13 ms·

Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

150 points by lainon 10y ago

quickben 10y ago
From a limited dataset: They get by. Find balance. When you ask them for a coffee, they tell you they don't have the $5 to take the subway to meet you and are very sorry for that. Some have other problems they are trying to work around, and all their energy goes to that and not inventing the next quantum equation. They drop out of being the hottest developers in the software industry, they stop being the top performers in the financial sector. They can get back, but it requires support. Our western society isn't optimized for such support but for grinding the rest down. So, it's not where they go, it's how do the rest of us, help them?
- nils-m-holm 10y ago
  Author of the article here: yes, the most interesting question is, what can we do to help? The article makes some suggestions. Short version: Spread awareness, especially among professionals (medical doctors, psychiatrists, etc). I have seen lots of high-IQ/highly sensitive people who got terrible advice from psychologists and psychiatrists. Educate those professionals, so at least they don't do any damage. Also: a communication platform for troubled high-IQ folks would be great! I would do it myself, but I'm bad at both, IT and social networking.
  - pierre_d528 10y ago
    I know at least one of these people (IQ 155). Here is the fundamental problem she has: lower IQ people will deny the obvious even in front of their eyes. The combined delusion of all these people literally build our world that for her appears like a cheap stupid fairy tale (specially IQ 110-120 people that try to trick lower IQ people for money (advertisement etc)). She is surgeon and only deals with children: it keeps a lot of the low IQ people at bay. When she is not fixing children, she is riding horses. Much else is just fake to protect her from low IQ people. These 2 poor souls physically segregated themselves from low IQ people, she did the same... to a less extreme level (accepted to pretend/lie when needed). If she had seen a big warning sign saying "high IQ hurts", she would probably have had found help and more people to soften the terrible loneliness she experiences.
  - stephengillie 10y ago
    So tell the experts that they're wrong, and that they are ignorant about part of their field? That sort of behavior rarely has a beneficial outcome, and can appear egotistical. > When one of them learned that their high IQ might cause some of the trouble they experienced, they once again looked for professional help, only to find out that the problem is widely unknown out there. How did they learn of this - that their IQ might cause some of these troubles - what was their authoritative information source? Essentially, they've found multiple professional authorities who dispute the information they heard somewhere and chose to believe. --- Learning and technical skills have always been easy for me, understanding people less so. I got an undergrad business degree specifically to understand why businesses do some of the nonsensical things they do. What I learned is that companies are essentially just organizations of humans, money, and things - and humans do all kinds of 'nonsensical' things because we are humans.
    - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
      There's a surprising dearth of research into the challenges faced by gifted people. As a topic, it does get some - not much - attention in both psychology and psychiatry. But it's considered a specialised field far out of the mainstream.
  - dfraser992 10y ago
    This is a crude analogy, but a high IQ is in itself the same as having a certain gene, or genes. A marker of potential for something, but environment/nature is such as or more important. Nature in this case would be social environment, if we are talking about social/life success etc. And social/life success is tied far more strongly to emotional IQ. I'm up there at the far end of the IQ scale, but at this point in my life, I can see that all the trouble I've had in life is due to the emotional IQ part. And that was all due to the psychological environment I had to grow up in. Those anecdotes are bereft of real details, but I think it is safe to assume those people, because of their home environment, didn't grow up with <whatever is needed> to deal with the issues of dealing with society in some manner. Society, is .. well, once you grasp psychology and how primate societies operate, the stupidity of humanity makes sense. It doesn't excuse it, but that is humanity for you. You just learn not to expect the ideal, as simple as it may seem to one smarter than average. An understanding of Buddhism helps. The fact that psychotherapy etc didn't help shouldn't serve as a condemnation of the profession entirely, but just the fact that an awful lot of therapists are incompetent. I think I was lucky, I had mostly good ones. they didn't help solve everything, but each provided the support to get ahold of the next piece of the puzzle. Even then, with a good therapist, it still takes some sort of inner resolve to fully transcend one's emotional pain. I have no good advice on this other than keep trying and learn enough psychology/psychiatry so you can spot the idiots. One you learn how to start playing psychotherapist with yourself, it becomes easier. Suggestions? Some sort of group therapy model re: a platform would be an idea. Group therapy was very useful for me. I could see the problems I wrestled with mirrored in the problems others wrestled with - the guy that had a personality fundamentally like mine was ... the details were different, but the themes were the same. You wouldn't want a platform for people to just reinforce their complaining or poor me attitude. i.e. no friendships or socializing developing out of it. OTOH, text only communication is bad for this sort of thing. A group video conference might be workable, but I don't know, there are logistical problems I think. But I am somewhat biased, given what I know and have found useful.
alexpetralia 10y ago
I hate to sound trite, but intelligence (for which IQ is a proxy) is not only factor for success. Social skills will always be required - it seems like your two examples lacked these.
- Light2Yellow 10y ago
  Yes, but this is not the case here. In particular, the author tries to solve the lack of social skills between people sorted in categories (thus by IQ in this case). So it's not that important whether they are 'intelligent' or not (the definition of 'intelligence' is controversial) but their integration into society (very poor so far, as the author shows). That's the problem the article aims to share.
- Axiverse 10y ago
  I actually think this is exactly the point. He is talking about how these people are highly intelligent but not successful because society isolates them and doesn't give them the opportunity and motivation to learn those skills in the appropriate window. This is kind of the opposite of students that are underperforming that don't get the attention to help them keep up. Instead these are students that can overperform, but don't get the challenges, validation, and motivation - the general positive feedback - that will help them grow and succeed. Instead they are meet with disapproval and neglect since teachers both dislike them asking hard questions (thus challenging their authority among already hard to control kids) and don't have time to give them the attention they need (since they are most focused on the largest median group).
- maolt 10y ago
  High IQ creates barriers that can prevent one from experiencing the social situations that enable the development of social skills. And when you are left behind in social skills, past a certain age, people show much less tolerance for your quirks, and basically think that if you are that way, you must be weird/ have a problem and will not tell you honestly what is the issue with you. Giving somebody with subpar social skills social cues serve no purpose, as they don't get any benefit out of it. So you get a catch 22, as you don't have sufficient social skills to know / get the help needed to develop your social skills.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ArcticCelt 10y ago
Many of the symptoms described there looked like ADHD (of course I am not making a real diagnostic). High intelligence and lack of motivation leads to underachievement.
D-Coder 10y ago
The paper says, "Of course, high-IQ societies exist, but then most of their members appear to be rather successful and hence limited in their understanding of people who never achieved much, if anything, in life." Some people join high-IQ societies because they haven't achieved a lot, and any society where they share an important attribute is a place where they can fit in. And Mensa, at least, has a good deal of support for gifted children.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  Right; Mensa demographic is high-IQ non-achievers. Kind of the point - a club where you can feel appreciated even though you don't find that anywhere else.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    69% of Mensa members make more than $50,000/year, and 47% of them make more than $75,000/year. I'm sure they have some non-achieving members but it doesn't look like their main demographic.
    - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
      That sounds sort of average or even below. The Elks club probably looks like that. For the top 2% intelligent people in the world, that counts as non-achieving. Working in a bookstore or running a gas station is not what you'd expect from geniuses.
      - infinite8s 10y ago
        How about working as a patent clerk or a lowly mathematics lecturer.
      - mikeash 10y ago
        Median income in the US is not quite $52,000, so Mensa is somewhat above average.
caseymarquis 10y ago
That high school drop out story hits close to home. My advice is to get a low level job at a smaller company that has a department which does interesting or highly technical work. Start talking to their IT/Technical/Whatever staff and let them know you work on x/y/z in your free time. In my case I did a good deal of free work after hours (100+ hour weeks) before actually moving to a full time programming position (50 hour weeks), but it was worth it considering it completely turned my career prospects around. Being on the other side of things now, most companies are starving for good people.
lolc 10y ago
Starting to teach helped me immensely. I've learned a lot about how other people relate to the world. Just having an advanced understanding of something is useless in many situations unless you're able to communicate this understanding to other people so they can share it.
metacomments 10y ago
I was one of those "gifted left behind" students. Majority of my family never completed high school and no one in my family went to college. High school was the bare minimum requirement to work at the local furniture factory and that is where you were expected to work after graduation (college was out of scope us simple folks). My high school barely offered any AP courses, didn't prepare students for the SAT (I didn't know what it was) and despite having nearly a 4.0 GPA (unweighted, since I never took any AP courses) the "best" college I was told I could attend was a local nearby liberal arts school. I had no guidance on where to go to college nor any preparation. I showed talent at an early age but there were simply no resources for me. I ended up going to a community college, had nearly a 4.0 GPA (taking mostly STEM courses) and a guidance consoler recommended I apply for a prestigious university located in the state. I told her I couldn't do that as I knew I wouldn't be accepted, told her the acceptance rate is too low. She tried to push really hard for me apply and said I would get in. I declined. Instead I went to a much lower ranked university (looking back on it I could have gotten into the initial school) and ended up doing research there. The research led to a publication but for one reason or another my GPA dropped and continue to drop each semester (had A+s, As in some courses, Ds in others). I received help from no one and had no support system. Ended up transferring to a larger school. Started over there, GPA continued to suffer (was dealing with a lot) and graduated. Despite my low GPA I was accepted to a highly ranked graduate school and was offered a fellowship, teaching assistant ship and research assistantship, but I also received a job offer with a much higher starting salary. My family was in such need at this time I had to accept the job over graduate school. After working in industry I developed a new interest and decided I wanted to go back into academia. At this moment in my life I'm preparing to make the switch. I enrolled in a well-ranked university taking pre-req courses in the new field and currently pulling off a 4.0 GPA. I plan to apply to graduate school shortly. Most of my friends had more of a straight path into graduate school.
- user837387 10y ago
