boomerang wrote:
I think kids just feel invincible. I know I did.
I suppose it's self medication.
When I was in school, I have a very high IQ. I still do .
And I was never EVER interested in ANYTHING that had to do with school. It was boring. It was common, dumbed down things like read, copy answer, and recite.
Reading tests made me frustrated. They would give this 3 or 4 paragraph story, then ask you questions about it. These questions went in order of the paragraph 90% of the time and could be answered by simply matching the first few words of the question to the almost EXACT sentence in the story. This was not 'learning' ... and I knew it.
I figured out that teaching pattern in 3rd grade and my then teacher Mr Faulkner picked me out and started handing me books from higher grades. Those books taught in the exact same fashion and I went through those easily. With no real comprehension of the information needed... ANYONE could pass those tests with just a little scanning of the stories. They still do that today.
He declared me gifted and had me moved. I thought that was the dumbest thing ever.
4th, 5th..etc.. Same thing.
In high school ( mind you I was only there until 10th grade) I was put in the special ed class. I had by passed the gifted rooms and at this point in my education I was not doing ANY home work, or ANY class work. I did however take all tests. With just that alone I was pulling in c's and d's. Just enough to pass... just enough to show I knew the material ...but not enough to make me have to
pay attention if that makes sense.
Invincible.. yeah. I agree with Boom. I thought that as well. Especially when I was tested for my IQ several times and all times hit 160 or better. This enforced my very arrogant idea that I did not need to study. Though to a certain extent I was correct.. but in the big scheme of things I was wrongly full of myself. Hence the invincibility ..
Frankly, I think the IQ test is only a way to show how well you can solve problems, not necessarily a major judge memory or retention of specific pieces of knowledge.Though you DO have to understand things like basic sentence structure ,language rules, algebra, trig..etc to get through it . Once you have done well with that part of the test they have to move you on to the shapes and blocks test. Again.. no real retention necessary.
Long rambling short.. I was bored out of my mind as a kid. I thought school and the basic education was stupid. I was shocked that people struggled with such simple concepts and I stayed far away from most kids...gravitating to the stoners. There, we stayed high and skipped school to do things we actually enjoyed.
I left school at 14. And its no secret that I have done a lot of drugs. I never felt alienated or different from other kids. I always thought
THEY were the ones who were different and why were they not getting basic stuff. I had nothing in common with them and didnt enjoy their company . I still feel that way in life, but as an adult I can pick and choose the people I associate with now instead of being jammed into a classroom full of people I would never speak with anyway.
but my question to this whole article is this-
Why are only the 'smart' students being called out on taking drugs because they 'are different' ?
What about the students in gangs?
Your chess club type kids? The ones no one would hang out with?
What about the students who have been failed?
The very fat ones?
Super skinny ones?
Poor kids?
Even rich kids? People call them arrogant, stuck up..etc.etc.
My point is that there are always people , groups and personalities that are singled out and teased. MOST KIDS at one point feel they do not belong, and are not fitting in some where.
If that were the only thing necessary for taking to drugs then you could not simply point to the IQ and call it a major factor...
