
Exceptionally gifted children: long-term outcomes of acceleration (2006) [pdf] - waterhouse
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ746290.pdf
======
knzhou
I tutor some exceptionally gifted students as a side gig (for scale: calculus
at 10, publishing research papers and learning graduate-level general
relativity at 14), and I can say that the lessons of papers like these have
been taken to heed. Today, there are tons of resources for kids like these,
and the explosion continues every year. Professors are taking them for
research projects, summer camps are bringing them together, and free online
courses are spoiling them with knowledge. We're at the point where full
courses are regularly put on Youtube in every field, with better teaching
quality than almost all "real" courses! The kids seem to be quite happy for
it, and I'm looking forward to the results in a couple decades.

My magnet high school was a smaller example of this. It had a reputation
around the area for producing great outcomes for students with rigorous
coursework, so people fought like crazy to get in. But once we did, we found
that we had almost zero homework and spent half of each school day just
sitting around. The real magic was in what we got to do with all that free
time!

~~~
barry-cotter
> I can say that the lessons of papers like these have been taken to heed.

This isn’t true. Gifted and talented education receives maybe 1% of the
funding that special needs education does, if that. In NYC de Blasio is trying
to dismantle the existing system because the students are too Asian. Most of
the US has nothing approaching that system. Normal high schools are at best
indifferent to students who want to go higher than AP; they’re certainly not
going out of their way to help and encourage those capable of doing college
work to do so.

Face it, at barest minimum 10% of 16 year olds could be in high schools like
those associated with Bard College at Simon’s Rock[1], where they graduate
with an Associate’s degree having completed half of the coursework for a
Bachelor’s. I don’t know what percentage of 14 year olds could do the same or
complete a Bachelor’s before 18 but it’s 100s of times greater than those who
actually do.

[1] [https://simons-rock.edu/](https://simons-rock.edu/)

~~~
jimhefferon
> maybe 1%

Honest question, not snide in any way: what would be the right percentage?
Surely not 100%? Special Ed folks, folks on the left end of the bell curve for
instance, need intensive one-on-ones. But folks on the other end of the bell
would not need that same level of support?

(I'm not saying 1% is OK. And I understand that you pulled that number out of
the air.)

~~~
barry-cotter
Acceleration as of right instead of enrichment should be verging on free,
requiring almost nothing in new expenditure. I’d be pretty happy with that
alone to be honest. An early college programme like Bard College at Simon’s
Rock in every metro area with over 100,000 people with provision for boarding
for those outside commuting distance wouldn’t get you past 2% of education
expenditure. That’s under 10% of what’s spent on special education. That would
make me ecstatic.

~~~
Viliam1234
It's not about how much money, but rather how to spend it. Well, okay, to
spend money some way you first need it, but the amount could be quite small.

Most of the knowledge is already available online for free. (There are still
some gaps that would be nice to fill, for example lessons for small kids whose
first language is not English.) The problem is rather navigating the abundance
of information.

First, to distinguish genuine knowledge from crackpottery. Like, most of us
probably know that 99% of videos on YouTube containing "quantum" in their
titles are pure nonsense. But a smart 13 years old kid doesn't know that yet,
and can waste a lot of time gaining negative knowledge (misconceptions that
later require time and work to unlearn). We know that in case of doubt, the
materials published by MIT are most likely solid. For that kid, even this is
not necessarily obvious; it would be better to tell them explicitly.

Second, lessons have prerequisites. I can find an interesting lesson, only to
realize that I actually can't follow it, because it uses symbols and concepts
I don't understand, and I don't even know how that missing part of knowledge
is called. It would be great to have some guidance of form "you can learn X by
watching Y, but first you need to understand M and N which you can learn by
watching P and Q, etc.". A tech-tree of knowledge, kind of.

For these two things, you don't actually need a school system. A website could
be enough: a page for each topic, internal links to prerequisite topics,
external links for educational resources checked for quality. You would need
some budget for this, but I assume that for costs similar to running one
school, you could serve the entire nation. -- And it wouldn't be only for the
smart kids; the average kids could use it, too. Everyone could progress at
their own speed. Actually, it would be even better if all the kids would use
it, because then you wouldn't have to look specifically for the smart kids and
advertise it to them, they would simply learn about it from kids around them.

