any "gifted" folks here - need stories @ curriculum

[peartreed]

One time-tested tribal technique of coercing conformity is mocking the misfits.

Satire, sarcasm and simple denigration works wonders at stifling dissent and diminishing dissidents, or deriding all those different into the category of jokes. Crowd comedy can costume cruelty as conventional entertainment and lighten the load of social conscience with alleviating laughter. It eases ignorance.

In extreme forms comedy can cover racism, bigotry and classification of social rejects overtly and openly so that the hilarity hides the mean manipulation and the amused don’t even notice the harmful hand behind the puppetry. But the ludicrous labels stick to the subjects of the scorn and stain the society with its own poisoning parody.

The kids thus isolated in school and the adults formed in that circus still suffer.

Having that said, and getting the umbrage off my chest, I can now return to enjoying and laughing along with the above creative replies.

[Luther Blissett]

I am the son of a international grand champion in chess and double PHD and a brilliant Russian physicist who from photographs was too beautiful for words. I never met my mother because she was "lost" and never found in Turkey during a scientific summit. Being the love of his life, my brilliant but of course troubled father never recovered and lost himself in a series of affairs with numerous emigres seeking admission to American universities or resident status through (promised but never realized) marriage to my father. These multilingual women seeking my fathers favor became my nannies, my kozas, my kinderfraus, and I rapidly pick up the rudimentary use of numerous European languages by the time I was potty-trained. At three I was reading sight words in five languages. My father, though, grew increasingly bitter and possibly jealous of my growing intellect. As I started to show great promise at five with math, and his special realm of chess, he became more repressive and sadistic in his peculiar form of homeschooling. I had to study Algebra and play Chess on the sly, pretending to be watching cartoons and reading comic books in my room. Around the same time he had starting contracting with the government in forms of rapid training deployment for military and industrial technicians. While all I wanted to do all day was ride my bicycle, study linear equations and build computers and program them from kits he increasingly used me as his guinea pig for the experimental sensory training devices. This only helped to further alienate me of course from my peers because besides being a polyglot math whiz at six I now was a walking manual of how best to service nuclear submarines.

To say then, when I started school I was a little "special" is a bit of an understatement. Skipping grades and then being basically given the run of the building because no teacher wanted me in their class I was a tiny Hamlet at the age of seven roaming the halls pontificating to myself about all manner of "college level" things. But I'll never forget when I met with the school principal after numerous clashes with my peers and teachers. After having explained my unique background and experience and why it contributed to my incompatibly with modern mass schooling he look at me and replied, "Stanley, I know your mom and dad. I went to school with them. They both work down at the Safeway. Testing wise, your average, if that. You only know one language, English and not even at your grade level. The only thing you excel at is in bullshit stories." It was then I tugged my right earlobe and turned Mr. Jenkins into a unicorn.

…Don't give me degrees I've been at the seaport all day long
Just me and my paintbox abstracting numbers in the sun
Bye bye bye long division…

[semper occultus]

.......quite interesting that yet another author involved in matters weird

(....Levenda....Sarfatti....Strieber )

Andrew Colvin the Mothman researcher who claims his dad was connected to some peculiar stuff Philadelphia Experiment & some influential people mentions ( podcast interview #3 at link ) that he was part of a cohort of pupils at school in W Virginia full of "genius kids" who were subject to military types charting their progress under the aegis of a govt. funded programme called the Appalachian Project, at one stage had a documentary crew come to interview them supervised by someone from the Air Force & as an extra little twist - Sarah Jane Moore of the Manson family lived right next door....

http://thinkorbebeaten.com/The%20Grassy ... gk-17.html

[stefano]

I forgot about this thread... wanted to post last time I saw it. When I was in primary school (about eight) I and two friends were selected for a programme of this sort, once a week in a different part of Pretoria, with kids from different primary schools. All white, of course, and IIRC all Afrikaans. This was in the mid-1980s, feverish times for South Africa's late-stage apartheid government. It was pretty much like the other programmes detailed in this thread - I remember the chemistry, physics and astronomy stuff in particular. Quite advanced, definitely three or four years ahead of the school curriculum. But I remember some other stuff that doesn't, in hindsight, seem to belong - I quite clearly remember one man who came to tell us that the song Puff the magic dragon was really about drugs, and that 'the Communists' (the catch-all bogeyman of the time and place) were using it to corrupt the youth.