  I imagine you want to keep this private so could you at least name the nearest town to where you grew up? Just trying to find out if this is in America or another country. Your story is very familiar. Unfortunately your family seems to be taking advantage of your goodwill. I know because I've experience it myself. They get into all sorts of trouble and then they expect you to drop everything and to sacrifice everything to help them. Good luck.
japhyr 10y ago
Teachers disliked him, because they knew how easily he picked up information. I'm a teacher, and this is one of the things that frustrates me deeply about our education system. I welcome students like this; they're so much fun to work with. But I usually have to make them feel accepted before I can begin to work with them. I teach in a small alternative high school, and by the time bright students get to me, they're often used to being shut down for picking things up quickly and not having to do homework. I met a really bright and interesting guy once who told me about his experience in first grade. His teacher gave everyone a math workbook, and he was really excited to be learning math. He finished the workbook in a day or two, and excitedly brought it to his teacher, expecting to be given another workbook. Instead she glared at him and said something along the lines of, "I can't believe you cheated on your math workbook in first grade!" She gave him another copy of the same workbook and told him to do start over, and that she'd be watching him. He thought to himself, "Well that sucked, but she'll watch me do it this time and know I can do it." So he did, but this time she just got mad at him and said something like, "I don't have anything else for you to do, so here's another copy of the workbook. Don't finish this so quickly." He learned what so many bright kids learn: if you learn things too quickly and speak up, you'll just make the adults around you mad and they'll give you more meaningless work to do. I know there are many teachers who handle bright kids really well, but as a system we fail many kids. These effects last years, and often times decades.
- hunterwerlla 10y ago
  You are taking that quote way out of context the next part of the sentence "but then he never made an effort to improve his grades" is the relevant part. They dislike him because he didn't try to improve not because he was good at picking up information.
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    In fact that may be the curse of the smart kid - things come so easily they won't put in effort when it is required. They become lazy.
    - 10y ago
itnAAnti 10y ago
I know of at least two other people from small towns whose IQ and life stories are similar to those shared in the article. I think high IQ individuals becoming isolated, social outcasts is more common in small towns, where accelerated curriculums and gifted and talented programs are more rare. If you know a highly gifted child, refer them to the Davidson Academy, a free public school for the profoundly gifted. http://www.davidsonacademy.unr.edu http://www.davidsonacademy.unr.edu The Davidson academy is free to attend, and they can coordinate providing IQ-appropriate curriculum and work to the child's school for students who cannot attend in-person. Finally, there are paid, online options as well. A friend of mine works at Davidson, and they have elementary age kids taking physics classes alongside master's degree students. When they say "profoundly gifted", it's not hyperbole. Getting gifted kids into programs where they are surrounded by people like them can go a long ways towards helping them learn social skills. They may never be socially normal in larger society, but they can find friends, meaning, and happiness that can lead to a productive and brilliant career and life.
- leeoniya 10y ago
  > online options as well. fairly certain this is the opposite of what they need
  - brianwawok 10y ago
    You should sit a genius 10 year old with no social skills in a class of 20 somethings? That seems not a path to success.
    - astrodust 10y ago
      It's not the age of their counterparts, but the social structure you can build for them. It's probably better to have a kid like that with others that can understand where they're coming from than a bunch of ten year olds with no clue.
- ap22213 10y ago
  Got any resources for preschools? I've got a serious pending problem with my youngest. She's 18 months old and already on par with an average 4-5 year old (and even older in some ways). It's really freaking my wife and I out - we cannot keep up with her curiosity and motivation to learn - we just don't have time or resources. We're worried that by the time she starts school, she's going to be so far ahead that she won't be able to relate to the other kids. She already has issues with other 18-24 month olds - she call's them babies and treats them like so. No idea what to do. I just want her to be able to hang out with kids like herself and do what kids do. I'm not interested in turning her into a super-genius or putting pressure or her or training her or any of that. I'd rather her just be free and follow her mind for as long as possible.
losvedir 10y ago
Is the focus on "High IQ" helpful here? Why would the treatment for ADHD, Depression, Social Anxiety, etc, be any different for them than someone with a lower IQ?
- nils-m-holm 10y ago
  Because in some cases it's none of the above; it's just not fitting in, and getting "treated" for being different is often the beginning of a long and sad history of self-blame and isolation.
- maolt 10y ago
  because high IQ magnifies a lot of issues in ways that people not personally concerned or untrained may not be able to grasp.
narrator 10y ago
Warning! /r/iamverysmart post ahead! I normally wouldn't engage in this, as it's extremely poor manners and terribly arrogant, but it's on topic here and I think other potential /r/iamverysmart posters might benefit, so here goes: One of the problems of being intelligent is learning how to tolerate and accept boredom. I used to rebel against being bored and being ahead of the class. I would think: "this is all so easy and why isn't anybody interested in anything interesting?" Once I learned that dealing with boredom is basically the price you pay for fitting in things improved a lot. I deal with a lot of friendships that are profoundly boring just so I can have people to talk to and socially interact with. I don't complain. I don't patronize. I just go through the motions so I can cargo cult my way to a social life. I lowered my expectations on everything and everybody to absolutely nothing and it works great. I overhear other people's conversations and I think to myself: "how can these people even put up with that level of conversation?. They must be pretending to be entertained!" Then I remember all about the boring world out there where people go about their daily lives talking all day about boring stuff. After all this boring interaction I'll occasionally go to a Deep Learning study group and we'll read the latest paper. Very smart people will analyze the paper and leave me a little disconcerted that there are people that I can engage with intellectually and be challenged and entertained by in a sincere way. Anyway, that's just my two cents about the world for the disgruntled /r/iamverysmart crowd out there, whether you actually are or not. :)
- neffy 10y ago
  Finding something to do with the spare cycles is definitely one problem that has to be solved.
  - narrator 10y ago
    Speaking of which, here's another /r/iamverysmart funny story about spare cycles: I had a very smart, quirky friend from rural California. I took her to a party once and she wasn't interested in the people there who weren't terribly intellectual, but I was having a decent time practicing my social skills. She sat in the corner and just starred at the wall catatonically. I asked her if she was alright. She assured me she was and told me she had gotten really good at dealing with boredom growing up in a small town with nothing to do and no other nerds around.
twmisanthrope 10y ago
Interesting read. Personally, I feel like I'm somewhere on this spectrum, but perhaps not as far along as your two examples. Depending on my choices over the next couple years, it could go either way, I think. I have terrible OCD and anxiety, and usually spend 1-2 days a week dealing with that problem alone. But thankfully my job is flexible and well-paid enough that I can still live pretty comfortably. More than anything else (and embarrassingly), I sympathize with your examples' misanthropy and consequent social isolation. In my opinion, being almost completely subject to disciplinary structures such as work and school for most of their lives makes most people pretty uninteresting. I can't say that I've done lots of super interesting things myself (working on it!), but unfortunately that doesn't really help me feel better about my peers. I also dislike the kind of social interactions social media seems to encourage. For me, the need to constantly seek or maintain approval of a wide audience of people is extremely unbecoming. Being an introvert, I also can't really deal with the 'little bits of social interaction sprinkled over time' pattern. But unfortunately, it seems that social media now dominates patterns of social relations, so it seems that I have to deal with that somehow...
jondubois 10y ago
I think introversion may be partly to blame. I can relate to a lot of the things about the people in this article. That said, over many years, I managed to train myself to act extroverted. Recently, someone even accused me of being a "social, networking type" which they probably meant as an insult but it was actually a massive compliment to my life's work ;p
- rev_bird 10y ago
  I may be misunderstanding what you're referring to, but I just wanted to point out that "introversion" doesn't mean "misanthropic." In a nutshell, introversion/extroversion just refers to what effect social interaction has on you: Does being with people energize you, or leave you drained? For example, I'm most certainly an introvert, but I love meeting up with friends for an evening---the "introvert" part is that at a certain point, I just want to leave and go sit in a quiet room. Interaction is tiring, not unpleasant. Anyway, I'm wandering: My point was, I'm not sure you've trained yourself to "act extroverted," just to be more social than your "comfort zone" would normally allow.
kutkloon7 10y ago
I would argue that discouraging very smart or technical people is typical for Western countries, and even more typical for the US. In Asian countries, the culture is much more favourable towards the smart and technical people (and, unfortunately, also much more competitive). I always read a lot about the shortage of people in STEM fields, and teachers. The US education system is absolutely horrible. I had to explain how percentages work to a university student (not a bad university either). However, teachers still have a terrible salary, and teaching anything lower than university level is not a respected profession.
- tdb7893 10y ago
  Teaching has a low salary because we have too many teachers. It would be strange to pay them more when there are already way more people who want to teach than there are jobs. The only reason to pay more would be to try to get higher quality teachers but I doubt an increase in pay will really increase quality much.
  - japhyr 10y ago
    It might not increase quality initially, but it would make a difference in the long run. I know many bright people who don't consider teaching because they can have a much more comfortable life, both financially and bureaucratically, in other fields. I also know many people who leave teaching early in their careers because of the relatively low pay and frustrating bureaucracy. I've been a teacher for 20 years. It was deeply frustrating early in my career to meet teachers who were near the end of their careers, did a terrible job, and got paid almost twice what I made. This issue also varies widely throughout the country. I teach in Alaska, and pay here is decent. But there are parts of the country where I'd take a $20k+ cut in salary, without a corresponding cost of living change.
  - alphydan 10y ago
    > we have too many teachers Are you really saying that doubling the number of teachers and reducing the number of students per class would not improve education? Would it not help with differentiated learning?
pfarnsworth 10y ago
Someone I know was tested at an IQ of 145. She placed #1 in her city (the capital city of the country) for high school entrance exams among tens of thousands of students. She is now a VP in her mid-30s of a Fortune 100 company and on track to be CFO. However, her goal is to be a CFO in the next 5 years, and I have no doubt she will accomplish that.
shoefly 10y ago
