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-Me quote: "My bellybutton itches"-

I had last night what I call (shorthand) a "frisna" dream. That is, I'm positive it was interesting, but I cannot access the content. I think there might have been some voice acting involved... but I could just be remembering yesterday.

Very creepy statistic: here in the U.S., only about half of the kids that drop out of high school do so because they don't get enough help with classes. The other half? Apparently they're bored smart kids!

And I can understand exactly how that would come about. Now, I wasn't a genius or anything when I was young, but I think I can say without bragging that I did -- do -- learn unusually fast. What people don't seem to realize about this subset of the population is that they're not just "regular" kids with extra intelligence tacked on. You see, the thing is, these kids (okay, we) do tend to have some common (sometimes unexpected) personality traits.

- They are generally terribly perfectionistic. My brilliant uncle, for instance, went through a period in school where he would do ALL his homework, but intentionally never turned it in because he was dissatisfied with its quality. He later became a nuclear engineer. I know I gave my mother her share of woe as I had to work long into the night (getting progressively more tired and irritable) getting every last insignificant detail PERFECT on some small piece of minutiae in a project.

- They can be intensely vain and sensitive. I'm not sure if maybe we just start out with this characteristic, and it's what motivates us to overachieve, but I think part of it is when teachers and peers coddle us and tell us how great we are -- CONSTANTLY, by their words and actions. At first, we try to ignore it, to be above their approval. But it is so grained into us (barring some courageous teacher that keeps us humble while still being truthful) from childhood that we do tend to get used to it. And miss it if it disappears.

- Of course, the obvious one that everyone knows but seems to forget: when an intelligent child is forced to go at a normal pace, he gets bored. You must understand, to a gifted child, going along with his age group is akin to his age group being taught with toddlers. It is not only dull and a waste of time he could be teaching himself something interesting (gifted children tend to be self-starters because they have to find some outside stimulation to make it), but actually demeaning. That is probably why many drop out -- they cannot stand the shame -- shame! -- of not going to their full potential.

- They tend to be a little more antisocial as children, mostly because they take the caricatures of social children (especially prevalent in kid's television) literally. In other words, the social kid is usually portrayed as an airhead, while the nerd is actually quite likable (even social, but he's never labelled as such). So bear in mind that if they do start experimenting with making friends and plugging into the group, they may be thinking inside that they're being a sellout. We may be "smart", but sometimes it takes a while for us to realize that socializing does not force us to relinquish the brains -- even though they still define our social role.

- As you may have picked up on in this post, they also tend to have unusually strong senses of justice. This is actually a really easy way to pick out the smart kids in a class: look for the ones that, if some policy of the school is unfair or poorly thought out, will simmer for months. The "average" child may get angry for a few days from his few canned reasons for disliking the measure, but a gifted child has the leisure (he can pretty much autopilot through class anyway) and capacity to think of all the logical reasons that the policy is flawed. This child is also more likely to be the one that rejects criticism of fair (but generally disliked) policies, but have plenty of ire for the truly bad ones, even if most of the student body is apathetic. Remember that intelligent children tend to have fewer ties with the social group. Their being accustomed to being right (see "vain and sensitive" point) certainly doesn't calm this tendency.

So the worst thing is, smart kids know that the current trend right now, of keeping students in their age group no matter what, is fundamentally wrong. They know that it helps no one -- not the struggling students, who must continue to struggle, not the slackers, who are coddled (and who may be smart and just giving up because they know if they put effort forth, it accomplishes nothing), and most certainly not the bright students, who are boxed up and screaming to be free to use their abilities. Their spare brainwaves will only be turned to something more interesting, even possibly destructive, so it is not in society's interests to hold them back either. Plus, I've noticed that the stuck-up-ness that sometimes occurs with these students disappears when they are put in a class where the other students may know more than they, and, trust me, that is a much more comfortable place to be than effortlessly, almost undeservedly -- or so it feels -- at the top.

I was blessed in this regard. After years of anger at the futility of The System (no doubt partially helped by Raging Hormones) I was allowed the chance to skip one grade up, in one subject only: math. I wished at the time that I could have skipped ahead in English, which was my best subject at the time, but to some extent, I took what I could get. And guess what? Three years later, I was taking calculus, and absolutely loving it. Why? Because in that subject, I actually got a chance to grow, instead of stagnate... I lost interest in many of the subjects in which I was still held back, even English, my previous favorite.

So, this is my message to students who are experiencing something like that: please, keep lobbying your parents and teachers to let you skip. I'm not saying that it will be easy waltzing into a class of students 5 years your elder, but the academic stimulation will be more than worth it.

To parents: You probably think your kid's going to be ostracized, don't you? You think Little Bobby is going to become socially isolated among all those big hairy older kids. A message for you: that's actually not true. Studies following gifted children have found the exact opposite to be the case. Students who were allowed to move at their own pace grew into healthy, well adjusted adults. Not so the held-back ones. They had all the stereotypical vices of nerds, a symptom of having so little in common with their "peers". And to parents of struggling students: Don't think you're doing them, or anyone else a favor if you make the teacher promote them to the next class when they're not ready. They will be so much happier if they can grasp the concepts first... in fact, extra attention may reveal that they really are gifted, they just have a different learning style.

To teachers: Let the blokes skip. And listen if they start complaining about school policy, because they probably have some surprisingly good reasoning behind it (although the fact they have time to grouse probably means that they need to skip to keep their minds busy).

Reality check. Oh, and I may not be able to update again until possibly Thursday. Which is why I gave you a lot to chew about this post.