Now you can add extra services, like a silent place to go study if you don't
have such place at home, a computer with an internet connection is you don't
have one at home. Places to meet people studying the same topic. Etc. This all
would be nice to have. I am just saying that the minimum solution that could
help maybe 80% of gifted kids could actually be made very cheaply.

~~~
GlennS
Aren't you basically describing Khan Academy?

It has good education material - including exercises - that you go through at
your own pace, and is organised as a tree of learning.

Last time I looked it didn't go into university level subjects though.

~~~
Viliam1234
Khan Academy is a great project. At least as a general idea; there may be some
small technical details (there is some criticism on Wikipedia that seems
reasonable, but maybe it was already addressed). I only tried it shortly, so I
am not sure how complete it is beyond math.

Now if I may dream, I imagine something like Khan Academy, but:

\- containing all lessons from all subjects of elementary and high schools
(and optionally some university lessons);

\- somehow certified by the state, similarly how textbooks are certified, so
you would have some official statement saying "this is at least as good and as
complete as public schools" (and if something specific is missing or not up to
standards, the problematic topics would be clearly listed);

\- with the consequence that if you complete Khan Academy (and take extra
courses/exams in the problematic topics), you would get a certificate
equivalent to completing the elementary or high school (perhaps after taking
an exam to check that it wasn't e.g. your parents doing the tests for you),
without having to attend a school, and regardless of your age (so a gifted kid
could have high school completed as 10 years old);

\- maybe with an option that teachers could upload their own versions of
existing lessons or new lessons, and the users would by default use the
standard Khan Academy videos, but could choose the optional ones, and based on
popularity and administrator decision, the new videos could become the default
ones; this is how the content could continuously improve and new topics (e.g.
the university lessons) get added; also, repetition is the mother of learning,
but instead of listening to the same video again, you could now listen to an
alternative version of the lesson;

\- with some way to create an individualized study plan, so you could specify
e.g. "I want to be a lawyer, but I also want to make computer games", and the
lessons that lead you there would be highlighted.

Also, I'd like to see a competitor or two, of comparable quality.

------
elamje
I remember some of my best memories were being in a GT program at my middle
school where about 30 kids in my grade took the same core classes together
every year for all 3 years. I didn’t appreciate it then, but in hind sight
being separated from most 6th-8th graders who barely care about school and
being mostly around kids that did, had a tremendous impact on driving me
through high school and college. Most of the kids were way smarter than me and
are doing incredible things now.

Years later, when I studied in Sweden, I became great friends with a public
school teacher there. I told her about AP classes, and GT and magnet programs
and it was quite literally, a foreign concept. She said that in Sweden it
would be discriminatory for children to be separated like that. I’m worried
that the world is moving more and more in this direction, but I hope not!

I felt extremely lucky to be put around peers that pushed me and had shared
goals because most of the kids where I’m from don’t have that, and I could
have easily ended up on a different path.

In college, I realized I was in an entirely different league when all of my
classmates were in the top couple of graduates from their huge high schools,
and I could barely hang on. Around that time I met a couple of 14 year olds in
my dorm that were dual majoring in computer sci and math, and then I realized
that there are so many different levels of intelligence in the same age
buckets, schools have been doing it wrong for so long! In an ideal world
everyone could be grouped at the appropriate level regardless of age, but then
again, there is a huge difference in 14 year olds vs 18 and 19 year olds, so
there seems to be some merit to the age bucket system. All that being said,
the only thing I know is that world is a complicated place :)

------
preston4tw
I'm currently 35 and I was ID'd as a gifted child, so this paper caught my
attention. There's a section that discusses outcomes based on whether gifted
children were allowed to skip grades or not, and my personal experience
largely matches what is described for what would be my group, the
nonaccelerands:

"Several of the nonaccelerands have serious and ongoing problems with social
relationships. These young people find it very difficult to sustain
friendships because having been, to a large extent, socially isolated at
school, they have had much less practice in their formative years in
developing and maintaining social relationships. Six have had counseling. Of
these, two have been treated for severe depression. If educators were made
responsible to ethics committees, as are researchers, such developmentally
inappropriate educational misplacement would never be permitted."