IQ means little if you do not have the ambition, drive, and courage to be more. I have known many people with superior IQs working in brainless jobs. They would not leave or consider another way of life. Actually, one did. I was her best friend. She loved kids. I planted little hints that she would make a great teacher. She watched me go through college. Once she saw me do it, she decided she could do it to. She went for two years, took on a double load, and graduated at the top of her class. She is now a middle school teacher. Not making great money, but she loves her job.
owenversteeg 10y ago
Anyone else fascinated by the "window of comprehension" mentioned in the article? It's really fascinating to me. As the article says, it's the idea that "no meaningful communication is possible among people not sharing a common window of 30 IQ points." I have no idea how true it is, but it's a really interesting idea. At least in my experience it's a probabilistic thing: as people get more different in IQ communication becomes harder, with a few exceptions. What do you all think?
- apeace 10y ago
  I also found it fascinating and enjoyed reading through the other IQ-related content on the same website: http://www.t3x.org/iq/index.html http://www.t3x.org/iq/index.html
- clairity 10y ago
  this seems like an observation rather than a hard-and-fast rule, meaning that we can use social skills to "break" the rule. if i'm high intelligence but low on impatience, then the rule seems to be true for me, since i'll just give up on talking with low intelligence people (according to the rule). but when i'm feeling generous and patient, then i can have a lot more compassion and empathy to see the world the way the other person does without worrying about what the "intelligent" position is. rationality (what intelligence is good for) is only one input to our decision-making, and i believe intelligent people particularly need to periodically remind themselves of that (rather than allowing supposed rules like this to short-circuit our behavior).
- scandox 10y ago
  I was certainly very interested in this concept. I admit my instant reaction was one of complete repugnance. Human communication comprises a huge array of different things, the minority of which have to do with abstract reasoning. IQ is a very specific measure of one aspect of human intelligence. In a sense this concept (the window of comprehension), reductive as it seems, would be more likely to reinforce the problems the individuals mentioned have, by emphasizing human communication as an intellectual rather than a social activity. In general my experience of very intelligent people is that they have an excellent ability to interact with people of all types, including people with relatively undeveloped powers of abstract thought. After all understanding context is to my mind a strong indicator of intelligence. On the other hand I'd be interested to hear more from people of very high IQ on this topic - if they think they can get their ideas across to me over the 30 point barrier
matt_wulfeck 10y ago
I'm going to put this out there. Gifted children need mentors more than they need teachers who understand their abilities. There are many things that will make them struggle in school, and without a mentor to be there with them offering advice and keeping them grounded then there's going to be the same issues popping up over and over with each new year. What we need is a sort of Big Brother/Sister program but not for at-risk children in the traditional sense, but highly gifted children who will be lost without someone to help guide them through the problems they'll face in early life.
- rch 10y ago
  We also need to educate parents about the potential benefits of a mentor program. It can be particularly difficult to convince people in the top quintile that they are ill-equipped for any task related to their children.
awinter-py 10y ago
these symptoms sounds like career burnout
zerr 10y ago
Nobody mentioned Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)?
- kosma 10y ago
  I was surprised too, especially considering how hard it is to discern ASD symptoms caused by high IQ from high IQ caused by ASD. I fall in the middle of that Venn diagram, and unless there's some sort of miraculous scientific breakthrough in that area, I doubt I'll ever know for sure.
  - alexpoulsen 10y ago
    I had social anxiety. Got counseling around 3-4 years ago. Even though I was never formally diagnosed, my mother always thought I was somewhere on the Autism spectrum. Not enough to really hinder me at everything, but enough to make me socially incapable. I've never taken an IQ test but I think I would score fairly high. I've had a similar experience with the dumbing down in classrooms. (Probably many times before this but I have a memory that is totally shit at some things but great at others) So I'm taking a beginner programming class at college in python. About half way though the semester I finished the class barely working hard. I could have done in 2-4 weeks had I went through it as fast as possible. There was another session that was a bit faster but I was the first to finish by far. Some of the things other people struggled with kinda amazed me. Things I would do in 30 minutes to an hour they might take 3 plus days including the professor really helping them. Any time I tried to help, I quickly got frustrated since I wasn't going to tell them how exactly to do it. Also I taught myself nearly all the course material. This was at an engineering/art/business private college (which only had a comp sci minor) which I'm transferring away from to do computer programming.
dsjoerg 10y ago
Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth has a lot of useful resources for parents and others wondering about the needs of smart kids and what can be done for them. http://cty.jhu.edu/ http://cty.jhu.edu/ They helped us with my daughter.
- jpt4 10y ago
  Having attended five Summers worth of residential CTY programs, I attest and affirm that nothing - university, private organizations, or autodidactism - has yet exceeded the intensity of immersion in an environment of pure learning that I experienced there.
caconym_ 10y ago
My experience in school matches that of "The Guy" pretty closely. To this day I still am not quite sure what to make of it; I went to private schools that were probably more challenging than other places I could have been, and I obviously learned a massive amount just being there doing some of the work (to say nothing of the social education), but I just could not make myself care enough to get good grades, especially in classes where homework was weighted heavily. It's not like I was doing anything worthwhile instead. Playing video games, mostly, and running around in the yard during the summer rather than completing the "summer math packet" and prescribed readings. I always doubly dreaded the end of summer, because I'd never done the homework. I think the constant dread of the moment of reckoning when homework was to be turned in, and I was empty-handed, gave me a serious sort of imposter-ish syndrome that persists to this day. Back then I was constantly having doors closed on me because of my slacking, and while I am quite successful now in my career I am still reticent to try opening doors because I'm wired to assume they will be locked. Anyway, it turned out that I can actually be a functional member of society and a valuable worker (software engineer, natch). But my basic incompatibility with school made it a real crapshoot whether I'd get the opportunity to prove my worth; if it wasn't for a lucky break getting an internship referral from a professor who liked me, my life would probably look very different right now. I'd probably be dead, honestly; I don't take care of myself well when I'm in a depressed and aimless mode. What to take away from this, I don't know (which is frustrating). I don't know what my IQ is, and I don't really care at this point in my life, but I'm certainly not the sort of scintillating Von Neumann-esque intellect that you hear about a lot in threads like this. I'm not sure what a path to some "school for the gifted" would have looked like for me, whether I would have been accepted or not, and whether that would have "unlocked my true potential" or just left me in the same situation with the added wrinkle of material so difficult that I couldn't BS through it anymore (I started to really run into this in higher-level university classes). I am smart, though, and I want to have kids and I assume they'll be smart too. I'd like to know how they can avoid the same pitfalls that held me back earlier in life, because if they can, I think they could be much more successful than I've been.
- henrikschroder 10y ago
  > I'd like to know how they can avoid the same pitfalls that held me back earlier in life There's a lot of studies around gifted kids that show that if you praise them for results, they grow up like you (and me), very risk-averse, only applying themselves if they knew they would succeed. Instead, you should praise kids for effort. Reward work, not just punish non-work, as was done to you. Even if you're clever, sometimes you just have to sit down and do boring-ass tasks, and it's a very useful adulting skill to have.
gersh 10y ago
How could I meet these gifted, socially-isolated people? I'd be interested in Skype or Google Hangouts. Email me.
ssono 10y ago
Warning, I might not be as smart as I think I am and this may be irrelevant. I am a college student who has coasted his entire life. My father is a professor and probably the only reason I am not socially isolated. From my experience(which may or may not be relevant) being this gifted is a lot like living an RPG. .The person you are when interacting is nothing but a character. You have to fake engagement, interest, and ability in order to have friends or you can be alone. .You need to give your life some long term goal otherwise no work has meaning because it serves no use. However, say your goal is to cure cancer you know you have to do well in school and social to later gain access to the resources necessary for your goal. An RPG without a quest is no fun.
throw2016 10y ago
With child prodigies often in sports, music, arts it easy to see and recognize the talent. But 'smart' as a word out of context on its own is vague, subjective and can say many things. How do we distinguish between 'smart' and those who may simply have a high opinion of themselves or are being pushed by parents with extra training, and the pressure itself on children of unrealistic expectations. If you leave it vague you risk creating a whole victimhood mentality of individuals who think they are entitled but the world, schools, teachers etc has somehow conspired to deny them. I think its important to be explicit in these discussion about terms like 'smart', their context and what is being referred to.
tobyjsullivan 10y ago
I'm trying to figure out how realistic the mentioned concept of a "window of comprehension" actually is. This [paper? article? post?] only has one external reference - to another document from the same group[1]. That short document, in turn, makes unsupported claims that "Studies have shown that there is a “window of comprehension” of about 30 IQ points." A quick Google search didn't provide anything further in support of the idea; just some references to the concept from the same group. Is this a real thing? It would be fascinating if it were, for many different contexts. [1] http://www.triplenine.org/portals/0/PublicDocs/Vidya/vidya_320-321_MF_reprint.pdf http://www.triplenine.org/portals/0/PublicDocs/Vidya/vidya_3...
- Gargoyle 10y ago
  The footnote in the post also references this paper for the claim- Intelligence and personal influence in groups: Four nonlinear models. Simonton, Dean K. Psychological Review, Vol 92(4), Oct 1985, 532-547 http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1986-14442-001 http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1986-14442-001
  - mcguire 10y ago
    The paper is behind a paywall, but the abstract makes me wonder about this reference: "Describes 4 progressive models that provide a conceptual basis for a curvilinear relation between intelligence and an individual's influence over other group members. "Model 1, the intellectual superiority model, by assuming that influence is a function of percentile placement in intelligence, predicts that beyond an IQ of about 120 intelligence bears a negligible connection with influence. "Model 2, the comprehension factor, adds the consideration of the degree of comprehension by potential followers, yielding a nonmonotonic function with a predicted peak IQ of about 108, approximately 0.5 standard deviations (SD) above the mean. "Model 3 incorporates the criticism factor that acknowledges a group member's vulnerability to intellectual superiors, and thereby predicts a 2nd nonmonotonic function with an optimal IQ of about 119 (or 1.2 SD above the mean). "Model 4, the intellectual stratification model, expands on the fact that the mean group IQ varies across different groups and, consequently, predicts a high correlation between the group mean IQ and the IQ of its most influential member, with a leader–follower gap of between 8 and 20 points, depending on the submodel. "It is surmised that other factors besides intelligence must participate in the determination of who becomes the leader of a group. Even if intelligence is not the exclusive determinant, the models strongly imply that published validity coefficients are biased downward." I don't see any evidence for the existence (beyond the assumptions of "a model") of a "window".
