My Own Gifted Experience

I think I always knew I was smart, but didn't make a big deal about it. I tend to assume that I'm normal, just like everyone else. Instead of my smarts making me different from others, I just assumed that most other people were smart like me.

I don't know what led to my testing in 3rd grade, but I remember being taken from my regular classroom to a small room with a table in the middle. A lady I'd never seen before had me do a bunch of "games." I remember one quite clearly. I was a horse nut and new everything about horses. One of the "games" was a thin wood puzzle of a horse. I put the horse together and still had a piece left over. I remember it took me a while to figure out that it was the barrel of the horse (chest and back), and that when I put it into the puzzle, it looked totally out of proportion. I commented, "This must be a limousine horse!" Then I think I decided what breed it must be to have such a long back.

Now that I'm a mom to gifted children, I'm very curious about my mother's experience with me. I also don't remember if my siblings were involved in gifted programs. I don't know how long they've been around. I'm sure my brother would have been in one if they were available. He's unbelievably intelligent. He speaks three foreign languages and can read and write Latin and Greek. He says it's easy. He was a "professional student" for years, getting his PhD and Post-doctorate schooling paid for with scholarships. Now he's a professor and runs a lab researching molecular immunology. I respect him immensely.

The funny thing is that he calls me "the brains of the family." When my older sister and I are sitting next to each other, he likes to sing, "They're Pinky and The Brain, Pinky and The Brain, one is a genius, the other's insane." And I don't think my sister has caught on yet. I don't know what I've done to deserve his admiration. I really don't consider myself as all that intelligent, really.

I remember the pull-out program in my elementary school. We went to a different classroom and built stuff out of dry pasta noodles, made paper airplanes, and read riddle books. I thought it was fun, but didn't really understand the point.

We moved to Kentucky a few months into 6th grade. I jumped from an elementary school to a middle school, and I never heard of a "gifted program" again. The middle school put me in regular classes, then moved me to the "accelerated team." I had personal issues (mostly trying to grow up and adjust) during my two years there, and some sickness problems. I remember starting to learn Greek & Latin roots (which I loved!) and pre-algebra. I didn't "get" algebra, but I hated math and was going through those problems. I remember not paying much attention in classes. I also remember being accused of cheating once, because my teacher said she'd never seen me do such sloppy work, so I must have had someone else do it for me. She made me bring in other examples of my potential for sloppiness before she would give me credit for the assignment. Wow, I remember thinking it was really stupid that I had to prove that I could do poorly.

We moved again just two years later, back to CA, where we'd lived up until 5 years earlier. I was then in Jr. High. I was put in the bottom of every class and had to work my way up. In Kentucky, I'd won medals and was 1st chair trumpet. I played solos in concerts, even in combined bands when we played with the 8th grade band. In CA, they put me in last chair. I'd never been last chair, and it sucked. I had no motivation to battle my way through all 10 trumpet players above me. If I was so unappreciated that they just dumped me into last place, why bother? They didn't need me. I was just in regular classes and they were stupid. I don't know if they had any sort of advanced programs.
After eighth grade, I'd impressed enough of my teachers that they recommended I be put in the "college track" in my high school. That meant Introduction to Physical Science instead of regular biology. I don't know what else it meant. I don't know how you could be put in an educational system where they automatically assumed you couldn't get into college, and high school was going to be the peak of your miserable existence.

My 8th grade English teacher had recommended something for me, but I guess it didn't make it to the high school's ears. I was in the stupidest class ever. Here we were in 9th grade, and we were "learning" how to use a dictionary. It was too stupid of a class even for the not-so-bright kids in the class. We just had a really lazy teacher.

The next semester, I was in a different English class. I missed a few days of school, during which the class had begun to read, "Of Mice and Men" out loud in class. The teacher handed me a copy of it and said I should probably start reading from the beginning, but that she expected me to keep track of where the class was reading, and take my turn reading when they got to me. When they got to me, I flipped back a few pages to where the class was. The teacher's eyes got wide. The class had taken days to read up to that point, and I'd already passed them in the 10 minutes I'd had the book. After class that day, she sent me to the counselor to request a class change. They tested my vocabulary (which was way beyond 9th grade) and they switched me into the Honors English class. We began learning Greek & Latin roots, using the same books I'd used in 7th grade in Kentucky.

I was starting to lose respect for the educational system in California. 9th grade Honors classes were using the same curriculum that I'd learned 2 years earlier? 9th graders were learning how to use the dictionary? What kind of garbage was that?

I had a wonderful biology class my sophomore year. It was in-depth, not like the class next door. We could hear through the walls that they were learning how whales communicate. We were studying ecosystems and metabolism. We dissected carrots. And even better, the next year the same teacher offered Anatomy & Physiology, using a college textbook. Oh, I was in heaven! We dissected cow eyeballs, frogs, and even a cat. We memorized the Kreb's Cycle and photosynthesis. I loved that class.