I wonder how this group is doing these days. I wonder if the runners of the
study ever considered introducing members of this group to the others to form
a support group.

~~~
madaxe_again
I’m 36, had a recorded IQ at school in the 180s, and was refused acceleration
until I “socially adapted” to my classmates, which was challenging, as their
interests (eg. football, wrestling, lads mags, pop music, sport, sport, sport)
barely intersected with mine (eg. sciences, philosophy, coding, art, jazz &
classical music). I was accelerated, eventually, but only by one year - at my
prep school, I had been two years ahead, but I spent a regrettable year in the
American “educational” system which meant I entered secondary school with my
age cohort, as a commoner rather than a scholar, as scholarship exams were not
available for overseas entrants at the time.

This was at boarding school. I was in detention incessantly, as I was bored
out of my wits, and would do stuff like wandering out of an exam after 15
minutes, as I was done and damned if I was going to spend another three hours
twiddling my thumbs, and I would disagree with teachers when they were flat-
out wrong - that _really_ pissed people off - I wasn’t such a blowhard as to
vocally disagree over debatable or tenuous points, just factual error.

I would fake illnesses so I would end up in the sanatorium, where I would have
time to read, and the opportunity to hang out with the several other bright
kids from other houses who had established the same methodology for respite.
Fond memories of hanging out in our dressing gowns, playing chess and having
actual conversations with people I could relate to. Sadly, of the four of us,
one is dead, one is in an institution, one is me, and the other survivor fled
for the hills and writes children’s science books.

School was an education in contempt. I remain convinced that the majority of
people are idiots, with the equivalent of a flickering strip lamp for a mind,
and nothing I see in the world around me dispels that thought. I am somewhat
socially isolated - I have precious few friends near my age, instead most of
them being three or four decades my senior - as, in similar fashion to my
experiences at school, I have little in common with my supposed peers - they
have not started businesses, or travelled extensively (package holidays to
Marbella do not count as travel - hiking to Turkmenistan does), or stopped to
think about the human condition. Older people of moderately high intelligence
have at least had the time to gain some experience and perspective, and I can
relate to them - but this means my “in-group” is scattered to the winds, and I
see them annually at best.

Anyway. This member of that group is doing ok - I struggle with depression and
anxiety, but a hyperactive 15 years has allowed me to exit the bullshit-mill
and live the life I want - in the countryside, learning new things about
nature daily, with mountains of books, and _time_ to do what I want.

As it happens, I made my escape with one of the few people I could relate to
at school - moderately smart guy, somewhere in the 150s, but a hard graft type
who brute forced his way to knowledge - admirable in his own way. We drifted
apart after school, but fate or somesuch brought us to a nexus where starting
a business together was practically inevitable.

In all honesty, if I hadn’t been able to escape the manufactured world, I
don’t think I’d be writing this now, I would have killed myself by this point.

As to a support group - problematic. Part of the impact of being surrounded by
idiots is to take your intellectual supremacy for granted. I find myself
sparring with anyone remotely my equal, as my identity is inextricably tied to
being the smartest guy in the room/building/city.

I do, of course, dissemble, and very, very rarely speak my mind as I have here
- and I thoroughly expect this to be an unpopular post.

Prideful, no, but self-protective, yes - when there’s no other social identity
available to you you take what you can get.

~~~
tomc1985
How can an attitude of intellectual superiority amount to any good? I too was
identified gifted (and while I've never had an IQ test I was probably never in
the 180s) and while I share your frustrations with normies, dwelling on my
_perceived_ intellectual differences with the world has done me no good. It
certainly didn't help win me any friends. Being intelligent isn't all chess
and quantum physics; there are lots of people in your ballpark that wouldn't
come anywhere near fitting your description of a like mind.

I've found life to be much more enjoyable by intentionally avoiding people
like myself. For highminded intellectual stuff there is plenty conversation to
be had here on the net. Befriending and hanging out with a diverse group of
misfits from all manner of backgrounds has proven to be much more fulfilling
and while, yes, sometimes they can be stupid, and sometimes it is hard to find
things in common outside of the reasons the group stays together, I've learned
to see it as opportunities for further interpersonal growth.