mcguire 10y ago
I am not sure I buy that this is related to the intelligence of the children involved. To match those two stories, I can probably identify a half dozen others with the same rough trajectory, minus the comments about how bright they are and how they could pass at school without trying. The problem isn't that they're screwed by the system, educational or otherwise. The problem is that they never figured out how to interact with other people, for whatever reason. I have considerable sympathy because I, too, have difficulties interacting with other people. But there's much more to it than "he's so smart that he's frustrated and bored with everyone and everything." Then there's this: "Finally, a platform for those extraordinarily gifted people who failed to find a place in life could be helpful. Of course, high-IQ societies exist, but then most of their members appear to be rather successful and hence limited in their understanding of people who never achieved much, if anything, in life. Of course, sympathy and understanding is also present in many who did better, and exchange with those can also be very helpful." Successful, intelligent people, particularly those who join "high iq societies", tend, in my experience, to have little empathy with those who they see as less intelligent, which is partially defined as less successful.
Mikeb85 10y ago
I can relate somewhat. Good student, got good grades with about zero effort, did good in extracurriculars, but found most academic-related things to be very boring (it was mostly memorization of facts with zero critical thinking). Most of my friends worked menial jobs or sold drugs, and while I did graduate high school and stay out of serious trouble, instead of university I got a restaurant job and partied, abused alcohol and drugs and lived a pretty interesting life. Excelled at work, rising to the top of the local food scene very quick, then got married and went to university at the behest of my wife who didn't like the restaurant lifestyle. Well, married life was boring, got restless, eventually we fell out and split (she wanted the white picket fence and everything, I wanted to just experience life with a fun partner), now I travel, gamble, trade stocks and sometimes will do a stint at restaurants my friends own just because it's fun. Oh, and programming, the wife hated that, she didn't see the point in creating programs and scripts that didn't 'make money' (never mind all the stock-picking and economic-analyzing scripts that kind of did make me money...). Guess the point is that a 'typical' life isn't for everyone. I can finish my degree rather easily and get a permanent office job, but why? I'd rather be in Paris one day, the Caribbean the next, abusing substances and partying with a bunch of hot girls than slaving away for a boss at a job that is comically easy, where I have to slow down just to avoid the onslaught of extra work there'd be if I were to actually give a shit and try. And honestly, I have friends who have money and things. I have money, less things, and I don't really feel like I miss out. No house? No stress. My car is a 4 door compact and not a BMW with leather seats? It still drives, is warm in the winter, and has less problems. I didn't finish my degree? Half my friends with degrees are unemployed now anyhow thanks to the shit local economy. With more debt. Speaking of which, I live in a place where, to be honest, all the 'good' jobs which once existed for educated people are never coming back (the degree which I'm a semester away from completing is in Economics fyi). People need to change their idea of what success is. The robots are coming for all your jobs anyway, we'll need to deal with it. In the future, either we'll all be engaging in intellectual pursuits living on a guaranteed income, or living in dystopian future where the holders of capital lord over the rest of us who scrounge for scraps in an alternative economy (look at Brazil to see how massive inequality manifests itself). Anyhow, just the musings of someone who others say has under-achieved, but has stopped giving a fuck. We all die, 'success' is overrated. We need to get back to having relationships and living life.
teilo 10y ago
I am in this category, but have a completely different experience. For one I did not get tested until late in life (and discovered I had an IQ of ~150 according to the Mensa standard admissions test), and for another I was in private school all the way through high school. So I believe what made the difference for me was a combination of not growing up with that ultra-gifted stigma, attending a school with very small classes (sometimes I was the only student in a given class), and having a great deal of socialization with intelligent adults. I still had a lot of difficulty relating to others my age, and thus made few lasting friends. I also did my best to shy away from any attempt to classify me as a genius. I didn't feel like a genius (whatever that means), and didn't want to be considered one. This, in part, is why I didn't bother to get tested until into my 40s.
chetanahuja 10y ago
I'm currently facing this problem as a volunteer. I'm teaching coding to my son's 4th grade classroom and there are about 5 or so kids out of 30 who finish everything assigned really fast and have to wait for the others to catchup. On the other end of the spectrum, there are aoubt 4-5 kids who need some extra help while the rest of the class has moved on. I'm not a teacher by profession but this little volunteer effort has given me a lot of appreciation for how hard the teacher's job is (and also what a insufferable little snot I must have been as a kid)
- csa 10y ago
  For the fast kids, create your lessons with extensions. You can google it for more details on how to do this skillfully, but an extension is basically building something extra onto your first task. Note that good extensions are not busy work -- they typically either lead to the creation of a cool product or they introduce a new and related concept. Either way, good extensions are ones that motivate the middle kids to try to get to the extensions phase. For the extra-help kids, the best thing to do during class is to have them work with a friend who got it. Sometimes their peers can communicate the key ideas better than you can. After the class, you can review the problematic ideas with them and/or give them extra problems for them to work on (if they are interested). You will win them over if you can review those extra problems with them at a later time (e.g., before the next class).
AnonTemp 10y ago
Was in the 99.9 percentile as a child and enjoyed gifted classes until high school where I was exceptionally bored and hardly applied myself. I ended up at a lower-ranked state university where I am able to try a little harder (thanks STEM), though it still doesn't feel rewarding being so far ahead of your classmates. Fortunately, my campus life is much more social than my more ambitious hs friends' campuses, although I do often feel intellectually alienated. I really have to thank HN for providing a stimulating community. The high-quality resources and discussions here have made my life much more pleasant; as a community you've improved my outlook drastically. Thanks. (Do any of you relate? If you have any advice, let me know!)
- zemotion 10y ago
  One of my friends left school to pursue a professional career at 18, did it rather successfully and then retired after a few years to go back to school. He decided to go back via community college but it bored him to tears. The teaching was terrible and none of his peers seemed worth talking to. Then he started looking at the online recordings that good schools put up of their classes, realized the gap in teaching quality and decided to transfer to a vastly better school. He's been much happier since. It's easy for us to blame or be indignant about our environments, but sometimes I also think it's our own responsibilities to go find the places in the world that would work for us. I personally like finding hobbies and pursuing them relentlessly with the goal of becoming the best in the world. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But I usually enjoy myself and get to meet some really remarkable people I wouldn't have otherwise.
AlphaWeaver 10y ago
[2015]
WhitneyLand 10y ago
I don't agree with his approach for a few reasons: 1) The 145 cutoff seems arbitrary. A kid at 135 doesn't get help? Plus constantly speaking about a number feels a little uncomfortable on the side of elitism. 2) Poverty is not mentioned as a problem to address. Roughly there are 40,000 people in the US this smart - living below the poverty line. Can you imagine the boost if they all hit potential? 3) And crime? We've got thousands of criminals with an IQ >= 145. And as De Niro said, they're not doin' thrill-seeker liquor store holdups with a "Born to Lose" tattoo on their chest. 4) All the assumptions could be wrong. I was in this group, and barely made it out of high school, failed out of college a couple of times. But the problem wasn't school, my teachers were mostly nice. I had learned poor homework discipline combined with having a severe fear of failure. Point is when people don't meet potential, there are a dizzying number of reasons, each with their own twists. How do you know which?
jstewartmobile 10y ago
The problem is they knew they were smarter than everyone else. When you've pulled a number that tells you you're smarter than everyone else, it becomes really easy to use your IQ as a binky and disengage from reality. This will stunt your development in so many ways. It's the genetic lottery equivalent of squandering it all on coke and whores. If we wanted to fix this, I think the first lesson in gifted classes should be: "You're a Special Snowflake, but life is still going to suck." Basically, teach them that the rest of the world only cares about you in terms of what you bring to the table, that no man is an island, and that bringing things to the table is usually a dirty job no matter how smart you are.
re_todd 10y ago
I remember taking a programming course many years ago at a community college. I finished an assignment, which wasn't too hard, and decided to go on to an advanced, unassigned topic. The instructor came into the lab, and so I asked her to clarify something. She was visibly irritated with me and told me to stick to the assignment, then stormed out. I felt like a horrible person and kept asking myself "what is wrong with you?". Months or years later I realized I need to stop feeling guilty. I had not harmed anyone, and I think she did know the answer to the question I had asked.
frozen11b 10y ago
I took and passed Algabra in the 6th 7th 8th and 9th grade. I slept in class usually didn't do the home work and got A's on most every test. But the teachers all felt I wasn't ready for harder math as they thought I wasn't mature enough. I didnt realize till years latter that this turned me from a bright excited student to lazy, lethargic and not wanting to challenge myself academically. Ended up graduating with a 1.8 gpa and a 1380 SAT score. Ended up joining the army, Infantryman, paratrooper and a Sergent by 21 years of age. Now I'm 34 and feel in some ways that if teachers had allowed me to progress and encouraged me earlier instead of being punished for not showing work or doing homework that was essentially busy work,I would have applied my self fully then instead of in the Army. As proud of I am of my service and having been a wartime team leader in the infantry at 21, maybe I would have gone to college first and not had to suffer from various medical and metal issues at the age of 34 from my military service. /rant over. Edited for typos as I'm half blind and proffreding sucks.
rurban 10y ago
Contrary to the op's post there does exist tons of studies and literature for those very few high IQ children and teens with social problems. The biggest and most wellknown study is the MHP Marburger Hochbegabtenprojekt from the 80ies. First, the problem rate is very very low (the 0.1%): "The study concludes with popular stereotypes. As a result, characteristics such as outsiders, aggressiveness, concentration problems, which are often attributed to high-achievers and high-IQ teens in popular media, are mere prejudices." https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marburger_Hochbegabtenprojekt https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marburger_Hochbegabtenprojekt http://www.angelfire.com/art/gregorbrand/Roststudie.html http://www.angelfire.com/art/gregorbrand/Roststudie.html Another official german paper is "Zu Entwicklungsschwierigkeiten hochbegabter Kinder und Jugendlicher in Wechselwirkung mit ihrer Umwelt"

