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> When students thought of their intelligence as a thing that’s just fixed, they were vulnerable. They were not willing to take on challenges that might test th

> When students thought of their intelligence as a thing that’s just fixed, they were vulnerable. They were not willing to take on challenges that might test their intelligence, and they weren’t resilient when they came into obstacles. And this is also why so many gifted children become mediocre adults.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
The demographic of Mensa members is highly-intelligent non-contributors. Early life (childhood) of praise and 'successes' turned into something harder; they perceive it as failure and back away. That's my take anyway.
Retric 12y ago
I suspect a huge factor is people being smart enough to avoid the fame/money trap. If you can trivially get a 40-45 hour a week 100+k job that's reasonably pleasant shooting for the stars is far less appealing.
- a_c_s 12y ago
  I know plenty of brilliant people who are now unemployed or severely underemployed (working minimum wage retail jobs despite having a college degree). Despite being academically gifted, they haven't found their way to careers that match their abilities. I haven't been able to put my finger on what exactly it is that causes these people to "get lost" on their way, but it is common enough that I think we need to be doing something differently with regards to gifted & talented education in the USA.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    Maybe a basic guaranteed income, so a physics PhD doesn't have to drive a bus to eat. Then they could, I don't know, work on physics!
    - akmiller 12y ago
      Absolutely! We are way past the time, at least in the U.S., to not have a guaranteed basic income system of some type (that includes at least basic health care).
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - krigi 12y ago
    I was once the person you describe, and I'm currently the person the parent comment describes (in a velvet coffin 100k+ job). One problem is that gifted programs (at least in public schools) are contrary to reality. If the gifted programs in your state are like the one I was enrolled in, then members had to have a 130+ IQ to be admitted. There is the rub. Upon exiting school you suddenly and jarringly discover that not everyone else in the world has a 130+ IQ like the people you spent the past 8-10 years with, and things get very slow. Even at places like Google and Facebook not everyone has a 130+ IQ. The world is a boring and unchallenging place when you're forced to go through it at school-zone speeds. Some people, like me, have severe difficulties adjusting to this deceleration. I was in gifted programs from first until tenth grade. However, after college (tech Ivy), I spent almost a decade in low-paying and unchallenging jobs while wracked with depression. Only a few years ago was I able to pull myself out of that hole. The solution is to disband gifted programs. The culture shock experienced by the members once the scaffolding is removed can be pretty severe. It's probably better to make the gifted kids understand that the other 96% of non-gifted people on earth with them are going to be around them all the time. They should learn to deal with it. If there's any gifted education, it should be outside of normal schooling.
    - VLM 12y ago
      "The culture shock" I was also in a G+T program in the 80s and I'd say a major problem in young adult years is no one cares how smart you are, after 16 or so years of being told there's nothing more important than being smart. Much like your GPA, your IQ is pretty much irrelevant once you graduate. Workplace progress suddenly switches entirely over to who you know, who is your dad, who you impress, who you kiss up to, your golf game, etc.
      - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
        In other words, social skills. Maybe we can just add that to the curriculum? If a gifted child can attend to social cues and learn some beneficial behaviors (and they surely can), then the outcome could be much different?
        12y ago
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Is it a trap? Or a way to fulfillment? I'm guessing that great intellects are wasted if we cannot inspire them to great contributions. Instead, they avoid 'the trap' and work at a bookstore all their lives.
asolove 12y ago
Those who are interested in this will want to read the book "The drama of the gifted child."
- sgpl 12y ago
  The book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck (the psychology professor at Stanford mentioned) also offers great insight into this. It is also a very well written book, and if you are into audiobooks, the narrator for this one does a splendid job. [0] http://www.amazon.com/Mindset-The-New-Psychology-Success/dp/0345472322 http://www.amazon.com/Mindset-The-New-Psychology-Success/dp/...
- ivan_ah 12y ago
  +1 for "The drama of the gifted child"---my psychiatrist friend recommended it to me, and I learned a lot from it.
ivan_ah 12y ago
The need for external validation is a major pathology for the gifted. "Normal" people get varied feedback about their work/performance from the external world, so they learn not to associate and derive their self-worth from external inputs. Gifted kids always hear "you're good / you're the best" so they learn to build their self-image based on this external praise. Essentially, since external feedback is always positive, a strong coupling forms between external inputs and one's feeling of self worth. Later on in life when the world starts to send them not-so-positive feedback about their work, gifted kids take it really badly because the negative feedback hits their core.... whereas a not-so-gifted kids have learned not to take external feedback so seriously long ago. It's definitely something to watch out for. Remember---you are not your work. Your worth is not connected to what you've achieved or what you own---your worth stems from your human nature, and your unlimited ability to adapt, learn, and do stuff in the future.
- andrewflnr 12y ago
  That last bit is not comforting when you've tried a time or five to adapt and not made it.
  - ivan_ah 12y ago
    Sixth time's the charm!
jarcane 12y ago
Speaking as someone who grew up 'gifted': yes. And I still struggle with it. Growing up 'smart' made me stupid. I had tests and things, I was marked for inclusion in the TAG program. I got poor grades not because I wasn't smart enough to do the work, but because the work bored the hell out of me and I refused to do homework and thus allow it to intrude upon fun time away from that tedium (I suspect I also dealt with some undiagnosed ADHD; it runs in the family). The problem though is that when everything comes easy, and you're never given much opportunity and encouragement to challenge yourself, then you also become prone to getting frustrated and confused whenever something isn't coming easily. You're not accustomed to that kind of failure, to not just knowing off the bat or at least being able to pick it up on the fly. So you give up on things a lot. When you get out into the real world, you wind up with a complex. That stuff that made you 'smart' isn't actually that useful outside of certain areas, so on a 'regular job' you're still functionally useless. As a kid in the 90s, at the beginning of the great tech boom, the .com crash still on the horizon, you were inundated with messages that said that because you were smart and knew computers you were somehow just on a free ride to be the next Bill Gates. When the reality is that most of the kids who did go that route wound up broke in '99, and the rest just never got that far in the first place. I genuinely worry that the current startup culture and the push for 'start an app!' programs in schools are headed the same way. Selling tech and 'being smart' as an automatic win at life, which isn't true at all, and 90% of those kids finishing 'accelerated learning' courses in programming will be lucky to grow up writing backend code for a medical insurance billing provider.
- smilefreak 12y ago
  >Growing up 'smart' made me stupid. I agree and also have faced this problem as I was in the gifted programs all through school, then into university. However, in my third year of University I failed the entire year, owing mostly to the assurance in my ability to just wing it. This had profound effects on my psyche and over the last two years, I have been trying to reprogram and discover strategies to not fall into this trap. In areas of life where many struggle, I am sharp, but in other areas I really struggle and learning to appreciate the talents of others in this area has been an eye-opener. One of the major things for me was writing; I just don't find it easy. Possibly the largest change for me was actually facing up to that fact and starting to read and write again, which I hadn't done since high-school. Now I am enrolled in a MSc program and actively engaged in learning and struggling in the areas I am weak; I believe this change is starting to pay off. The hardest thing was to accept that I wasn't good at everything, and to start working hard like everyone else.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago

