kid. But I wish I'd had the opportunity to, because I know I would have done a lot better in school. It's what let me focus enough to work with math, finally =).

Re:smartest-kids-read-slashdot

[itwerx]

I've heard more intelligent and original discussion over trucker band cb radio.
I've got an uncle who was a trucker for 40 years and his IQ is off the charts...
      Then again you probably wouldn't have heard much from him on the CB, he always said he liked trucking because it was the only job where 99% of the time he didn't have to talk to anybody! :)

Re:The children will ask themselves

[toddbu]

I've yet to take a class that actually challenges me

I spent a year teaching in college, and I have to say that one of the most difficult things to do is pick a good target when teaching. If you teach to the top 10% then the rest of the class suffers, and the same is true when you teach to the bottom 10%. The problem is greatest at the entry level, where you have everyone from the student who thinks that maybe they'd like to learn how to program a computer all the way up to the kids who have been coding since they were ten years old and know at least six computer languages. My solution, which some might criticize, was to target something around the top 25%. My goal was to keep the class exciting for those who understood the material, and to use those students who picked up the material quickly to help the others along. To some degree it worked, but I also failed nearly 1/3 of the students in my very first class. I suspect that most of them never had the heart for it anyway, but you always wonder about those few students who may have succeeded had the class not been so tough.

When you spend 12 years doing something that is neither interesting nor challenging to you, yeah, you tend to just stop caring.

Or maybe you just got lazy. At the end of the day, there are plenty of things that a kid can do to keep themselves occupied. In math class, I used to go to the end of the book and do problems that I knew we'd never get to in class. Then I'd visit the teacher after class to verify my answers. It was a great way for me to send the message that I was bored. It never changed anything, and after a while I also became lazy, but I really could have kept myself challenged if I wanted. When I was teaching I always used my assignments as a "minimum" for my students. I'd say something like "Here's what I want you to do, but if you do more then that's great. I'll look over the code, but you don't get any extra credit. In fact, if you screw up the original assignment then your grade will go down. I want you to do more because you want to, for the pure enjoyment." I often had students take me up on the offer, and I think that they benefited from the exercise. Often, I think recognition of work that's well done is more of an incentive to a student than getting a good grade.

Re:The children will ask themselves

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Is this a troll?

Look, unless you have some other mental deficiencies, your 151 IQ should be nothing but a boon to you. Social skills are something that is just as readily learned as riding a horse. Just because it's not hard science doesn't mean you can't apply your brain to it. And your excuse about "losing the will to learn" and not wanting to memorize facts is just a cop-out. If you're such a genius, figure out a way to make memorization easy. Sure, it's mind-numbing, but if you're a genius you'll realize that a 4.0 GPA has a good chance of getting you a free ride through college and a good job afterward, instead of years of student loans and shitty jobs. The X number of crap hours you put into memorizing shit you don't care about is well worth the increase in the odds that things will pay off.

I'm sure there's plenty of people out there with IQ's up in your range that have no problem with either social skills or motivation. I may not be a 151, but I have tested as high as 146, can pick up new concepts so quick it scares people, and am still fun at a bar and have no problem getting laid. And shit, I moved around so much until 5th grade I was pretty much a poster-child for maladjusted socially stunted kids everywhere. Take your big-ass brain and apply it to real life, and stop making excuses. Learning how to deal with people is not some magically different subject that's impossible for smart people to figure out. Hearing crap like that is what kept me a socially retarded little fuckhead until halfway through high school.

Most people would love to have an excuse like yours. "I'm too smart to deal with normal people and normal subjects." Do you have any idea what a dickhead that makes you sound like? Parents love to shove that down your throat because it makes them feel special. Teachers love to shove it down your throat because you're not threatening if you're some idiot savant freak instead of just being way smarter than them and able to see through their bullshit. Some genius who applies their intelligence to social skills and reading people is a teacher's worst nightmare, unless you turn the charm on full blast and make them like you. You know what though? If someone likes you, they'll never think you're a genius, at best they'll think you're really smart.

Stop with the BS excuses. Even if you do actually have some kind of deficiency, with your IQ you should at least be able to pull off normal. Try it, you'll have more fun.