4 ms·

Yes. Exactly. Precisely the same thing for me. I was reading at an absurdly young age. School for me was a special sort of hell where I was able to read at a 1

Yes. Exactly. Precisely the same thing for me. I was reading at an absurdly young age. School for me was a special sort of hell where I was able to read at a 12th grade level in 3rd grade, and yet a decade later was in class with people who could not yet read. I would stare at the clock and switch between sleeping and being insanely bored. I'm 31 years old now and I feel I have enough life experience to call it what it was: Neglect. I was left in a corner to rot in child jail for a over a decade, during some of the most important years of my life, and constantly punished for the crime of being a bored young person whose time is being wasted.

colechristensen 6y ago
I wouldn't go and say I am of just of average genetic predisposition for intelligence... but really a bigger part of it is the people raising me, parents and grandparents, they taught me to read before I went to school. I don't think a child has to be particularly exceptional to learn to be able to read at 4 or 5, somebody has to go and teach them though. And let me add to "child jail": not only was I sent somewhere to be bored for several hours a day, I was drug out of bed far before my body wanted to be awake to be sent there.
- TomMarius 6y ago
  If only not sleeping well and boredom were the only issues. Being born in a post communist country, teachers here have a really powerful position, work used to be scarce, parenting is... Different, and thus my parents placed way too big importance on school. School has ruined my childhood, robbed me of all joy for more than a decade, made it very hard to have (and trust) normal human relationships, made me seriously neglect my body, and nearly destroyed my family. Thankfully I was still able to pull myself out and try to repair the family as an adult. And I like the person I am now, with the experience and relationships I have, so I don't need the past to change, but things could have turned for the worse just as well. I am fighting negative/destructive thoughts (as in "oh if you did this to me I would beat you SO HARD", not suicidal) to this day. My children will never go near a school. (Edit: I really wonder who and why downvotes this)
  - Xelbair 6y ago
    Oh yes, teachers in post communist countries can be separated into two groups: * majority that's absolutely horrible at their job, whose only goal is to average all the children. Hammer down nails that stick out, and artificially inflate grades of struggling children without helping them at all. * few great motivated teachers, who are genuinely great. Usually the latter ones were part of protests, or some anti communist movement. at least in my experience. Supposedly all communist countries had gifted programs, but those were stripped/forgotten in transitional era(at least over here). Small observation: i haven't met any PE teacher that was part of the second group, nor any of my friends(and their friends) ever did.
    - TomMarius 6y ago
      The gifted program here was simply about doing more homework and more, harder tests. I was terrible at that. I need to learn by my ways - based on curiosity, with different explanations and methods like spaced repetition. I am very sure that I would do something really bad to the school and teachers if I didn't meet the school's IT teacher, who pulled me out of some of the really bad lessons to work on computers with him, and was the only person who viewed me positively and treated me like a human. I am still coming back to visit him.
    - rjsw 6y ago
      I had one good PE teacher, this wasn't in a post communist country though. He just asked us at the beginning of the year what we wanted to do, we all replied that we wanted to do 5-a-side football indoors so he organized that.
  - elicitous 6y ago
    And who will teach your children so that they can stay out of school?
    - TomMarius 6y ago
      Me and my girlfriend.
Mirioron 6y ago
What helped me get through the boredom of school was to learn to daydream. Any time there's something boring going on I can tune out from that and daydream. Walking around while doing it is great. The downside of it is that it's not productive and once you're out of school you don't need it to occupy your time, but you still want to.
- kharak 6y ago
  I struggle with this. Daydreaming is my instant Dopamin release system, always available, especially when I have to deal with something boring. But I'm getting better by improving work package size, removing barriers beforehand. That increases flow and flow is pleasant even while doing mundane tasks.
- non-entity 6y ago
  Daydreaming ruined my life partial /s
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
> I was left in a corner to rot in child jail for a over a decade, during some of the most important years of my life, and constantly punished for the crime of being a bored young person whose time is being wasted. I read the story of Thomas Edison and think what would have happened to him in our time. He would have been medicated up the wazoo until he finally became a quiet, docile little boy who sat in class and did as he was told. I doubt he would have however turned in the massively productive revolutionary inventor (with apologies to Tesla of course) that he did.
- auslegung 6y ago
  Can you point me to this story of Edison? I’m resonating with a lot that’s being said in these comments, and now I have two toddlers who are precocious and for years I’ve wanted to homeschool them.
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
    From an interview quoted here: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/thomas-edisons-mom-lied-about-a-letter-expelling-her-son-from-school/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/thomas-edisons-mom-lied-ab... > One day I overheard the teacher tell the inspector that I was “addled” and it would not be worthwhile keeping me in school any longer. I was so hurt by this last straw that I burst out crying and went home and told my mother about it. Then I found out what a good thing a good mother is. She came out as my strong defender. Mother love was aroused, mother pride wounded to the quick. She brought me back to the school and angrily told the teacher that he didn’t know what he was talking about, that I had more brains than he himself, and a lot more talk like that. In fact, she was the most enthusiastic champion a boy ever had, and I determined right then that I would be worthy of her and show her that her confidence was not misplaced. According to the snopes page, he was taught by his mother until age 16
musicale 6y ago
> child jail I think you have crystallized the essence of much of our educational system. A sort of daycare/prison that also selects winners and losers (usually somewhat capriciously or even maliciously), with large rewards and punishments.