The demographic of Mensa members is highly-intelligent non-contributors. Early life (childhood) of praise and 'successes' turned into something harder; they perceive it as failure and back away. That's my take anyway.

Retric 12y ago

I suspect a huge factor is people being smart enough to avoid the fame/money trap. If you can trivially get a 40-45 hour a week 100+k job that's reasonably pleasant shooting for the stars is far less appealing.

a_c_s 12y ago
I know plenty of brilliant people who are now unemployed or severely underemployed (working minimum wage retail jobs despite having a college degree). Despite being academically gifted, they haven't found their way to careers that match their abilities. I haven't been able to put my finger on what exactly it is that causes these people to "get lost" on their way, but it is common enough that I think we need to be doing something differently with regards to gifted & talented education in the USA.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Maybe a basic guaranteed income, so a physics PhD doesn't have to drive a bus to eat. Then they could, I don't know, work on physics!
  - akmiller 12y ago
    Absolutely! We are way past the time, at least in the U.S., to not have a guaranteed basic income system of some type (that includes at least basic health care).
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- krigi 12y ago
  I was once the person you describe, and I'm currently the person the parent comment describes (in a velvet coffin 100k+ job). One problem is that gifted programs (at least in public schools) are contrary to reality. If the gifted programs in your state are like the one I was enrolled in, then members had to have a 130+ IQ to be admitted. There is the rub. Upon exiting school you suddenly and jarringly discover that not everyone else in the world has a 130+ IQ like the people you spent the past 8-10 years with, and things get very slow. Even at places like Google and Facebook not everyone has a 130+ IQ. The world is a boring and unchallenging place when you're forced to go through it at school-zone speeds. Some people, like me, have severe difficulties adjusting to this deceleration. I was in gifted programs from first until tenth grade. However, after college (tech Ivy), I spent almost a decade in low-paying and unchallenging jobs while wracked with depression. Only a few years ago was I able to pull myself out of that hole. The solution is to disband gifted programs. The culture shock experienced by the members once the scaffolding is removed can be pretty severe. It's probably better to make the gifted kids understand that the other 96% of non-gifted people on earth with them are going to be around them all the time. They should learn to deal with it. If there's any gifted education, it should be outside of normal schooling.
  - VLM 12y ago
    "The culture shock" I was also in a G+T program in the 80s and I'd say a major problem in young adult years is no one cares how smart you are, after 16 or so years of being told there's nothing more important than being smart. Much like your GPA, your IQ is pretty much irrelevant once you graduate. Workplace progress suddenly switches entirely over to who you know, who is your dad, who you impress, who you kiss up to, your golf game, etc.
    - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
      In other words, social skills. Maybe we can just add that to the curriculum? If a gifted child can attend to social cues and learn some beneficial behaviors (and they surely can), then the outcome could be much different?
      - 12y ago
JoeAltmaier 12y ago
Is it a trap? Or a way to fulfillment? I'm guessing that great intellects are wasted if we cannot inspire them to great contributions. Instead, they avoid 'the trap' and work at a bookstore all their lives.