If someone dedicates their life to filling their head with obscure knowledge
they're just a nerd, no matter how much more intelligent they are than those
around them. People may, collectively, be morons, but most individuals are
surprisingly perceptive in at least a few areas, and while the prodigies in my
life are indeed smart, I've spent enough time around them to know they would
still be fish out of water for 90% of what life could possibly throw at them.
I hope that your lamentations are formed _after_ you've sussed these qualities
out of the folks you lament.

~~~
hutzlibu
"I've found life to be much more enjoyable by intentionally avoiding people
like myself"

Sure, that is a smart thing to do. That way, you can always feel superior, if
you do not meet intelectual equals in daily life...

(I know, you did not mean that. I was a bit self mocking, whether this was sub
consciously a decision for myself, but may apply to you, too?)

~~~
mnky9800n
It's common though right? There worst thing you can do is tell a kid they are
brilliant. They think they always have to be brilliant and escape hardship
because it might mean they aren't brilliant.

~~~
Viliam1234
> There worst thing you can do is tell a kid they are brilliant.

Other approaches also have their problems. I was raised in a very egalitarian
spirit, and thinking of myself as somehow better than others was a taboo for
me for a long time.

As a consequence, I had a few blind spots. For example, I noticed that in some
situations certain kinds of people become hostile to me, for reasons I
couldn't understand. I didn't know what I did wrong, and when I tried to be
nicer or more open towards them it usually just made things worse.

Then one day a friend with good social skills explained to me: "They see that
you are better than them, so they feel threatened, and they attack you to feel
safer. And when you respond with kindness, that makes them feel even more
threatened, because it seems their attack didn'd hurt you at all (although it
actually did)." My mind was completely blown, because I didn't see myself as
better, so I didn't realize others could see me that way. But the explanation
matched the facts, for example that the hostility usually increased after I
have succeeded at something (even something unrelated to them).

Also, the theory is that if you don't tell your kid they are brilliant, they
will attribute their success to hard work, which will motivate them to work
even harder. What happened instead was that people around me who didn't
perceive me as brilliant, attributed my success to pure luck (because they saw
I actually wasn't working that hard). So no matter how often I won the math
olympiad, I was always told that I am not really good at math, that I merely
got lucky, but soon the regression to the mean would teach me my place (and
that if I actually understood math, I would know what "regression to the mean"
means, and I wouldn't argue back). This was very frustrating, because it
seemed that no matter what I do, people will find an excuse because I do not
fit their stereotype; and that thought definitely didn't motivate me to work
harder. (Actually, only now as I write this comment, it occurred to me that
maybe I didn't fit their stereotype because perhaps I was smarter than the
usual math-gifted kids they used to work with.)

I would recommend telling your kids the truth according to your best
knowledge. Manipulation can backfire, even well-intentioned one.

~~~
mnky9800n
I'm not arguing for manipulation, just the truth. But we have to realize that
children are not small versions of adults. They have different cognitive
abilities and processes than adults.

------
nopinsight
Two main possibilities to match the curriculum to the needs of highly gifted
children:

1) Put them together in a special class composed entirely of students with
similar level of giftedness, taught by specialized teachers using a gifted
curriculum.

2) Move them to a higher grade, which means they will need to study with
(possibly much) older students.

Option 1) is superior for their social development since they are not more
mature in all respects. It should be pursued whenever possible.

Option 2) may also subject the kids to bullying and jealousy by their older
peers, some of whom might do worse than the gifted one in many academic
subjects despite age difference.

Early grouping by ability is also more desirable. From the paper:

"In both Australia and the United States, schools tend to delay acceleration
and ability grouping until the middle years of elementary school. This policy
is fundamentally flawed. It is in the early years of school that we should be
identifying exceptionally and profoundly gifted children and developing
programs of acceleration and grouping to provide a more effective response to
their accelerated intellectual and emotional development."

It is in the interest of society to develop highly gifted students fully since
they have more potential to invent groundbreaking technologies or contribute
to society in an extraordinary way.

Source: I have taught many gifted and highly gifted students over the years.

~~~
notechback
There is another option that would be progressive "inclusive" approach:
allowing more flexibility in teaching content and materials so that teachers
can provide different exercises, challenges, etc to different students in the
same class. This is a matter of having a trust-based (rather than Control-
Bäder) system with highly qualified teachers and high autonomy for those
teachers. The evidence indicates that all - gifted, special needs and any
other students and teachers which enjoy increased autonomy. This is the
approach in eg Portugal, Finland, Estonia, Norway, ...

~~~
varjag
This is not how it's done in Norway.

------
PostOnce
This always leads to discussions of "what kind of school is right?" and not of
"is school right?"

Perhaps the answer is always yes, but it'd be nice to see it discussed.

Marcus Aurelius said 2000 years ago to "spare no expense on private tutors"
\-- this is going to be cost prohibitive at the very least, but it's also
worth thinking about.

Another thing worth thinking about is every extra minute you spend building
another this-or-that at work and not with your kids is an advantage you give
your employer while simultaneously depriving your kids of your care,
knowledge, and enthusiasm for subject matter (to a degree). There's a balance
to be found, of course, but it's something I imagine people struggle with.
Work always wants one more thing, but it can wait until Monday.

~~~
Balgair
> Marcus Aurelius said 2000 years ago to "spare no expense on private tutors"

Taking parenting advice from people thousands of years ago is not the wisest
idea. Let alone Roman child rearing advice. Let alone from an emperor. Let
alone from Marcus Aurelius. His son, Commodus, was one of the worst emperors.
I'm not saying that Aurelius was wrong, but his record on child rearing is
clearly terrible considering the lives of his children.

Getting into working more or less for the benefit children is very individual.
Each family is unique and changes over time. You raise your kids, yes, but
they raise each other and themselves too. They are real people too.

~~~
PostOnce
Sometimes we draw a bad hand, and no amount of parenting can save some of the
mentally disturbed, like Commodus -- you can't read Meditations, though, and
say it's not full of startlingly relevant advice to modern life. From
education to work ethic to reflective, thoughtful consideration of one's
actions, to coping with trauma.

Also, that isn't Marcus Aurelius theory on parenting, he said he learned it
from his grandfather, which eventually led to him being one of the Five Good
Emperors, so how does that change our analysis?

Anyway, pretty much every single study ever done says the smaller the class,
the more direct the instruction, the better the academic result, from 0AD til
2020AD, the way we're wired hasn't really changed.

It's not likely that receiving 1/30th of the attention of your teacher is
going to be as valuable to you as 100% attention, or 50% attention, or 25%
attention, vs 3% in a normal school.

If kids raising themselves and each other was reliable, we wouldn't have
disadvantaged youth. Poverty means busy parents (2 jobs, etc), busy parents
mean less time with the kids. It's going to be hard to convince anyone that
more time with your kids is going to be anything but beneficial.

~~~
Balgair
Commodus was not the only sibling with a checkered life, the family was
wracked against wealth and privilege. Again, the parenting advice of Roman
patricians is not necessarily wise advice. And yes, some of _Meditations_ is
great stuff, but some of it is also mediocre, and some of it is bad or just
wrong. We've had 2k+ years of new work done in stoicism and other
philosophies.

Each family is unique and spending more time with a tutor or parent is not
always the best. There are ~7.5m reports for abuse of children in the US
annually and ~65k cases of sexual abuse of children. There are ~75m children
in the US total. Each one of those cases, horrible as they are, are real and
society needs to take them into account. It's nearly 10% of kiddos that get
abuse reported annually. Digging into these grim statistics is very
worthwhile. [0] Hand-waving them off is not helpful or realistic to most
educators, parents, or policy makers.

I'm _not_ saying that larger or smaller classes are more or less ideal or that
abuse is related to stoicism or families. I am saying the solution is unique
to each child and that many solutions exist simultaneously. Each family and
each person is unique.

[0] [https://americanspcc.org/child-abuse-
statistics/](https://americanspcc.org/child-abuse-statistics/)

EDIT: Another post on HN pointed to some of pg's comments on parenthood here:
[https://www.unclepaul.io/](https://www.unclepaul.io/)

------
kaptain
A friend of mine who is a teacher pointed out to me that “highly gifted”
children were actually special needs children. She used this term because she
worked in a highly competitive district where parents were constantly
harassing her to consider their children “highly gifted”. Once she used this
term, it became easier for parents to accept that their children were doing
fine in “normal” class, which was quite good anyways because of the average
aptitude of the students.

~~~
barry-cotter
> Once she used this term, it became easier for parents to accept that their
> children were doing fine in “normal” class, which was quite good anyways
> because of the average aptitude of the students.