150 points by lainon 10y ago

From a limited dataset: They get by. Find balance. When you ask them for a coffee, they tell you they don't have the $5 to take the subway to meet you and are very sorry for that. Some have other problems they are trying to work around, and all their energy goes to that and not inventing the next quantum equation. They drop out of being the hottest developers in the software industry, they stop being the top performers in the financial sector. They can get back, but it requires support. Our western society isn't optimized for such support but for grinding the rest down. So, it's not where they go, it's how do the rest of us, help them?

nils-m-holm 10y ago
Author of the article here: yes, the most interesting question is, what can we do to help? The article makes some suggestions. Short version: Spread awareness, especially among professionals (medical doctors, psychiatrists, etc). I have seen lots of high-IQ/highly sensitive people who got terrible advice from psychologists and psychiatrists. Educate those professionals, so at least they don't do any damage. Also: a communication platform for troubled high-IQ folks would be great! I would do it myself, but I'm bad at both, IT and social networking.
- pierre_d528 10y ago
  I know at least one of these people (IQ 155). Here is the fundamental problem she has: lower IQ people will deny the obvious even in front of their eyes. The combined delusion of all these people literally build our world that for her appears like a cheap stupid fairy tale (specially IQ 110-120 people that try to trick lower IQ people for money (advertisement etc)). She is surgeon and only deals with children: it keeps a lot of the low IQ people at bay. When she is not fixing children, she is riding horses. Much else is just fake to protect her from low IQ people. These 2 poor souls physically segregated themselves from low IQ people, she did the same... to a less extreme level (accepted to pretend/lie when needed). If she had seen a big warning sign saying "high IQ hurts", she would probably have had found help and more people to soften the terrible loneliness she experiences.
- stephengillie 10y ago
  So tell the experts that they're wrong, and that they are ignorant about part of their field? That sort of behavior rarely has a beneficial outcome, and can appear egotistical. > When one of them learned that their high IQ might cause some of the trouble they experienced, they once again looked for professional help, only to find out that the problem is widely unknown out there. How did they learn of this - that their IQ might cause some of these troubles - what was their authoritative information source? Essentially, they've found multiple professional authorities who dispute the information they heard somewhere and chose to believe. --- Learning and technical skills have always been easy for me, understanding people less so. I got an undergrad business degree specifically to understand why businesses do some of the nonsensical things they do. What I learned is that companies are essentially just organizations of humans, money, and things - and humans do all kinds of 'nonsensical' things because we are humans.
  - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
    There's a surprising dearth of research into the challenges faced by gifted people. As a topic, it does get some - not much - attention in both psychology and psychiatry. But it's considered a specialised field far out of the mainstream.
- dfraser992 10y ago
  This is a crude analogy, but a high IQ is in itself the same as having a certain gene, or genes. A marker of potential for something, but environment/nature is such as or more important. Nature in this case would be social environment, if we are talking about social/life success etc. And social/life success is tied far more strongly to emotional IQ. I'm up there at the far end of the IQ scale, but at this point in my life, I can see that all the trouble I've had in life is due to the emotional IQ part. And that was all due to the psychological environment I had to grow up in. Those anecdotes are bereft of real details, but I think it is safe to assume those people, because of their home environment, didn't grow up with <whatever is needed> to deal with the issues of dealing with society in some manner. Society, is .. well, once you grasp psychology and how primate societies operate, the stupidity of humanity makes sense. It doesn't excuse it, but that is humanity for you. You just learn not to expect the ideal, as simple as it may seem to one smarter than average. An understanding of Buddhism helps. The fact that psychotherapy etc didn't help shouldn't serve as a condemnation of the profession entirely, but just the fact that an awful lot of therapists are incompetent. I think I was lucky, I had mostly good ones. they didn't help solve everything, but each provided the support to get ahold of the next piece of the puzzle. Even then, with a good therapist, it still takes some sort of inner resolve to fully transcend one's emotional pain. I have no good advice on this other than keep trying and learn enough psychology/psychiatry so you can spot the idiots. One you learn how to start playing psychotherapist with yourself, it becomes easier. Suggestions? Some sort of group therapy model re: a platform would be an idea. Group therapy was very useful for me. I could see the problems I wrestled with mirrored in the problems others wrestled with - the guy that had a personality fundamentally like mine was ... the details were different, but the themes were the same. You wouldn't want a platform for people to just reinforce their complaining or poor me attitude. i.e. no friendships or socializing developing out of it. OTOH, text only communication is bad for this sort of thing. A group video conference might be workable, but I don't know, there are logistical problems I think. But I am somewhat biased, given what I know and have found useful.

alexpetralia 10y ago

I hate to sound trite, but intelligence (for which IQ is a proxy) is not only factor for success. Social skills will always be required - it seems like your two examples lacked these.

Light2Yellow 10y ago
Yes, but this is not the case here. In particular, the author tries to solve the lack of social skills between people sorted in categories (thus by IQ in this case). So it's not that important whether they are 'intelligent' or not (the definition of 'intelligence' is controversial) but their integration into society (very poor so far, as the author shows). That's the problem the article aims to share.
Axiverse 10y ago
I actually think this is exactly the point. He is talking about how these people are highly intelligent but not successful because society isolates them and doesn't give them the opportunity and motivation to learn those skills in the appropriate window. This is kind of the opposite of students that are underperforming that don't get the attention to help them keep up. Instead these are students that can overperform, but don't get the challenges, validation, and motivation - the general positive feedback - that will help them grow and succeed. Instead they are meet with disapproval and neglect since teachers both dislike them asking hard questions (thus challenging their authority among already hard to control kids) and don't have time to give them the attention they need (since they are most focused on the largest median group).
maolt 10y ago
High IQ creates barriers that can prevent one from experiencing the social situations that enable the development of social skills. And when you are left behind in social skills, past a certain age, people show much less tolerance for your quirks, and basically think that if you are that way, you must be weird/ have a problem and will not tell you honestly what is the issue with you. Giving somebody with subpar social skills social cues serve no purpose, as they don't get any benefit out of it. So you get a catch 22, as you don't have sufficient social skills to know / get the help needed to develop your social skills.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

ArcticCelt 10y ago

Many of the symptoms described there looked like ADHD (of course I am not making a real diagnostic). High intelligence and lack of motivation leads to underachievement.

D-Coder 10y ago

The paper says, "Of course, high-IQ societies exist, but then most of their members appear to be rather successful and hence limited in their understanding of people who never achieved much, if anything, in life." Some people join high-IQ societies because they haven't achieved a lot, and any society where they share an important attribute is a place where they can fit in. And Mensa, at least, has a good deal of support for gifted children.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
Right; Mensa demographic is high-IQ non-achievers. Kind of the point - a club where you can feel appreciated even though you don't find that anywhere else.
- mikeash 10y ago
  69% of Mensa members make more than $50,000/year, and 47% of them make more than $75,000/year. I'm sure they have some non-achieving members but it doesn't look like their main demographic.
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    That sounds sort of average or even below. The Elks club probably looks like that. For the top 2% intelligent people in the world, that counts as non-achieving. Working in a bookstore or running a gas station is not what you'd expect from geniuses.
    - infinite8s 10y ago
      How about working as a patent clerk or a lowly mathematics lecturer.
    - mikeash 10y ago
      Median income in the US is not quite $52,000, so Mensa is somewhat above average.

caseymarquis 10y ago

That high school drop out story hits close to home. My advice is to get a low level job at a smaller company that has a department which does interesting or highly technical work. Start talking to their IT/Technical/Whatever staff and let them know you work on x/y/z in your free time. In my case I did a good deal of free work after hours (100+ hour weeks) before actually moving to a full time programming position (50 hour weeks), but it was worth it considering it completely turned my career prospects around. Being on the other side of things now, most companies are starving for good people.

lolc 10y ago

Starting to teach helped me immensely. I've learned a lot about how other people relate to the world. Just having an advanced understanding of something is useless in many situations unless you're able to communicate this understanding to other people so they can share it.

metacomments 10y ago

I was one of those "gifted left behind" students. Majority of my family never completed high school and no one in my family went to college. High school was the bare minimum requirement to work at the local furniture factory and that is where you were expected to work after graduation (college was out of scope us simple folks). My high school barely offered any AP courses, didn't prepare students for the SAT (I didn't know what it was) and despite having nearly a 4.0 GPA (unweighted, since I never took any AP courses) the "best" college I was told I could attend was a local nearby liberal arts school. I had no guidance on where to go to college nor any preparation. I showed talent at an early age but there were simply no resources for me. I ended up going to a community college, had nearly a 4.0 GPA (taking mostly STEM courses) and a guidance consoler recommended I apply for a prestigious university located in the state. I told her I couldn't do that as I knew I wouldn't be accepted, told her the acceptance rate is too low. She tried to push really hard for me apply and said I would get in. I declined. Instead I went to a much lower ranked university (looking back on it I could have gotten into the initial school) and ended up doing research there. The research led to a publication but for one reason or another my GPA dropped and continue to drop each semester (had A+s, As in some courses, Ds in others). I received help from no one and had no support system. Ended up transferring to a larger school. Started over there, GPA continued to suffer (was dealing with a lot) and graduated. Despite my low GPA I was accepted to a highly ranked graduate school and was offered a fellowship, teaching assistant ship and research assistantship, but I also received a job offer with a much higher starting salary. My family was in such need at this time I had to accept the job over graduate school. After working in industry I developed a new interest and decided I wanted to go back into academia. At this moment in my life I'm preparing to make the switch. I enrolled in a well-ranked university taking pre-req courses in the new field and currently pulling off a 4.0 GPA. I plan to apply to graduate school shortly. Most of my friends had more of a straight path into graduate school.

user837387 10y ago
I imagine you want to keep this private so could you at least name the nearest town to where you grew up? Just trying to find out if this is in America or another country. Your story is very familiar. Unfortunately your family seems to be taking advantage of your goodwill. I know because I've experience it myself. They get into all sorts of trouble and then they expect you to drop everything and to sacrifice everything to help them. Good luck.