They also moved me to Honors Social Studies, again on the recommendation of my Economics teacher who could tell I was bored with regular classes. But the teacher was openly liberal and had pro-abortion stickers on his desk. Some of us more conservative types complained, but he had an excuse for everything. I couldn't stand him as a person. You could say I transferred out of that class for political and moral reasons. It was horrible to be back in a regular class, where I remember doing a group paper on the holocaust. My partner kept insisting I use the phrase, "dead bodies" over and over again. I pretty much wrote the paper myself so we wouldn't get a C. That class was boring, but at least it didn't conflict with my morals.

We were required to take 2 science classes to graduate. I'd taken IPS and Biology, then voluntarily took Anatomy & Physiology. My senior year, I signed up for Chemistry and Physics. I considered taking Advanced-Placement (AP--for college credit) Chemistry and AP Physics, but I thought that taking both at once would be too much. Physics was a joke of a class. The teacher was brilliant, but not a good teacher. I didn't care too much about the class, but everyone else cared less, so he thought I was amazing. Chemistry was okay. But I wish I'd taken the AP classes.

While I was taking extra science classes, some of my friends had run out of require courses, and just got out of school early. They thought I was crazy for not having more fun my senior year. I actually did leave early most days, because I had Physics and Photography for my last two classes each day. Physics was a joke, and my 4th semester of Photography was graded solely on a portfolio. I didn't have to show up. My mom recognized that I would do well even if I didn't go to class, and that it was probably a waste of my time, so she'd pick me up at lunch and call the office to say I'd gone home every afternoon. I got 115% in my Physics class and an A in Photography.

I also took CPEG, College Preparatory English Grammar, my senior year. We had to write 5-paragraph essays every week. After the first 2 or 3, I could write one in 10 minutes, on any topic, with no research or effort at all. It wasn't really a challenge, but by then, I didn't care about a challenge in most of my classes. I liked getting A's without trying. I liked getting my homework done before class was out.

After I took the PSAT my junior year, college brochures begain pouring into our mailbox. I took the ACT instead of the SAT, because my college of choice (Brigham Young University) preferred the ACT. My CPEG class really helped, because I got a perfect score on the grammar section. Math was my lowest, a 24. My sister got a 24 as her cumulative score and still got into BYU. My cumulative score was 32.

BYU sent me a Christmas card and a tee-shirt, and invited me to a recruiting open-house. I really hadn't expected colleges to actively recruit me! I only got straight A's once. I didn't think I was anything special.

Of course, I got into BYU. They placed me in a new Freshman Academy program. We attended classes with, lived with, and went to church with other students like us. I lovingly refer to it as "Nerd Hall." There were some amazing people there, including most of the Hunter's Scholars (full-ride scholarships). When I went home for Christmas, I remember missing being surrounded by intelligent people. And people who didn't swear :)

I studied biology at BYU. My proudest semester is when I took Human Anatomy, Physiology, and Comparative Anatomy all at once. I got A's in all three. I loved my classes. I hated the general ed. classes, except that they were generally easy. The most memorable one was Early Childhood Development. I tried to read the textbook, but it was boring. My mind would wander, and it all seemed like common-sense stuff to me. I tried so hard to cram for the first test, but finally gave up and just went to take it. I got something like 97%. It was so easy! When I went to class the next time, the students were in an uproar about how hard it was. They said they'd read the book, but hadn't ever heard of half the things on the test. The professor's daughter was subbing that day, and she commiserated. "I know! His tests are so hard. The questions seem to refer to obscure information in the tables and side notes of the book." One question in particular came up. No one could find the answer in the text book. I rememberd the question. I twas about whether children without fathers in the home were a) better adjusted b) more successful or c) had more problems in school. Who needs to find that answer in a book?

I didn't even graduate from college. I got sick, and then I got married. I'm still sick. My body just can't keep up. I don't have any accomplishments to show what's in my brain. I sometimes worry that I have wasted my potential. Of course, I don't think I realized that I was special in any way, so doing normal things was absolutely fine. It wasn't until my kids started blowing me away that I realized that I'm not average.

My sickness does more than suck energy from my body. I have fibromyalgia, which causes a mysterious brain "fog." I say stupid things sometimes because I can't think clearly. I haven't thought clearly in years. It's a difficult disability for me. I feel so stupid sometimes!

Well, that's a very long entry about my life experience as it relates to giftedness. It's helped me see that I'm going to have to be very proactive to keep my children from falling through the cracks. It seems that I fell through the cracks many times, and I didn't think of myself as special, so I didn't know that I should be demanding special treatment.

I'm glad to have it written down. I believe journaling is very important, and one day my kids will probably want to read it to help them sort through their own struggles.