asolove 12y ago

Those who are interested in this will want to read the book "The drama of the gifted child."

sgpl 12y ago
The book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck (the psychology professor at Stanford mentioned) also offers great insight into this. It is also a very well written book, and if you are into audiobooks, the narrator for this one does a splendid job. [0] http://www.amazon.com/Mindset-The-New-Psychology-Success/dp/0345472322 http://www.amazon.com/Mindset-The-New-Psychology-Success/dp/...
ivan_ah 12y ago
+1 for "The drama of the gifted child"---my psychiatrist friend recommended it to me, and I learned a lot from it.

ivan_ah 12y ago

The need for external validation is a major pathology for the gifted. "Normal" people get varied feedback about their work/performance from the external world, so they learn not to associate and derive their self-worth from external inputs. Gifted kids always hear "you're good / you're the best" so they learn to build their self-image based on this external praise. Essentially, since external feedback is always positive, a strong coupling forms between external inputs and one's feeling of self worth. Later on in life when the world starts to send them not-so-positive feedback about their work, gifted kids take it really badly because the negative feedback hits their core.... whereas a not-so-gifted kids have learned not to take external feedback so seriously long ago. It's definitely something to watch out for. Remember---you are not your work. Your worth is not connected to what you've achieved or what you own---your worth stems from your human nature, and your unlimited ability to adapt, learn, and do stuff in the future.

andrewflnr 12y ago
That last bit is not comforting when you've tried a time or five to adapt and not made it.
- ivan_ah 12y ago
  Sixth time's the charm!

jarcane 12y ago

Speaking as someone who grew up 'gifted': yes. And I still struggle with it. Growing up 'smart' made me stupid. I had tests and things, I was marked for inclusion in the TAG program. I got poor grades not because I wasn't smart enough to do the work, but because the work bored the hell out of me and I refused to do homework and thus allow it to intrude upon fun time away from that tedium (I suspect I also dealt with some undiagnosed ADHD; it runs in the family). The problem though is that when everything comes easy, and you're never given much opportunity and encouragement to challenge yourself, then you also become prone to getting frustrated and confused whenever something isn't coming easily. You're not accustomed to that kind of failure, to not just knowing off the bat or at least being able to pick it up on the fly. So you give up on things a lot. When you get out into the real world, you wind up with a complex. That stuff that made you 'smart' isn't actually that useful outside of certain areas, so on a 'regular job' you're still functionally useless. As a kid in the 90s, at the beginning of the great tech boom, the .com crash still on the horizon, you were inundated with messages that said that because you were smart and knew computers you were somehow just on a free ride to be the next Bill Gates. When the reality is that most of the kids who did go that route wound up broke in '99, and the rest just never got that far in the first place. I genuinely worry that the current startup culture and the push for 'start an app!' programs in schools are headed the same way. Selling tech and 'being smart' as an automatic win at life, which isn't true at all, and 90% of those kids finishing 'accelerated learning' courses in programming will be lucky to grow up writing backend code for a medical insurance billing provider.

smilefreak 12y ago
>Growing up 'smart' made me stupid. I agree and also have faced this problem as I was in the gifted programs all through school, then into university. However, in my third year of University I failed the entire year, owing mostly to the assurance in my ability to just wing it. This had profound effects on my psyche and over the last two years, I have been trying to reprogram and discover strategies to not fall into this trap. In areas of life where many struggle, I am sharp, but in other areas I really struggle and learning to appreciate the talents of others in this area has been an eye-opener. One of the major things for me was writing; I just don't find it easy. Possibly the largest change for me was actually facing up to that fact and starting to read and write again, which I hadn't done since high-school. Now I am enrolled in a MSc program and actively engaged in learning and struggling in the areas I am weak; I believe this change is starting to pay off. The hardest thing was to accept that I wasn't good at everything, and to start working hard like everyone else.