I don't remember a lot more about the thing - I went for about three years, then we moved to France and when we came home it was a different country. When I saw this thread last time I phoned my mom to ask if she thought there was some deep state angle to it - she reckons there wasn't, that it was dedicated educators who wanted to provide something other than the really conformist standard curriculum to bright kids. (She might not have let me go had she thought that - she was anti-apartheid in a not-too-engaged, suburban way.) I doubt she's right, though - even if it started out that way, there is no way the maniacs in charge in those days would have failed to try getting their teeth into a cohort of intelligent young Afrikaner kids. A programme with a substantial budget would have had to be greenlighted by someone in the education department with deep state connections (or at least someone who knew better than to sign off without making a few phone calls to hear if it was all right). And the Communist stuff certainly suggests some political pressure. Maybe democracy interrupted the programme before we were recruited in a real way. The new government certainly had other priorities than an extra level of education for already privileged primary school kids.

[brainpanhandler]

I have no recollections of shadowy military types being around me in primary school, but I always tested out well above my grade level. It wasn't until high school that a counselor told me this. I took endless tests as a kid. They kept the results from us. I moved around a lot as a kid. I would get stuck in odd classes with all the other socially awkward, shy kids. My belief at the time was that I was being stuck in classes for slow, screwy kids because there was no structure to what we were doing. These classes didn't even seem to have a name or a subject. I remember one class in middle school where we were simply asked what we would like to do and allowed to do it. I said I wanted to make a map of Middle Earth and that's what I spent the whole class doing. My impression in hindsight is that the various schools I went to as a kid were doing their best to try to rescue bright kids from a system for whom the regular curriculum was boring and actually counter productive.

[battleshipkropotkin]

I was in a GT program from Kindergarten through graduation (1980-91), the same school district the whole time.
General info: http://www.leanderisd.org/users/0001/do ... Pack15.pdf
Main page:
http://www.leanderisd.org/default.aspx? ... QUEST.main

I was also an underachiever/troublemaker.

[lucky]

I went to a public school in England (private school but ..ya know) and when i went to meet the headmaster of the prep school he talked a little then gace me some kind of puzzle which i completed then another slightky harder one and so forth.When i got to the 4-5th one he looked genuinly puzzled,excited unnerved in equal measure i can't remember any of the puzzles but they were like rubik cube sort of things and placing things in order. I don't remembner how many i had done but at least 15 or so ,my father told me later that the Headmaster had never seen anyone complete anywhere near that number or so quickly.
I Stayed at the school and the subsequent senior school (Millfield School) until I left in '82 and although I smoked, drank even sold pot I never once got in to trouble (even tho' my behaviour was an open secret)and sorta felt like I was in an experiment -being watched and assessed. The head at that school had an 'elite 'cohort of athletes me included measured, weighed, strength tested for a period to see what made a perfect sports person or some such nonsense - can't remember how long but at least a year i think....never gave any of this any thought til just now after reading this thread. weird indeed

[lucky]

I went to a public school in England (private school but ..ya know) and when i went to meet the headmaster of the prep school he talked a little then gace me some kind of puzzle which i completed then another slightky harder one and so forth.When i got to the 4-5th one he looked genuinly puzzled,excited unnerved in equal measure i can't remember any of the puzzles but they were like rubik cube sort of things and placing things in order. I don't remembner how many i had done but at least 15 or so ,my father told me later that the Headmaster had never seen anyone complete anywhere near that number or so quickly.
I Stayed at the school and the subsequent senior school (Millfield School) until I left in '82 and although I smoked, drank even sold pot I never once got in to trouble (even tho' my behaviour was an open secret)and sorta felt like I was in an experiment -being watched and assessed. The head at that school had an 'elite 'cohort of athletes me included measured, weighed, strength tested for a period to see what made a perfect sports person or some such nonsense - can't remember how long but at least a year i think....never gave any of this any thought til just now after reading this thread. weird indeed

[nashvillebrook]

I went through the same. They were really "scared of me" because I was reading at a "12th grade level" in the 1st but I refused tests and from what my mom and dad say teachers would approach them because they felt I was "smarter than them". So they singled me out and started calling me out of class. I really hated this attention because as we all know the pressure of peers at that age. I didn't feel "special" getting drawn out of class, I felt embarrassed. So all throughout my youth I crafted better and better ways to call MYSELF out of class. Ditching and acting up -- I even got expelled and flunked 8th grade! Numerous times a week counselors that I guess dealt with "gifted" kiddos would call me in and beg me to join the "group" again. My parents begged me. I was missing opportunities. I refused all authority.

