Learning Weird Stuff About Yourself - Page 5

Blarg · #41 12-07-2005, 04:12 AM

I think sometimes adults idealize things, or maybe they just try to forget. Worrying that your kid might not like school if he skips is kind of forgetting what school is like for most everybody, by my reckoning.

It's pretty normal to not like high school, or school at any level, at least very very big parts of it. The worry that your kid might find it in many ways unpleasant is pretty much guaranteed to pan out whether you skip him some grades or not.

craig r · #42 12-07-2005, 04:14 AM

What part of Texas?

craig

imported_anacardo · #43 12-07-2005, 04:34 AM

Whitehouse, Texas. Population ~4900, at the time. Ever so slightly sou'east of Tyler, which is itself some ninety miles east of Dallas. The home of miserable football teams and generation after generation of delicious prom queen hopefuls, thus making away games there an utter delight for the visiting team. Your classic semirural bedroom community for, despite their many charms dear to my heart, perhaps the most fascist city in the most fascist state in the Union.

Any further questions?

craig r · #44 12-07-2005, 04:38 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Whitehouse, Texas. Population ~4900, at the time. Ever so slightly sou'east of Tyler, which is itself some ninety miles east of Dallas. The home of miserable football teams and generation after generation of delicious prom queen hopefuls, thus making away games there an utter delight for the visiting team. Your classic semirural bedroom community for, despite their many charms dear to my heart, perhaps the most fascist city in the most fascist state in the Union.

Any further questions?

[/ QUOTE ]

Most fascist in Texas? I grew up in Houston. Have you ever dealt with the police there? I also went to college in Huntsville. My apartment was right across the street from where they did the executions. One time I was driving right outside of Huntsville and I see a few fires in the distance, but they seemed fairly controlled. Well, I guess the Klan was having one of their meetings. I wanted to join in the fun, but I guess they don't have affirmative action.

craig

Popinjay · #45 12-07-2005, 04:46 AM

My roommate told me I talk in my sleep. Not just a few words here and there but full on paragraphs that are supposedly unrelated. This completely freaked me out for some reason.

imported_anacardo · #46 12-07-2005, 04:47 AM

Ooh. Huntsville. [censored], tough to argue with that one. I blew up my car's engine (don't ask; it took a very interesting collaborating set of circumstances to pull that one of) in Livingston, on Highway 59, up that way; one of the most miserable nights of my life was spent in the town's one all-night diner, listening to two awful [censored] cow-people berate their retarded son.

TimM · #47 12-07-2005, 04:47 AM

[ QUOTE ]
If they hadn't taken me to that doctor, would I have been put in "special" classes? Would I have become just a complete loner who never speaks?

[/ QUOTE ]

Late speaking is not unusual. You would have been fine even if you had never seen this doctor. Even if you somehow got put in special classes at your parents urging, it would have been clear right away that you didn't belong there.

My situation was a little bit similar to yours. I also sort of taught myself to read, by watching all those educational public TV shows, and by watching as my parents read to me. I surprised them by identifying products in stores, and by correcting them if they were reading to me and tried to pull a fast one by shortening the story. I was reciting the entire alphabet by 18 months, and reading on my own by 4 or so. I don't remember much before age 5 or so (after that I remember everything), but this is stuff that was told to me by parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles on both sides, so I'm sure they were not all lying.

Yet when I was having trouble in my early years of school, my parents were sure something was wrong with me. They were worried because I spent the first 4 months of my life in the hospital with pneumonia, and thought that there might have been some brain damage.

Actually my problems in school were caused by total boredom. I was not paying attention and not doing classwork. It was too easy, and too boring. I found other ways to amuse myself and the teachers didn't like this at all, so of course they gave me poor grades.

My parents took me to a doctor, who tested me. He told my parents that I had a very high IQ, and that I needed to be placed in more advanced classes for reading and math. This was done and lasted until about junior high school, when I was pretty much merged back in with the regular "A" group. This was not very good for me.

I am still kind of bitter at the way my education was handled. Not many of my teachers really recognized that I was always going to be among the smartest in the class. They were often surprised when I turned in near perfect scores on those standardized tests they give every year, yet nothing was ever done about it. Year after year, with every new set of teachers it was like starting over. I was underachieving, and bored out of my mind for years. Not much I can do about it now, but if I have kids like this there is no way I will let this happen to them.

craig r · #48 12-07-2005, 04:49 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Ooh. Huntsville. [censored], tough to argue with that one. I blew up my car's engine (don't ask; it took a very interesting collaborating set of circumstances to pull that one of) in Livingston, on Highway 59, up that way; one of the most miserable nights of my life was spent in the town's one all-night diner, listening to two awful [censored] cow-people berate their retarded son.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I guess I would rather be stuck in Huntsville than Livingston.

craig

Blarg · #49 12-07-2005, 04:49 AM

LOL better hope he doesn't have evil tendencies like me and some old roommates, who would start working our way into another roommate's dreams by starting up conversations with him while he was sleeptalking.

tonypaladino · #50 12-07-2005, 05:37 AM

Relating to the discussion about skipping grades and the such,

I spent grammar school and junior high in "gifted" classes and went to what is supposedly the best public high school in the city, and for the most part, I think I am worse off for it.

Socially, I was very shy until I was about 19 years old, and I think a lot of that had to do with things like spending weekday afternoons on the Math Team when I was 12 rather than playing out in the street with everyone else. In high school I was reluctant to make friends with anyone because I was very put off by everyones attitues about school. Imagine an school where 95% of the students were like the crazy girl who freaks out when she gets a 98 instead of a 100 on a test.

Academically, I feel like being in a specialized high school stopped me from developing my knowledge in certain areas. I went into high school being totally interested in computers, physical science and math, but everyone in the school was so far advanced, I felt like I wasn't qualified to participate in these things. I felt like a [censored] and just stopped caring and didn't go to any classes or do any work for most of high school. I was able to graduate with an 80 average through getting 99s and 100s in classes I loved, like Italian and history, and 65's in classes I by all rights should have failed, but since i was friends with the assistant principal got passing grades.