colechristensen 6y ago

I wouldn't go and say I am of just of average genetic predisposition for intelligence... but really a bigger part of it is the people raising me, parents and grandparents, they taught me to read before I went to school. I don't think a child has to be particularly exceptional to learn to be able to read at 4 or 5, somebody has to go and teach them though. And let me add to "child jail": not only was I sent somewhere to be bored for several hours a day, I was drug out of bed far before my body wanted to be awake to be sent there.

TomMarius 6y ago
If only not sleeping well and boredom were the only issues. Being born in a post communist country, teachers here have a really powerful position, work used to be scarce, parenting is... Different, and thus my parents placed way too big importance on school. School has ruined my childhood, robbed me of all joy for more than a decade, made it very hard to have (and trust) normal human relationships, made me seriously neglect my body, and nearly destroyed my family. Thankfully I was still able to pull myself out and try to repair the family as an adult. And I like the person I am now, with the experience and relationships I have, so I don't need the past to change, but things could have turned for the worse just as well. I am fighting negative/destructive thoughts (as in "oh if you did this to me I would beat you SO HARD", not suicidal) to this day. My children will never go near a school. (Edit: I really wonder who and why downvotes this)
- Xelbair 6y ago
  Oh yes, teachers in post communist countries can be separated into two groups: * majority that's absolutely horrible at their job, whose only goal is to average all the children. Hammer down nails that stick out, and artificially inflate grades of struggling children without helping them at all. * few great motivated teachers, who are genuinely great. Usually the latter ones were part of protests, or some anti communist movement. at least in my experience. Supposedly all communist countries had gifted programs, but those were stripped/forgotten in transitional era(at least over here). Small observation: i haven't met any PE teacher that was part of the second group, nor any of my friends(and their friends) ever did.
  - TomMarius 6y ago
    The gifted program here was simply about doing more homework and more, harder tests. I was terrible at that. I need to learn by my ways - based on curiosity, with different explanations and methods like spaced repetition. I am very sure that I would do something really bad to the school and teachers if I didn't meet the school's IT teacher, who pulled me out of some of the really bad lessons to work on computers with him, and was the only person who viewed me positively and treated me like a human. I am still coming back to visit him.
  - rjsw 6y ago
    I had one good PE teacher, this wasn't in a post communist country though. He just asked us at the beginning of the year what we wanted to do, we all replied that we wanted to do 5-a-side football indoors so he organized that.
- elicitous 6y ago
  And who will teach your children so that they can stay out of school?
  - TomMarius 6y ago
    Me and my girlfriend.

Mirioron 6y ago

What helped me get through the boredom of school was to learn to daydream. Any time there's something boring going on I can tune out from that and daydream. Walking around while doing it is great. The downside of it is that it's not productive and once you're out of school you don't need it to occupy your time, but you still want to.

kharak 6y ago
I struggle with this. Daydreaming is my instant Dopamin release system, always available, especially when I have to deal with something boring. But I'm getting better by improving work package size, removing barriers beforehand. That increases flow and flow is pleasant even while doing mundane tasks.
non-entity 6y ago
Daydreaming ruined my life partial /s

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago

> I was left in a corner to rot in child jail for a over a decade, during some of the most important years of my life, and constantly punished for the crime of being a bored young person whose time is being wasted. I read the story of Thomas Edison and think what would have happened to him in our time. He would have been medicated up the wazoo until he finally became a quiet, docile little boy who sat in class and did as he was told. I doubt he would have however turned in the massively productive revolutionary inventor (with apologies to Tesla of course) that he did.

auslegung 6y ago
Can you point me to this story of Edison? I’m resonating with a lot that’s being said in these comments, and now I have two toddlers who are precocious and for years I’ve wanted to homeschool them.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
  From an interview quoted here: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/thomas-edisons-mom-lied-about-a-letter-expelling-her-son-from-school/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/thomas-edisons-mom-lied-ab... > One day I overheard the teacher tell the inspector that I was “addled” and it would not be worthwhile keeping me in school any longer. I was so hurt by this last straw that I burst out crying and went home and told my mother about it. Then I found out what a good thing a good mother is. She came out as my strong defender. Mother love was aroused, mother pride wounded to the quick. She brought me back to the school and angrily told the teacher that he didn’t know what he was talking about, that I had more brains than he himself, and a lot more talk like that. In fact, she was the most enthusiastic champion a boy ever had, and I determined right then that I would be worthy of her and show her that her confidence was not misplaced. According to the snopes page, he was taught by his mother until age 16

musicale 6y ago

> child jail I think you have crystallized the essence of much of our educational system. A sort of daycare/prison that also selects winners and losers (usually somewhat capriciously or even maliciously), with large rewards and punishments.