Fuck no, I said. I wanted to skate and do what I wanted. Probably like all of us I am almost completely self taught. Doesn't mean anything, but class was fucking bullshit. Wound up graduating on time with, I kid you not, a SUB 0.8 GPA. My transcript was basically nothing but Fs and Ds.

However I was eager to go to college and did. 3.9 GPA without even trying -- but enjoying. Off the bat. I think this had to be before meticulous databases of students, because I would just enroll in 400 level classes and see if I could get in and I would and round up getting A's or B+s with no prerequisites. Who fucking knows. Within three years I was accepted to Hampshire, Amherst and UMASS. I never went and I am sorta glad, but who knows, again? Life and death called and I freaked out.

For the record, I feel like I am "bragging" about something, but I am not. But half of my life dealt with this as it is the truth.

You asked for experiences (and I could go on) so there's that from me!

I lost track of this thread, and just found it tonight b/c we started work on the writing again. Just read all the posts and JEEZ...heartbreaking and amazing and inspiring. 82_28...this so tracks with my experience. By the 8th grade I was just *done* with everything except art and photography. By 10th grade I was basically dropping out (probably owing to shitty home life more than anything) and had some relatives step in and bring me up to live with them, switching schools and apply for college with my sub-2.0 GPA. Once in college I applied myself to the point of obsession, and took insanely difficult classes, skipping the prerequisites and going straight to senior-level stuff like Philosophy of Mind and Issues in Latin American Political Science. Stayed in undergrad for 6 years b/c i was having so much fun.

I wish I understood what the difference was. Maybe it was not living with the dysfunctional family? Maybe it was having actual REAL stuff to think about. Or really being challenging in a way that mattered.

Something that I see repeated in this thread, is that some of these programs took the shape of independent study. There were a couple of years that my program did that. It was the worst possible thing for a bunch of creative, bored, smartass kids. We just fucked off, naturally. I think we needed something to obsess on, or to be competitive with (I'm trying to imagine what it was that engaged me in college that was missing earlier in school).

If our program had continued on with the spooky/crazy quasi-spy stuff, we would have been all ears. You couldn't have kept us away from class.

[jlaw172364]

Reading these responses, it seems like we all have a lot in common, because a lot of things resonate with me from my own childhood experiences.

Basically, my dad worked for a large multinational. He came from a middle-class background, but was intelligent, so was able to get into a top school and get a STEM job which then led to further advancement.

So we moved around a lot. We settled for a few years in the middle class area of an affluent suburb, where I made some friends, but then we moved overseas where I went to an international school.

At the international school, I was surrounded by many children of privilege. I only recall a few of them appearing genuinely gifted, one kid in particular.

One thing that is interesting that I do remember is that all the elementary school teachers were British. And they all had kids in the school. For some reason, all of their kids were allowed to skip a grade. I wasn't. This irked me. I suspected politics were at work. I lobbied to go into a more rigorous version of my class, since they wouldn't let me skip and was allowed to do so. The kids that were allowed to skip quickly developed a superiority complex. Looking back on it, it's probably safe to say that the teachers were working the system for their children's benefit because they suspected the system to be bullshit, being teachers and all.

One advantage to growing up overseas: the televsion has no interest because you don't understand the language. So you read books instead. I trained myself to read for long periods of time, even in cars, which I was told was impossible because of "motion sickness," which I found I was able to overcome by training myself to.

Then we moved back to the States.

Needless to say, things took a turn for the worse.

Since I had this experience, I was different from my peers, and thus shunned and ridiculed for several years. This baffled me because I had plenty of friends overseas. The degree of viciousness was also surprising too. I would cite the television and sugary foods as two major influences.

A lot things I was expected to study, I had already studied.

I lobbied to get into better classes, but was barred for some reason. This bar was lifted in high school. There was the clique of children earmarked as gifted who were pushed into the classes in junior high school and they continued the curriculum in high school. I wasn't allowed to join them in junior high school, but I took classes with them in high school. Again, I suspected politics were at work. Ironically, many of the gifted classes weren't more rigorous than the regular classes. I suspect the teachers didn't want to short-change anyone.

I was able to get into the more advanced classes because the universal shunning in junior high school meant I had plenty of time to spending reading. I soon read through most of the "children's" books. I began to suspect the whole "children's books" thing as nothing more than cheap trick to dumb children down. As soon as I started reading adult books, my brain adapted VERY quickly. I had been led to believe they would be "hard" and that I should wait. Instead, I quickly took to them. Consequently, many of my peers in the gifted classes were surprised that I knew a lot of vocabulary words because I wasn't in any of their classes. This earned me a modicum of respect.