japhyr 10y ago

Teachers disliked him, because they knew how easily he picked up information. I'm a teacher, and this is one of the things that frustrates me deeply about our education system. I welcome students like this; they're so much fun to work with. But I usually have to make them feel accepted before I can begin to work with them. I teach in a small alternative high school, and by the time bright students get to me, they're often used to being shut down for picking things up quickly and not having to do homework. I met a really bright and interesting guy once who told me about his experience in first grade. His teacher gave everyone a math workbook, and he was really excited to be learning math. He finished the workbook in a day or two, and excitedly brought it to his teacher, expecting to be given another workbook. Instead she glared at him and said something along the lines of, "I can't believe you cheated on your math workbook in first grade!" She gave him another copy of the same workbook and told him to do start over, and that she'd be watching him. He thought to himself, "Well that sucked, but she'll watch me do it this time and know I can do it." So he did, but this time she just got mad at him and said something like, "I don't have anything else for you to do, so here's another copy of the workbook. Don't finish this so quickly." He learned what so many bright kids learn: if you learn things too quickly and speak up, you'll just make the adults around you mad and they'll give you more meaningless work to do. I know there are many teachers who handle bright kids really well, but as a system we fail many kids. These effects last years, and often times decades.

hunterwerlla 10y ago
You are taking that quote way out of context the next part of the sentence "but then he never made an effort to improve his grades" is the relevant part. They dislike him because he didn't try to improve not because he was good at picking up information.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  In fact that may be the curse of the smart kid - things come so easily they won't put in effort when it is required. They become lazy.
  - 10y ago

itnAAnti 10y ago

I know of at least two other people from small towns whose IQ and life stories are similar to those shared in the article. I think high IQ individuals becoming isolated, social outcasts is more common in small towns, where accelerated curriculums and gifted and talented programs are more rare. If you know a highly gifted child, refer them to the Davidson Academy, a free public school for the profoundly gifted. http://www.davidsonacademy.unr.edu http://www.davidsonacademy.unr.edu The Davidson academy is free to attend, and they can coordinate providing IQ-appropriate curriculum and work to the child's school for students who cannot attend in-person. Finally, there are paid, online options as well. A friend of mine works at Davidson, and they have elementary age kids taking physics classes alongside master's degree students. When they say "profoundly gifted", it's not hyperbole. Getting gifted kids into programs where they are surrounded by people like them can go a long ways towards helping them learn social skills. They may never be socially normal in larger society, but they can find friends, meaning, and happiness that can lead to a productive and brilliant career and life.

leeoniya 10y ago
> online options as well. fairly certain this is the opposite of what they need
- brianwawok 10y ago
  You should sit a genius 10 year old with no social skills in a class of 20 somethings? That seems not a path to success.
  - astrodust 10y ago
    It's not the age of their counterparts, but the social structure you can build for them. It's probably better to have a kid like that with others that can understand where they're coming from than a bunch of ten year olds with no clue.
ap22213 10y ago
Got any resources for preschools? I've got a serious pending problem with my youngest. She's 18 months old and already on par with an average 4-5 year old (and even older in some ways). It's really freaking my wife and I out - we cannot keep up with her curiosity and motivation to learn - we just don't have time or resources. We're worried that by the time she starts school, she's going to be so far ahead that she won't be able to relate to the other kids. She already has issues with other 18-24 month olds - she call's them babies and treats them like so. No idea what to do. I just want her to be able to hang out with kids like herself and do what kids do. I'm not interested in turning her into a super-genius or putting pressure or her or training her or any of that. I'd rather her just be free and follow her mind for as long as possible.

losvedir 10y ago

Is the focus on "High IQ" helpful here? Why would the treatment for ADHD, Depression, Social Anxiety, etc, be any different for them than someone with a lower IQ?

nils-m-holm 10y ago
Because in some cases it's none of the above; it's just not fitting in, and getting "treated" for being different is often the beginning of a long and sad history of self-blame and isolation.
maolt 10y ago
because high IQ magnifies a lot of issues in ways that people not personally concerned or untrained may not be able to grasp.

narrator 10y ago

Warning! /r/iamverysmart post ahead! I normally wouldn't engage in this, as it's extremely poor manners and terribly arrogant, but it's on topic here and I think other potential /r/iamverysmart posters might benefit, so here goes: One of the problems of being intelligent is learning how to tolerate and accept boredom. I used to rebel against being bored and being ahead of the class. I would think: "this is all so easy and why isn't anybody interested in anything interesting?" Once I learned that dealing with boredom is basically the price you pay for fitting in things improved a lot. I deal with a lot of friendships that are profoundly boring just so I can have people to talk to and socially interact with. I don't complain. I don't patronize. I just go through the motions so I can cargo cult my way to a social life. I lowered my expectations on everything and everybody to absolutely nothing and it works great. I overhear other people's conversations and I think to myself: "how can these people even put up with that level of conversation?. They must be pretending to be entertained!" Then I remember all about the boring world out there where people go about their daily lives talking all day about boring stuff. After all this boring interaction I'll occasionally go to a Deep Learning study group and we'll read the latest paper. Very smart people will analyze the paper and leave me a little disconcerted that there are people that I can engage with intellectually and be challenged and entertained by in a sincere way. Anyway, that's just my two cents about the world for the disgruntled /r/iamverysmart crowd out there, whether you actually are or not. :)

neffy 10y ago
Finding something to do with the spare cycles is definitely one problem that has to be solved.
- narrator 10y ago
  Speaking of which, here's another /r/iamverysmart funny story about spare cycles: I had a very smart, quirky friend from rural California. I took her to a party once and she wasn't interested in the people there who weren't terribly intellectual, but I was having a decent time practicing my social skills. She sat in the corner and just starred at the wall catatonically. I asked her if she was alright. She assured me she was and told me she had gotten really good at dealing with boredom growing up in a small town with nothing to do and no other nerds around.

twmisanthrope 10y ago

Interesting read. Personally, I feel like I'm somewhere on this spectrum, but perhaps not as far along as your two examples. Depending on my choices over the next couple years, it could go either way, I think. I have terrible OCD and anxiety, and usually spend 1-2 days a week dealing with that problem alone. But thankfully my job is flexible and well-paid enough that I can still live pretty comfortably. More than anything else (and embarrassingly), I sympathize with your examples' misanthropy and consequent social isolation. In my opinion, being almost completely subject to disciplinary structures such as work and school for most of their lives makes most people pretty uninteresting. I can't say that I've done lots of super interesting things myself (working on it!), but unfortunately that doesn't really help me feel better about my peers. I also dislike the kind of social interactions social media seems to encourage. For me, the need to constantly seek or maintain approval of a wide audience of people is extremely unbecoming. Being an introvert, I also can't really deal with the 'little bits of social interaction sprinkled over time' pattern. But unfortunately, it seems that social media now dominates patterns of social relations, so it seems that I have to deal with that somehow...

jondubois 10y ago

I think introversion may be partly to blame. I can relate to a lot of the things about the people in this article. That said, over many years, I managed to train myself to act extroverted. Recently, someone even accused me of being a "social, networking type" which they probably meant as an insult but it was actually a massive compliment to my life's work ;p

rev_bird 10y ago
I may be misunderstanding what you're referring to, but I just wanted to point out that "introversion" doesn't mean "misanthropic." In a nutshell, introversion/extroversion just refers to what effect social interaction has on you: Does being with people energize you, or leave you drained? For example, I'm most certainly an introvert, but I love meeting up with friends for an evening---the "introvert" part is that at a certain point, I just want to leave and go sit in a quiet room. Interaction is tiring, not unpleasant. Anyway, I'm wandering: My point was, I'm not sure you've trained yourself to "act extroverted," just to be more social than your "comfort zone" would normally allow.

kutkloon7 10y ago

I would argue that discouraging very smart or technical people is typical for Western countries, and even more typical for the US. In Asian countries, the culture is much more favourable towards the smart and technical people (and, unfortunately, also much more competitive). I always read a lot about the shortage of people in STEM fields, and teachers. The US education system is absolutely horrible. I had to explain how percentages work to a university student (not a bad university either). However, teachers still have a terrible salary, and teaching anything lower than university level is not a respected profession.

tdb7893 10y ago
Teaching has a low salary because we have too many teachers. It would be strange to pay them more when there are already way more people who want to teach than there are jobs. The only reason to pay more would be to try to get higher quality teachers but I doubt an increase in pay will really increase quality much.
- japhyr 10y ago
  It might not increase quality initially, but it would make a difference in the long run. I know many bright people who don't consider teaching because they can have a much more comfortable life, both financially and bureaucratically, in other fields. I also know many people who leave teaching early in their careers because of the relatively low pay and frustrating bureaucracy. I've been a teacher for 20 years. It was deeply frustrating early in my career to meet teachers who were near the end of their careers, did a terrible job, and got paid almost twice what I made. This issue also varies widely throughout the country. I teach in Alaska, and pay here is decent. But there are parts of the country where I'd take a $20k+ cut in salary, without a corresponding cost of living change.
- alphydan 10y ago
  > we have too many teachers Are you really saying that doubling the number of teachers and reducing the number of students per class would not improve education? Would it not help with differentiated learning?

pfarnsworth 10y ago

Someone I know was tested at an IQ of 145. She placed #1 in her city (the capital city of the country) for high school entrance exams among tens of thousands of students. She is now a VP in her mid-30s of a Fortune 100 company and on track to be CFO. However, her goal is to be a CFO in the next 5 years, and I have no doubt she will accomplish that.

shoefly 10y ago

IQ means little if you do not have the ambition, drive, and courage to be more. I have known many people with superior IQs working in brainless jobs. They would not leave or consider another way of life. Actually, one did. I was her best friend. She loved kids. I planted little hints that she would make a great teacher. She watched me go through college. Once she saw me do it, she decided she could do it to. She went for two years, took on a double load, and graduated at the top of her class. She is now a middle school teacher. Not making great money, but she loves her job.