Your child could be doing work three grades ahead, learning things that would
challenge them and help them grow intellectually. Instead we’ll keep them here
with the normal children where at best they’ll learn to shut up and not bother
the teacher.

~~~
DoreenMichele
The GP is talking about competitive parents whose kids aren't genuinely
exceptionally gifted. The parents are just looking for bragging rights and/or
another edge.

~~~
barry-cotter
Keeping children who’re perfectly capable of doing sixth grade work doing
fifth grade work isn’t as bad but it’s still a waste off their time and a
lesson in the actual priorities of the school system, which certainly don’t
have learning among the top five.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Some parents don't really have the best interests of their children at heart.
"Hot housing" children does not make for better future outcomes. It just
deprives children of their childhood.

~~~
barry-cotter
> "Hot housing" children does not make for better future outcomes.

I would welcome any research to that effect if you have it to hand. I am not
an expert but if you search gwern.net for “gifted education”, “acceleration”
“SMPY” or “Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth” you’ll find many papers
on this general topic. There’s nothing there showing negative effects and
quite a bit that’s positive.

~~~
DoreenMichele
It's a term coined by researchers and I believe it was used in the name of a
book at some point. I can't readily find the book, but I found this article:

[https://www.verywellfamily.com/hothouse-
children-1449187](https://www.verywellfamily.com/hothouse-children-1449187)

I was briefly Director of Community Life for The TAG Project and was a low
level presenter at, I believe, a Beyond IQ conference one year a long time ago
when my kids were still kids. I'm fairly familiar with the research.

Yes, holding back kids that are actually gifted is harmful to them. So is
putting a child on a treadmill to satisfy the ego of the neurotic parents.

~~~
woofie11
No. It isn't fundamentally harmful to children. It depends on how it's done.

One of the major differences between effective programs and harmful ones are
the attitudes of the children in those programs. Both the hothouse parents
described, and programs for kids "behind standards" push really hard with rote
learning, high-pressure, and often punishment. On the other hand, effective
programs, both for kids ahead, behind, and at grade-level have richer
activities which build love-of-learning.

As a footnote, I looked at the web site you linked to. It cites a bunch of
widely discredited Piagetan nonsense.

------
mncharity
> If educators were made responsible to ethics committees, as are researchers,
> such developmentally inappropriate educational misplacement would never be
> permitted.

This is a recurring theme. For example, when doing education research with a
control group. Sometimes, while the study is still in progress, the benefit of
the intervention becomes so clearly dramatic, that by IRB standards,
continuing to deny the intervention to the control group becomes ethically
fraught, suggesting the experiment be stopped. Even though by education
standards, the intervention is unlikely to be widely adopted any year soon.

Similarly, part of why science works, is researchers' fears of being
embarrassed in front of their peers, by getting things carelessly wrong. This
doesn't always exist - my favorite example being astronomy education content
that gets the color of the Sun wrong. So there's a question of what community
characteristics are needed to support it.

Awareness of ethical issues in education, such as "equity", seems greater now
than in decades past.

So looking ahead, might a perception of embarrassment, or of ethical failure,
be encouraged and leveraged to improve content and pedagogy? And what might
that look like?

------
anon104109348
I wonder a lot about how much giftedness matters, for children below
exceptionally gifted. My IQ was measured at about 150 twice, at age 3 and 15.
I am definitely not exceptionally gifted - I was able to be on the cusp at
some programs that had exceptionally gifted participants and I was in awe of
them.

But as an adult I've never really felt limited by intelligence, but instead by
motivation and social skills. So I don't know what to stress for my children.
I was deeply unhappy through public school. Would I have more motivation and
better social skills if the public school had been less boring and had less
bullying? Would I just be more of a jerk?

My kids are in early elementary, and they are also not exceptionally gifted,
but they are easily 2-3 grade levels ahead in math, and a little ahead in
reading. The other stuff at school could certainly be better for them, but in
ways that I suspect would be better for all the kids there.

I think I'd be happy with their school if they had more recess, the kids were
nicer and the math were more advanced, but I don't know where to find that for
them.

~~~
lowiqengineer
I was GT in my very mediocre public school - shit was still hard for me,
academically. I got a B in calculus 2 in high school. I constantly feel
limited by intelligence and social skills (which harms motivation). Most of
this thread is just bragging - “dumb” people like me don’t get the benefit of
the doubt and don’t receive any of the societal benefits either.

