As a gifted kid, when you get to university, you are supposed to learn work ethics practically overnight. Until then, between your 6 and 18 years, the school kept telling you that you should slow down and wait until the average kids also get it.
That's like failing at a sprinting competition, when your entire training consisted of walking really really slowly.
My wife has a nephew that is insanely smart. Like, aced the SATs at 15 smart.
His mother insisted that he have a fairly normal-paced education, and it seems to have paid off.
He’s a really decent chap, who teaches at a university, is married, and has a kid. His college career was at top schools, though. They pretty much threw scholarships at him.
My university experience was very much “submit! work!” - I was on “keeping of term” almost permanently and had the threat of rustication hanging over my head for the duration of my time there as I flat out refused to attend lectures, tutorials, or labs - I was having way too much fun running a bar and the debating society.
Anyway. What I learned was that people rarely make good on their threats, that charm and doing the absolute bare minimum to not “get fired” will get you through - and that I can cram a three year physics course into a month of intense study and still pass with a 2:1, which they demoted to a Desmond as they didn’t feel they could in good conscience reward me with a 2:1 - which also taught me that institutions can’t be trusted and are ultimately run by opinion.
This lead to a career path of opportunistic system-hacking and an early retirement to a cabin in the woods. I never had a work ethic, apart from in that which interests me. If something bores me, it’s for the birds.
I’m not quite sure what I’m trying to say here, other than that at no point in my education was I given any useful guidance or advice, just expectations of prodigy, and was left to figure things out for myself - which I did, but not as I think others would have hoped. I now, in my forties, know that I have raging ADHD - it wasn’t even a consideration as a kid - just that I was “brilliant but bone-idle”.
Do you think yours is a life well spent for anything or anyone other than your own enjoyment, even if you were clever enough to save yourself the stress suffered by many?
I would say that it has not provided as much utility value to mankind as it could have. Sure, I’ve created jobs, generated wealth, given to philanthropic causes - and in excess of the lives lived by most - but I would say with confidence that had I perhaps had some guidance other than the eternal threat of punishment, I would have developed something other than a frankly criminal instinct, and might have been more able to give more to society and fulfil my potential.
Instead, I learned to avoid the consequences, not to avoid the crime, and can’t deny that I have chosen a selfish path as a result.
There are gifted schools that don't force kids to slow down to the lowest common denominator. I went to one. In theory, they also enforce a work ethic. My problem was the reverse: I started working after school when I was 15, and when I got to university I found my peers had absolutely slovenly work ethics and no experience, and I was being taught things that were laughable in a real work environment, by professors who hadn't had a real job in decades (if ever). And I was supposed to be paying $30k a year for the privilege. I realized at 19 that I was better off at any pay rate in the private sector ;)
I had a similar experience perhaps in some ways. I graduated high school and initially started university at 14. (I was tall, which is probably good in this case, as it let me pass for a very young looking maaaaybe 18, in the setting).
My “work history”
Has been 8 ish, doing yard work around town with 2 other kids (nothing crazy, weeding, push mowing, leaves, clearing brush, etc), and then working at a stables for a bit when 12.
I ended up getting an hourly part time position at campus, at 16 ish I took a break for 2 years, worked in grocery, and then in pharmacy.
18, I ended up back at school. Embarrassingly it took me 3 more years to finish my undergrad. But I worked full time or nearly full time the entire time. (Floater pharmacy tech, part time backup event photographer, and then as a store manager at a hobby store).
I found it very hard to make friends with people my own age, but found it incredibly easy to make friends with returning students - either they had worked a career and came back to school, or had done some time in the military etc., I also made some great friends who had moved to the U.S., usually as late teens, from developing countries.
Knowledge, perspectives, etc I learned from these people … and from some people I ended up being very lucky to work with, honestly proved in hindsight to be much more impactful and valuable to my life and career then I could have ever imagined.
I will say, tongue in cheek, but also some truth:
You could probably apply the anna karenina principle to all of the people I can think of who were impactful in some way… either through the lens of trauma/ struggle / or dysfunctional family. (This would also apply to myself!)
I believe real world friends or colleagues are your alternative family. (Online friends, not so much). In any case, its so critical to have your eyes open to other traditions and creeds and ways people live their lives. Without that, we would just judge without knowing why people did things.
The person you need to show mercy to most is yourself. And to do that you have to understad how everyone else lives.
When I was at university, some of my classmates were admitted right after high school, others failed, waited for one year while having a job, and then applied again. The difference between those who had one year of work experience and those who had none was profound; the former were adults, and the latter were kids; it was as if they had five years of age difference, not only one.
I wouldn't underestimate the professors though. Doing research (that is their actual work; teaching is just a hobby) can be hard work.
Which school did you go to, and are you aware if it's kept the same high standards? I believe there are interesting challenges for any mind, the hard part is the match-making customized for each person. It'd be cool if there was an equivalent Facebook/Netflix algorithm for learning.
I always thought the alternative to "gifted programs" is not having a program which is even worse. At some point optimizing teaching becomes unaffordable.
The elementary school I went to operated somewhat as a petri dish for psychiatric experiments, as I realized later, with class sizes around 15 students and extremely personalized teaching. My 8-12 grades were at a private prep school. Both could be scalable models, but it would require a moonshot level of public funding to go into hiring potential teachers away from more lucrative jobs. (Personally, I'd love it if my taxes went to that).
But I don't credit those schools for my success. Nor do I credit native intelligence. My two elder brothers are lawyers whose names you likely know; think of the largest case in recent history. One is severely dyslexic and the other I'd wager is mildly autistic. I'm a college dropout. Oddly, I earn more per hour designing databases than the famous one does taking down large companies. What we had in common was a pattern of learning how to think, how to be curious and ask questions, and how to separate wheat from chaff. All of which came from our grandfather, who was forced to leave a yeshiva at 12 years old, and his father, and his grandfather.
I truly believe that almost all formal education is bunk. It's a useless plaster on a gaping social wound, namely that parents don't have the toolset to teach children a love of learning throughout their lives, along with the methods and skills to do so for themselves. All the information taught in K-12 schools is readily available, yet most adults can't remember a thing about the most basic aspects of history, math or science. The reason being, they weren't interested when they learned it the first time, and they weren't raised to be curious enough to answer their own questions or (re)fill holes in their own knowledge. This is why most people can't utter the words, "I don't know, let's look it up." Moreover, most people don't believe it's their obligation as a person to be as well-rounded as they can make themselves, because no one ever told them that was important, even crucial to their survival.
Learning itself should be taught. And it can be taught at home. The major obstacle would be how to overcome, obliterate and shame the intellectual laziness of most people that's built into most cultures - including those of most who go to college. Everything else, all concepts and facts, can be learned later, and are ephemeral.
Half of all the people in the world are below average. I know, it's crazy right? Confirmation bias makes us expect others to be like ourselves, but they are not, and you're going to have a bad time when you expect them to be like yourself. This is probably going to sound harsh, but it's true: Children and teenagers innately sneer at others that are not like themselves (so much bullying in schools). Part of maturing as a person is to learn that other people are different and have different needs. Many people don't learn this, and they seem immature as a result, and they are ineffective at dealing with other people.
It does if you consider the part going to your county:
“In 2022, the federal government spent … This is 13.6% of the total spent on elementary and secondary education in 2022. The remaining funding comes from state and local governments, which contribute 43.7% and 42.7%, respectively.”
You've misread that. It is not saying that 43.7% of the state budget goes to elementary and secondary education. It is saying that 43.7% of the funding for education comes from the state. Those are completely different.
That's like failing at a sprinting competition, when your entire training consisted of walking really really slowly.