owenversteeg 10y ago

Anyone else fascinated by the "window of comprehension" mentioned in the article? It's really fascinating to me. As the article says, it's the idea that "no meaningful communication is possible among people not sharing a common window of 30 IQ points." I have no idea how true it is, but it's a really interesting idea. At least in my experience it's a probabilistic thing: as people get more different in IQ communication becomes harder, with a few exceptions. What do you all think?

apeace 10y ago
I also found it fascinating and enjoyed reading through the other IQ-related content on the same website: http://www.t3x.org/iq/index.html http://www.t3x.org/iq/index.html
clairity 10y ago
this seems like an observation rather than a hard-and-fast rule, meaning that we can use social skills to "break" the rule. if i'm high intelligence but low on impatience, then the rule seems to be true for me, since i'll just give up on talking with low intelligence people (according to the rule). but when i'm feeling generous and patient, then i can have a lot more compassion and empathy to see the world the way the other person does without worrying about what the "intelligent" position is. rationality (what intelligence is good for) is only one input to our decision-making, and i believe intelligent people particularly need to periodically remind themselves of that (rather than allowing supposed rules like this to short-circuit our behavior).
scandox 10y ago
I was certainly very interested in this concept. I admit my instant reaction was one of complete repugnance. Human communication comprises a huge array of different things, the minority of which have to do with abstract reasoning. IQ is a very specific measure of one aspect of human intelligence. In a sense this concept (the window of comprehension), reductive as it seems, would be more likely to reinforce the problems the individuals mentioned have, by emphasizing human communication as an intellectual rather than a social activity. In general my experience of very intelligent people is that they have an excellent ability to interact with people of all types, including people with relatively undeveloped powers of abstract thought. After all understanding context is to my mind a strong indicator of intelligence. On the other hand I'd be interested to hear more from people of very high IQ on this topic - if they think they can get their ideas across to me over the 30 point barrier

matt_wulfeck 10y ago

I'm going to put this out there. Gifted children need mentors more than they need teachers who understand their abilities. There are many things that will make them struggle in school, and without a mentor to be there with them offering advice and keeping them grounded then there's going to be the same issues popping up over and over with each new year. What we need is a sort of Big Brother/Sister program but not for at-risk children in the traditional sense, but highly gifted children who will be lost without someone to help guide them through the problems they'll face in early life.

rch 10y ago
We also need to educate parents about the potential benefits of a mentor program. It can be particularly difficult to convince people in the top quintile that they are ill-equipped for any task related to their children.

awinter-py 10y ago

these symptoms sounds like career burnout

zerr 10y ago

Nobody mentioned Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)?

kosma 10y ago
I was surprised too, especially considering how hard it is to discern ASD symptoms caused by high IQ from high IQ caused by ASD. I fall in the middle of that Venn diagram, and unless there's some sort of miraculous scientific breakthrough in that area, I doubt I'll ever know for sure.
- alexpoulsen 10y ago
  I had social anxiety. Got counseling around 3-4 years ago. Even though I was never formally diagnosed, my mother always thought I was somewhere on the Autism spectrum. Not enough to really hinder me at everything, but enough to make me socially incapable. I've never taken an IQ test but I think I would score fairly high. I've had a similar experience with the dumbing down in classrooms. (Probably many times before this but I have a memory that is totally shit at some things but great at others) So I'm taking a beginner programming class at college in python. About half way though the semester I finished the class barely working hard. I could have done in 2-4 weeks had I went through it as fast as possible. There was another session that was a bit faster but I was the first to finish by far. Some of the things other people struggled with kinda amazed me. Things I would do in 30 minutes to an hour they might take 3 plus days including the professor really helping them. Any time I tried to help, I quickly got frustrated since I wasn't going to tell them how exactly to do it. Also I taught myself nearly all the course material. This was at an engineering/art/business private college (which only had a comp sci minor) which I'm transferring away from to do computer programming.

dsjoerg 10y ago

Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth has a lot of useful resources for parents and others wondering about the needs of smart kids and what can be done for them. http://cty.jhu.edu/ http://cty.jhu.edu/ They helped us with my daughter.

jpt4 10y ago
Having attended five Summers worth of residential CTY programs, I attest and affirm that nothing - university, private organizations, or autodidactism - has yet exceeded the intensity of immersion in an environment of pure learning that I experienced there.

caconym_ 10y ago

My experience in school matches that of "The Guy" pretty closely. To this day I still am not quite sure what to make of it; I went to private schools that were probably more challenging than other places I could have been, and I obviously learned a massive amount just being there doing some of the work (to say nothing of the social education), but I just could not make myself care enough to get good grades, especially in classes where homework was weighted heavily. It's not like I was doing anything worthwhile instead. Playing video games, mostly, and running around in the yard during the summer rather than completing the "summer math packet" and prescribed readings. I always doubly dreaded the end of summer, because I'd never done the homework. I think the constant dread of the moment of reckoning when homework was to be turned in, and I was empty-handed, gave me a serious sort of imposter-ish syndrome that persists to this day. Back then I was constantly having doors closed on me because of my slacking, and while I am quite successful now in my career I am still reticent to try opening doors because I'm wired to assume they will be locked. Anyway, it turned out that I can actually be a functional member of society and a valuable worker (software engineer, natch). But my basic incompatibility with school made it a real crapshoot whether I'd get the opportunity to prove my worth; if it wasn't for a lucky break getting an internship referral from a professor who liked me, my life would probably look very different right now. I'd probably be dead, honestly; I don't take care of myself well when I'm in a depressed and aimless mode. What to take away from this, I don't know (which is frustrating). I don't know what my IQ is, and I don't really care at this point in my life, but I'm certainly not the sort of scintillating Von Neumann-esque intellect that you hear about a lot in threads like this. I'm not sure what a path to some "school for the gifted" would have looked like for me, whether I would have been accepted or not, and whether that would have "unlocked my true potential" or just left me in the same situation with the added wrinkle of material so difficult that I couldn't BS through it anymore (I started to really run into this in higher-level university classes). I am smart, though, and I want to have kids and I assume they'll be smart too. I'd like to know how they can avoid the same pitfalls that held me back earlier in life, because if they can, I think they could be much more successful than I've been.

henrikschroder 10y ago
> I'd like to know how they can avoid the same pitfalls that held me back earlier in life There's a lot of studies around gifted kids that show that if you praise them for results, they grow up like you (and me), very risk-averse, only applying themselves if they knew they would succeed. Instead, you should praise kids for effort. Reward work, not just punish non-work, as was done to you. Even if you're clever, sometimes you just have to sit down and do boring-ass tasks, and it's a very useful adulting skill to have.

gersh 10y ago

How could I meet these gifted, socially-isolated people? I'd be interested in Skype or Google Hangouts. Email me.

ssono 10y ago

Warning, I might not be as smart as I think I am and this may be irrelevant. I am a college student who has coasted his entire life. My father is a professor and probably the only reason I am not socially isolated. From my experience(which may or may not be relevant) being this gifted is a lot like living an RPG. .The person you are when interacting is nothing but a character. You have to fake engagement, interest, and ability in order to have friends or you can be alone. .You need to give your life some long term goal otherwise no work has meaning because it serves no use. However, say your goal is to cure cancer you know you have to do well in school and social to later gain access to the resources necessary for your goal. An RPG without a quest is no fun.

throw2016 10y ago

With child prodigies often in sports, music, arts it easy to see and recognize the talent. But 'smart' as a word out of context on its own is vague, subjective and can say many things. How do we distinguish between 'smart' and those who may simply have a high opinion of themselves or are being pushed by parents with extra training, and the pressure itself on children of unrealistic expectations. If you leave it vague you risk creating a whole victimhood mentality of individuals who think they are entitled but the world, schools, teachers etc has somehow conspired to deny them. I think its important to be explicit in these discussion about terms like 'smart', their context and what is being referred to.

tobyjsullivan 10y ago

I'm trying to figure out how realistic the mentioned concept of a "window of comprehension" actually is. This [paper? article? post?] only has one external reference - to another document from the same group[1]. That short document, in turn, makes unsupported claims that "Studies have shown that there is a “window of comprehension” of about 30 IQ points." A quick Google search didn't provide anything further in support of the idea; just some references to the concept from the same group. Is this a real thing? It would be fascinating if it were, for many different contexts. [1] http://www.triplenine.org/portals/0/PublicDocs/Vidya/vidya_320-321_MF_reprint.pdf http://www.triplenine.org/portals/0/PublicDocs/Vidya/vidya_3...

Gargoyle 10y ago
The footnote in the post also references this paper for the claim- Intelligence and personal influence in groups: Four nonlinear models. Simonton, Dean K. Psychological Review, Vol 92(4), Oct 1985, 532-547 http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1986-14442-001 http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1986-14442-001
- mcguire 10y ago
  The paper is behind a paywall, but the abstract makes me wonder about this reference: "Describes 4 progressive models that provide a conceptual basis for a curvilinear relation between intelligence and an individual's influence over other group members. "Model 1, the intellectual superiority model, by assuming that influence is a function of percentile placement in intelligence, predicts that beyond an IQ of about 120 intelligence bears a negligible connection with influence. "Model 2, the comprehension factor, adds the consideration of the degree of comprehension by potential followers, yielding a nonmonotonic function with a predicted peak IQ of about 108, approximately 0.5 standard deviations (SD) above the mean. "Model 3 incorporates the criticism factor that acknowledges a group member's vulnerability to intellectual superiors, and thereby predicts a 2nd nonmonotonic function with an optimal IQ of about 119 (or 1.2 SD above the mean). "Model 4, the intellectual stratification model, expands on the fact that the mean group IQ varies across different groups and, consequently, predicts a high correlation between the group mean IQ and the IQ of its most influential member, with a leader–follower gap of between 8 and 20 points, depending on the submodel. "It is surmised that other factors besides intelligence must participate in the determination of who becomes the leader of a group. Even if intelligence is not the exclusive determinant, the models strongly imply that published validity coefficients are biased downward." I don't see any evidence for the existence (beyond the assumptions of "a model") of a "window".

mcguire 10y ago

I am not sure I buy that this is related to the intelligence of the children involved. To match those two stories, I can probably identify a half dozen others with the same rough trajectory, minus the comments about how bright they are and how they could pass at school without trying. The problem isn't that they're screwed by the system, educational or otherwise. The problem is that they never figured out how to interact with other people, for whatever reason. I have considerable sympathy because I, too, have difficulties interacting with other people. But there's much more to it than "he's so smart that he's frustrated and bored with everyone and everything." Then there's this: "Finally, a platform for those extraordinarily gifted people who failed to find a place in life could be helpful. Of course, high-IQ societies exist, but then most of their members appear to be rather successful and hence limited in their understanding of people who never achieved much, if anything, in life. Of course, sympathy and understanding is also present in many who did better, and exchange with those can also be very helpful." Successful, intelligent people, particularly those who join "high iq societies", tend, in my experience, to have little empathy with those who they see as less intelligent, which is partially defined as less successful.

Mikeb85 10y ago

I can relate somewhat. Good student, got good grades with about zero effort, did good in extracurriculars, but found most academic-related things to be very boring (it was mostly memorization of facts with zero critical thinking). Most of my friends worked menial jobs or sold drugs, and while I did graduate high school and stay out of serious trouble, instead of university I got a restaurant job and partied, abused alcohol and drugs and lived a pretty interesting life. Excelled at work, rising to the top of the local food scene very quick, then got married and went to university at the behest of my wife who didn't like the restaurant lifestyle. Well, married life was boring, got restless, eventually we fell out and split (she wanted the white picket fence and everything, I wanted to just experience life with a fun partner), now I travel, gamble, trade stocks and sometimes will do a stint at restaurants my friends own just because it's fun. Oh, and programming, the wife hated that, she didn't see the point in creating programs and scripts that didn't 'make money' (never mind all the stock-picking and economic-analyzing scripts that kind of did make me money...). Guess the point is that a 'typical' life isn't for everyone. I can finish my degree rather easily and get a permanent office job, but why? I'd rather be in Paris one day, the Caribbean the next, abusing substances and partying with a bunch of hot girls than slaving away for a boss at a job that is comically easy, where I have to slow down just to avoid the onslaught of extra work there'd be if I were to actually give a shit and try. And honestly, I have friends who have money and things. I have money, less things, and I don't really feel like I miss out. No house? No stress. My car is a 4 door compact and not a BMW with leather seats? It still drives, is warm in the winter, and has less problems. I didn't finish my degree? Half my friends with degrees are unemployed now anyhow thanks to the shit local economy. With more debt. Speaking of which, I live in a place where, to be honest, all the 'good' jobs which once existed for educated people are never coming back (the degree which I'm a semester away from completing is in Economics fyi). People need to change their idea of what success is. The robots are coming for all your jobs anyway, we'll need to deal with it. In the future, either we'll all be engaging in intellectual pursuits living on a guaranteed income, or living in dystopian future where the holders of capital lord over the rest of us who scrounge for scraps in an alternative economy (look at Brazil to see how massive inequality manifests itself). Anyhow, just the musings of someone who others say has under-achieved, but has stopped giving a fuck. We all die, 'success' is overrated. We need to get back to having relationships and living life.

teilo 10y ago

I am in this category, but have a completely different experience. For one I did not get tested until late in life (and discovered I had an IQ of ~150 according to the Mensa standard admissions test), and for another I was in private school all the way through high school. So I believe what made the difference for me was a combination of not growing up with that ultra-gifted stigma, attending a school with very small classes (sometimes I was the only student in a given class), and having a great deal of socialization with intelligent adults. I still had a lot of difficulty relating to others my age, and thus made few lasting friends. I also did my best to shy away from any attempt to classify me as a genius. I didn't feel like a genius (whatever that means), and didn't want to be considered one. This, in part, is why I didn't bother to get tested until into my 40s.

chetanahuja 10y ago

I'm currently facing this problem as a volunteer. I'm teaching coding to my son's 4th grade classroom and there are about 5 or so kids out of 30 who finish everything assigned really fast and have to wait for the others to catchup. On the other end of the spectrum, there are aoubt 4-5 kids who need some extra help while the rest of the class has moved on. I'm not a teacher by profession but this little volunteer effort has given me a lot of appreciation for how hard the teacher's job is (and also what a insufferable little snot I must have been as a kid)

csa 10y ago
For the fast kids, create your lessons with extensions. You can google it for more details on how to do this skillfully, but an extension is basically building something extra onto your first task. Note that good extensions are not busy work -- they typically either lead to the creation of a cool product or they introduce a new and related concept. Either way, good extensions are ones that motivate the middle kids to try to get to the extensions phase. For the extra-help kids, the best thing to do during class is to have them work with a friend who got it. Sometimes their peers can communicate the key ideas better than you can. After the class, you can review the problematic ideas with them and/or give them extra problems for them to work on (if they are interested). You will win them over if you can review those extra problems with them at a later time (e.g., before the next class).

AnonTemp 10y ago

Was in the 99.9 percentile as a child and enjoyed gifted classes until high school where I was exceptionally bored and hardly applied myself. I ended up at a lower-ranked state university where I am able to try a little harder (thanks STEM), though it still doesn't feel rewarding being so far ahead of your classmates. Fortunately, my campus life is much more social than my more ambitious hs friends' campuses, although I do often feel intellectually alienated. I really have to thank HN for providing a stimulating community. The high-quality resources and discussions here have made my life much more pleasant; as a community you've improved my outlook drastically. Thanks. (Do any of you relate? If you have any advice, let me know!)

zemotion 10y ago
One of my friends left school to pursue a professional career at 18, did it rather successfully and then retired after a few years to go back to school. He decided to go back via community college but it bored him to tears. The teaching was terrible and none of his peers seemed worth talking to. Then he started looking at the online recordings that good schools put up of their classes, realized the gap in teaching quality and decided to transfer to a vastly better school. He's been much happier since. It's easy for us to blame or be indignant about our environments, but sometimes I also think it's our own responsibilities to go find the places in the world that would work for us. I personally like finding hobbies and pursuing them relentlessly with the goal of becoming the best in the world. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But I usually enjoy myself and get to meet some really remarkable people I wouldn't have otherwise.

AlphaWeaver 10y ago

[2015]

WhitneyLand 10y ago

I don't agree with his approach for a few reasons: 1) The 145 cutoff seems arbitrary. A kid at 135 doesn't get help? Plus constantly speaking about a number feels a little uncomfortable on the side of elitism. 2) Poverty is not mentioned as a problem to address. Roughly there are 40,000 people in the US this smart - living below the poverty line. Can you imagine the boost if they all hit potential? 3) And crime? We've got thousands of criminals with an IQ >= 145. And as De Niro said, they're not doin' thrill-seeker liquor store holdups with a "Born to Lose" tattoo on their chest. 4) All the assumptions could be wrong. I was in this group, and barely made it out of high school, failed out of college a couple of times. But the problem wasn't school, my teachers were mostly nice. I had learned poor homework discipline combined with having a severe fear of failure. Point is when people don't meet potential, there are a dizzying number of reasons, each with their own twists. How do you know which?

jstewartmobile 10y ago

The problem is they knew they were smarter than everyone else. When you've pulled a number that tells you you're smarter than everyone else, it becomes really easy to use your IQ as a binky and disengage from reality. This will stunt your development in so many ways. It's the genetic lottery equivalent of squandering it all on coke and whores. If we wanted to fix this, I think the first lesson in gifted classes should be: "You're a Special Snowflake, but life is still going to suck." Basically, teach them that the rest of the world only cares about you in terms of what you bring to the table, that no man is an island, and that bringing things to the table is usually a dirty job no matter how smart you are.

re_todd 10y ago

I remember taking a programming course many years ago at a community college. I finished an assignment, which wasn't too hard, and decided to go on to an advanced, unassigned topic. The instructor came into the lab, and so I asked her to clarify something. She was visibly irritated with me and told me to stick to the assignment, then stormed out. I felt like a horrible person and kept asking myself "what is wrong with you?". Months or years later I realized I need to stop feeling guilty. I had not harmed anyone, and I think she did know the answer to the question I had asked.

frozen11b 10y ago

I took and passed Algabra in the 6th 7th 8th and 9th grade. I slept in class usually didn't do the home work and got A's on most every test. But the teachers all felt I wasn't ready for harder math as they thought I wasn't mature enough. I didnt realize till years latter that this turned me from a bright excited student to lazy, lethargic and not wanting to challenge myself academically. Ended up graduating with a 1.8 gpa and a 1380 SAT score. Ended up joining the army, Infantryman, paratrooper and a Sergent by 21 years of age. Now I'm 34 and feel in some ways that if teachers had allowed me to progress and encouraged me earlier instead of being punished for not showing work or doing homework that was essentially busy work,I would have applied my self fully then instead of in the Army. As proud of I am of my service and having been a wartime team leader in the infantry at 21, maybe I would have gone to college first and not had to suffer from various medical and metal issues at the age of 34 from my military service. /rant over. Edited for typos as I'm half blind and proffreding sucks.

rurban 10y ago

Contrary to the op's post there does exist tons of studies and literature for those very few high IQ children and teens with social problems. The biggest and most wellknown study is the MHP Marburger Hochbegabtenprojekt from the 80ies. First, the problem rate is very very low (the 0.1%): "The study concludes with popular stereotypes. As a result, characteristics such as outsiders, aggressiveness, concentration problems, which are often attributed to high-achievers and high-IQ teens in popular media, are mere prejudices." https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marburger_Hochbegabtenprojekt https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marburger_Hochbegabtenprojekt http://www.angelfire.com/art/gregorbrand/Roststudie.html http://www.angelfire.com/art/gregorbrand/Roststudie.html Another official german paper is "Zu Entwicklungsschwierigkeiten hochbegabter Kinder und Jugendlicher in Wechselwirkung mit ihrer Umwelt"