Intelligence (was feeling sad)

[moongirlk]

Wow,

This is a really interesting topic - there's much more that goes into 
the testing, the educational decisions and the experiences of the 
kids involved than I ever really thought.  

As someone who was placed in the gifted (or whatever they called it) 
program as a kid, I personally don't think it did me any favors.  Of 
course, that's probably more about the program I was in and the way 
it was handled than it is about gifted programs in general or testing 
or intelligence.  

In my case it was a bad idea to set me apart at a very young age 
without giving me some sort of understanding as to how/why the 
decision was made.  I was left trying to figure out why I should get 
particular attention, or to do fun things the other kids didn't.  I 
don't remember it ever being explained to me beyond being told that I 
was "bright" or "smart".  The result of this, for me, was disbelief 
about half the time, and enormous fear of failure the other half.  
Any minor failure that I had left me fearing that I was a fraud, that 
they'd gotten it wrong, and that any moment someone was going to 
figure it out.  Like I said, it was probably all about the way it was 
handled in my school system (and about my sad, twisted psyche), but 
I've never felt that warm and fuzzy about gifted programs as a 
result.  Except for the fact that I got to hang out with the 
other "gifted" kids and goof off a lot instead of doing spelling 
tests, which was good.

kimberly
reliving feelings of inadequacy