I could excel in school, but I hated most of the work. Most of all, I hated all the rules and routines. It felt like non-freedom to me. I was kept in line with promises that it would all pay off someday. It never did. At least not directly. Everything of value that I know today I more or less taught myself in my free time.

To me, the school system seemed destructive and predatory, even though I could adapt to it and use it to my supposed future advantage, but I was constantly being gaslighted by my family and the media, so I repressed those thoughts. The flaws must be with me, I thought.

When I read John Taylor Gatto's work, lots of things began to make sense.

[Luther Blissett]

Maybe we've all been corralled and isolated here through social engineering as part of an ongoing operation. Jeff Wells, what is your relationship to the gifted program?

[Nordic]

Maybe we've all been corralled and isolated here through social engineering as part of an ongoing operation. Jeff Wells, what is your relationship to the gifted program?

"Only an idiot would be a conspiracy theorist". Not.

Doing this kind of research and all the other stuff that I do, then going out into the real world, I am constantly reminded of being back in school where I was one of the very few who would know the answers to .... well, whatever. The homework, the questions the teachers would ask in the front of class. I usually kept my head down (meaning my hand down) because of the bias against the "brains". It wasn't a real good way to be popular if you were a brain.

My point being, I'm used to being one of the few people who have figured shit out. Not bragging, that's just how it was growing up. But that's how I feel whenever discussions at work, or on FB or wherever else come up about subjects on which I have done a lot of research, such as Deep State shenanigans, conspiracies, the media's complicitness in the neo-fascism of our country, etc. etc., you know, all the stuff we talk about here.

I often say it's like being the kid who has figured out Santa Claus doesn't exist, when all the other kids still believe. It's frustrating, mainly because they don't want to hear it. They REALLY do not want to hear it.

Now we have a fucking "election season" upon us, where it's nothing but that kind of shit, until ... when? Oh yeah, the next 15 months. Great.

I'll be the guy in the corner, reading, with headphones on, so I can tune out all the bullshit.


on edit: Just occurred to me, this is a good place to ask this question: Ever wonder what it must be like to be even vastly smarter than WE are? I mean, to be at a level where even people like us seem kinda stupid? Maybe there are a few people here like that, god knows there are some fucking talented writers here, and researchers. Jeff Wells, which is the reason I came here in the first place, was certainly way ahead of the crowd, even for this crowd. You know? I'm sure it's impossible to answer, and it's all relative, but I've always wondered about that. How annoying and alienating that must be. It's bad enough to be where I am. I know I'm pretty fucking smart, and creative, and have a really good set of eyes, far better than most people, but I'm not a genius.

[brainpanhandler]

on edit: Just occurred to me, this is a good place to ask this question: Ever wonder what it must be like to be even vastly smarter than WE are? I mean, to be at a level where even people like us seem kinda stupid? Maybe there are a few people here like that, god knows there are some fucking talented writers here, and researchers. Jeff Wells, which is the reason I came here in the first place, was certainly way ahead of the crowd, even for this crowd. You know? I'm sure it's impossible to answer, and it's all relative, but I've always wondered about that. How annoying and alienating that must be. It's bad enough to be where I am. I know I'm pretty fucking smart, and creative, and have a really good set of eyes, far better than most people, but I'm not a genius.

I've been around such people. They generally hide it in order to make others more comfortable around them and they are generally humble and self effacing in spite of their superior intellects.

I am certainly no genius either. It's interesting though to take the various "IQ tests" available online. When I take the ones with a time limit I test out just above legally mentally impaired. When I have as much time as I need I test out as super genius. Go figure.

[82_28]

I think that every entity in the Universe is "smart" and perhaps smarter than me. But, if we're just going with humans, I think that every soul has something to offer whether it be helpful, benign or evil. I think "WE" are just a loose band of vagabonds who would not know one another were it not for the Internet. In some ways I don't even remember the days of no internet. It's kind of impossible to imagine when you couldn't just look something up.

[brainpanhandler]

I think that every entity in the Universe is "smart" and perhaps smarter than me. But, if we're just going with humans, I think that every soul has something to offer whether it be helpful, benign or evil. I think "WE" are just a loose band of vagabonds who would not know one another were it not for the Internet. In some ways I don't even remember the days of no internet. It's kind of impossible to imagine when you couldn't just look something up.

Not sure how old you are 82-28, but there used to be these things called "encyclopedias". They were a collection of things called 'books' made out of paper that contained a large body of knowledge arranged in alpha order.

Edit: I am of course just being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole.