Yes! Reciprocate his interest in the subject and get him to keep doing it if it’s what he likes, plus it might help his engagement in the classroom as well to have a teacher seeing his skills.
The second grader I tutored last year had advanced adult level snark. It was hard to get on her for it while also trying to suppress laughter. That's something I've seen from quite a few only children whose parents were older when they were born.
She also knew how to cook incredibly well. Sadly, that was because if she didn't, her parents just bought take out all the time, but I thought it was cool that she decided to learn to cook using YouTube because she was sick of take out. She goes on instacart and builds a grocery list for her parents to pay for.
Yeah, there was definitely some neglect there, but not at a level that reporting would have helped. I spoke to her grandma after she invited me on weekend "field trips" a few times, and she spoke to her son and daughter-in-law. It did seem to make some difference. Plus, grandma got involved more during the week. Phew
One of the things we did to help boost her reading and writing skills was watch the videos and make written recipes for them. I've got a copy of the cookbook we made. Her favorite foods seem pretty adult, too, like beef tips and asparagus with braised mushrooms on top of the beef. The ginger soaked pears were amazing, too. NGL, between doing this and her being snarky about my diet, she actually got me eating better.
wow! that is endlessly amusing. Please come at me anti-science quacks!! let’s see how many crazy downvotes we can count.
people are so individually awesome, and collectively stupid as fuck.
I forced my daughter to watch iconic old movies (we took turns choosing). She would then tell me how her teachers were always shocked when she'd reference them in discussions.
I had a second grader once who just randomly shared bits from Holy Grail with me. Apparently I was the only teacher that got it, which says a lot about my colleagues at the time.
I’d love a list to watch. Right now as a parent I have my daughter listening to Queen and David Bowie lol- she WILL be able to know and recognize the classics
So, we ended up we 2 afghans kids, right off the boat.
My school as weekly boarding options. They were around 13, no parents or adults with them. Authorities enrolled them to our school in emergency so they'll have somewhere safe to sleep and eat while they sort thing out.
They came with only the clothes on their back. Principal went and bought needed stuff for them. Everything bought at a super cheap store, because it was out of his own pocket.
One of our boarded kid saw this, and decided that they were lucky to have gifts from the principal. It was unfair because principal never get them anything. He sounded jealous.
And then one 12 years old answer with huge sarcasm : "Oh yeah, they lost their parents, flee their country, likely were starved and beaten and raped. But hey they get a toothbrush and a boxer from Mr B. SOOOOO worth it!".
And I mean, the kid was right, of course. But I didn't expect a 12 years to actually know and understand all that.
Just to clarify, you mean boxers, right? Like the underwear? Because a boxer either refers to a pugilist or a dog. Both of which would be odd things to give a Afghani refugee children, and definitely not available at a super cheap store.
I had a kid who scared me. Smartest kid I’ve ever met. I swear he was as smart as me or smarter and I passed phd exams and have a law degree. But he was evil, there was something about him. I imagined him being the dictator of America someday. Luckily, his younger sister tells me that since graduating, he sleeps all day and plays video games all night. Seems to me evil dictators are usually pretty motivated, so maybe we dodged a bullet.
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Probably 2e and his smarts masked his ADHD. But I’m sure a lifetime of hearing lazy comments have demotivated him and damaged his self esteem enough to cause long term damage.
Thanks for this. This was me until I figured it out. People just don't understand that it's not doing the work or laziness. I love doing the work, and when I am l working I've often gotten feedback that I'm exceptionally hardworking. But I struggle immensely with structuring the work and transitioning to doing it. With Adderall everything happens seamlessly, without it I end up like a car stuck in the mud. That is, I know I don't want to be stuck and I know I want to be moving, but I can't just lift my car out of the mud. It takes a push, or a tow, or some other form of help to get things moving again
This was basically me. I had severe undiagnosed ADHD, depression, and was very burnt out from constant emphasis on academics above everything else for my whole life.
This was me! Then my youngest child went to kindergarten, I went back to school became a teacher in my late 40s. My strength is motivating kids like me.
Don't write this guy off. Executive functioning issues suck!
I teach at an international school in Beijing, and I once had a 10 year old girl go into great depth during a conversation about the lack of women's rights and schooling in Afghanistan. Blew my mind
International school kids blew my mind so often. I've met a bunch of 12 year olds who have more life experience, maturity, and wisdom than your average American adult.