------
contingencies
Can anyone recommend any tried and true, globalist/international perspective
distance education / homeschooling groups? Less focused on base academic
outcomes (assume this is covered), more focused on co-exploration and organic
learning with distributed friends in a semi-structured or periodically adult-
stimulated fashion. We don't need to download rote learning worksheets or
lesson plans, we'd prefer to explore real world subjects freely, asking
questions and allowing one subject to function as a lead-in to others. Unsure
if this exists.

------
8589934591
I can relate to studies like these in many ways.

Growing up in India, I faced a hell lot of issues. At the age of 2, I was able
to remember names and faces of all my relatives, at 3 I was able to read
fluently. By the time I was 5, thanks to my relative I was made to repeat a
grade because I was born on a certain month. By 9, I was able to do 10th grade
math with ease. My mom observed this and asked the school things can be
accelerated. I was placed in 10th grade and just got myself bullied. School's
verdict was I was that I am socially inept and hence I must have cheated to
solve 10th grade problems. School saying that broke my mom's heart, and mine.
I was eternally depressed (was not aware of it though) from then onwards till
college. Throughout my school life all I faced was bullying cos I don't share
the same interests as the others.

College wasn't any different. I grew up watching OCW physics and thought
college would be similar. Turned out wrong. I have ruffled feathers with every
faculty there that I wanted more work, to be challenged more. And all I got
was "you should be more humble and patient. You should wait for the other
students to catch up. Go with the pace, don't run, walk. blah blah" After 4
years, I came out as a person with no motivation, mentally lethargic,
depressed, just wanted to coast through life. It had been hammered into me
that _I_ was the problem, not the system.

Thank god I met my wife, we both were very similar and had experienced very
similar situations in life. It took a long while to understand that the
problem is not me. We identified as gifted children, reading up on articles,
matching traits. My mom regrets that she didn't know about any of these
"gifted stuff". All of us recognize the negative intentions of the people who
grew up / lived with us. Both my wife and myself are trying to get back into
the groove, finding ways to challenge each other, to learn to work hard, to
motivate, to get back the lost years from when we could have been accelerated.
Hopefully we catch up on time.

I am positive that my kid will most probably be a gifted child. I will be
doing everything in my power to take care of him in a proper manner.

I relate to so many people in this and many other threads in HN. You all have
my deepest support and sympathies for your bad experiences. Please don't let
go of life. You can still be the smart person you once were. Being smart isn't
being entitled, it's just who you are.

~~~
mydongle
What will you do if your kid isn't a gifted child and falls below your
expectations? Hopefully you'd still love them and treat them in a "proper
manner" right? Just be prepared for that very possible outcome.

~~~
8589934591
I'd still love them. I really hope I didn't imply that in my comment. The kid
would just be surprised to have quirky parents when it is very "normal". In
the end we'll just be a very happy family.

------
laichzeit0
A lot of people in this thread thinking they are Terrence Tao, Karl Frederick
Gauss, Leonhard Euler, John Von Neumann, etc. Nope you don’t have the faintest
idea of what it means to be exceptionally gifted. These people are close to a
different species or race of men entirely.

~~~
AtlasBarfed
... have you known any of those personally?

I somewhat get your point, but the top .1% of intelligence and 1% of
intelligence probably share more in common socially and within the social
structures of education.

------
jiggybling
I wonder how strong the long-term inverse effect is having gone to a magnet
high school and seeing a certain level of self esteem fallout for many people
that I would say were hard working but nowhere close to "profoundly gifted".

------
m0zg
Weren't IQ tests basically determined to be modern-day phrenology long ago?
Has there been any progress on measuring intelligence in a less biased
fashion?

~~~
lowiqengineer
Don’t you believe people like me are lower IQ because I got rejected from
Google?

~~~
kalium-xyz
Just do what Ben Pridmore[1] did and study efficient ways to encode
information in memory other memory techniques. It breaks some IQ tests so you
can walk into Mensa and such (its not that meaningful but neither is using IQ
as a metric for getting rejected at google).

unrelated but by your long history of posting about having a low IQ yet
working for amazon, what is a low IQ to you?

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Pridmore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Pridmore)

~~~
lowiqengineer
Low IQ is apparently getting into Google. I don't think many people regard
getting into Amazon as requiring a genius IQ or even an above-average one.