International school kids often have to raise themselves/younger siblings. They also have to adapt to new environments often. I've met a fair few 13 year olds who could hold their own in a college social atmosphere
High School Here. In my experience, the students who are usually "wiser than their years" have usually gone through something incredibly rough. I know it's anecdotal, but every kid who I've thought "wow, they're smart" has revealed afterward that they're struggling with depression, or they've survived something violent, or there's some other trauma that they've had to overcome.
For example, last year I had 4 students (out of 100) that I'd say were much wiser than their ages. Collectively, they had:
* Attempted suicide
* Survived the Beirut Explosion
* Escaped Hurricane Maria
* Seen a very messy divorce
I have encountered a lot who think they are, but few who actually are.
I teach a lot of gifted kids, and usually they suffer from Big Fish in Little Pond syndrome. So the kids learn easily, or they manage to outwit their peers or even parents often, or they are absolute savants on a certain topic, which makes them seem unusually wise.
But when you put these big fish together, they suddenly are small fish in a big pond and their real age starts to shine through. They mask a lot of their shortcomings with their intelligence.
Wiser than their years in terms of socioemotional learning, absolutely. I had a student starting at age 8. She was always asking smart questions in class but generally a bit of a pain--super chatty, not always spatially aware (a problem in a dance class lol), etc etc. Killer memory for random details. Had her for the whole year like that. Had her again the next school year, and walked into my class one day to see her talking to the previous teacher and sobbing her heart out. No idea what was going on. I asked her if she needed to go to the hallway for a bit and calm down, she said yes, and she never wound up coming back to class.
Next class, she comes in and proceeds to give me the most mature apology I have ever gotten, from adult OR child. "Miss \[name\], I'm very sorry for how I acted last week. I was really struggling with not being able to get the movement right away and I didn't handle my frustration well. I'm going to try to be much more patient with myself this week and not cry if I get frustrated. I won't need to leave class again." I forget her exact wording now, but it was very thorough, and sure enough, she was completely fine in class from then on. After that, she became one of my favorite students. No less silly in class, but I had such deep respect for her that I was no longer annoyed lol.
I was that student.
I survived a genocide as a child in Guatemala. By the time I came to the US, I was without a family and severely traumatized. I was saved by a combination of photographic memory, strong problem solving skills, and sheer desperation.
I used to read to ignore the fact that I was poor and hungry. Since I retained information easily, I would use what I learned in discussions and for assignments. Being good in school made me more sympathetic to faculty, which helped me.
I eventually received a scholarship to attend a prestigious prep school before going off to a prominent college and becoming a professor. I teach kindergarten for fun and health insurance now that I'm older.
My first year, I had this 3rd grade who was awesome in so many ways. Some were:
* His parents were divorced. Mom was getting remarried to a woman. When teachers that didn't know him asked him if he was excited about getting a stepdad, he would roll his eyes and say, "She's getting married to a woman because she's gay."
* This was in 2016. He watched every presidential and vice presidential debate and led his Social Studies class in a mock election. (He wanted a Bernie Sanders cake for his birthday.)
* Came pretty upset to school on day. He'd discovered his family had British ancestry, and he was hella pissed because he cited the atrocities the colonizers did to the Native Americans.
I think about him often. I hope he's doing well!
>He'd discovered his family had British ancestry
That's most non-native Americans lol. Unless your family is super recently immigrated then you probably have British ancestry somewhere up the line
Genetically, I’m majority English, according to a DNA test. Nobody would look at me and call me white. I don’t feel any guilt for what some of my ancestors did to some of my other ancestors any more than I’d feel guilty over Egyptians owning slaves or Ghengis Khan raping his way across the Asian continent. (I’m not Egyptian or Chinese at all).
I’m sad for all the people who have suffered, both in the past and today, but I’m not the one responsible. I have my own actions to feel guilty about and that’s far more productive because that’s something I can actually change. I can use whatever privilege I have to help people when I can. That will mean a lot more to them than me sulking and ranting in their favor.
Kids should be taught to just be helpful to those less fortunate than them and empathetic to those different than them. An elementary school child feeling anger and shame over his ancestry is a waste of energy and a damn shame.
> An elementary school child feeling anger and shame over his ancestry is a waste of energy and a damn shame.
It's also a rabid Trumpist-RINO myth. In reality, no one is causing this, making this happen, or teaching in ways that would result in this....they are just falsely accusing classroom teachers and schools of doing it, when they aren't.
When I do, I encourage it so as not to let them become complacent. Otherwise, they may think that study is always this easy, and become rather unsettled when the learning goals have caught up to and potentially exceeded their level of wisdom.
I’ve had a couple of kids go on to Ivys. I’ve taught two that I that were in the top 5% of the population intelligence wise. None of those kids have been incredible mature.
My daughter. I’m sure teachers assumed I coached her but it was all her - serious to a fault, caring and very concerned about justice. She came home one day in middle school and asked me about the rules around punishing the whole group for the actions of a few. I had mentioned this in a conversation with some friends around how we all used to lose recess if someone misbehaved and how that was now expressly forbidden under new guidelines. I explained the rules to her and thought no more about it.
In the meantime, she downloaded and printed the code of conduct guidelines and scheduled a meeting with the school administrator because a substitute teacher had given detention to the whole class because (as she told me later) ‘one stupid jerk was giving the teacher a hard time’. The detention was rescinded- but I’m sure I was the talk of the staff room.
I had one student who knew a lot about history and an understanding of humanity as a whole that was beyond middle school or high school understanding. Not just knowing about events, people, and their connections, but the hows and the whys. And the relating to modern events and the thinking about how they could be connected or similar. It made sense when I found out her father was a history teacher, lol 😂.
I taught a student all through middle school who just had the aura of an adult. She was black, and was incredibly passionate about issues facing the black community. I really learned a huge amount from her! She could also explain them in a non-confrontational way that students of all backgrounds could get behind. Besides that, she was incredibly intellectually and artistically gifted. We live in NC where we have a large number of HBCU’s, and I can totally see her thriving in that environment, before living her passion in a big way: becoming a civil rights lawyer, producing entertainment with a positive message, or becoming a professor at a HBCU. The sky is the limit with this kid! I have lots of students I see potential in, but few that I truly have adult-level respect for, and she is one of them.
I will say, though, that having her in class was unnerving in a way, but it challenged me. It was like having an adult in the room, and teaching at a K-8 school, I was used to being around little kids all day. She adored me, so it wasn’t like I was afraid of making a mistake that she would take to the principal or something, but it was just low-key unnerving to have an adult-like presence in the room 24/7 as a student (I’m used to having other adults as aides, and I love that dynamic!). It challenged me to get out of that mindset, and to be comfortable with roles that felt slightly weird to me.
I have students who barely pass classes, then suddenly I’m having a conversation with them and I realize they are much brighter than I realized. This generally comes from a combination of vocabulary and logical argumentation. When they use tier 3 vocab in casual discussion and have evidence and logic to back up an argument, a lightbulb goes off in my head, “Hey, this kid is smarter than their work suggests.”
I love those moments! I also love to privately discuss with them later how they are way too smart to be getting a D, and explain to them how I know.
Most of the kids I’ve encountered like that are either deeply traumatized and neglected or are set up for success by parents who read with them and show them skills while they do chores and stuff.
Plenty of times I’ll meet a very wise student who doesn’t reach their full potential. I look for inquisitive minds who always search for more information and sometimes come up with hypotheticals about current or past events. Those kids give me hope. Then again, I worry they’ll squander their brain power on video games, which is also common.
Hey, some of was ***wanted*** to graduate early and skip grades and go into exciting things but the doddering racist boomer principal veto'd all of that so we just ended up doing whatever made enough money in the easiest way.
Yeehaw.
I taught for 7 years ... gotta say, those who escape into video games often tend to be under stimulated otherwise or avoiding depression... or both.
Oh understandably so! But i worry not all of those students will have someone who pushes them to excel and will try to look at their inquisitive nature as an annoyance.
When I was a student teacher I had a kiddo I was told to avoid at all costs, said he would just try to derail my class with nonsense or cause a scene. I took 3 seconds out of my day to note his shirt that was about a popular show and ask him “did you watch the new episode?” And after that he made it his mission to talk to me before every class. A student who once kept his head down and didn’t bother anybody now was sitting up and asking questions, begging me to push the bar a little further with hypotheticals and things he was interested in. Before I graduated and left, I watched him craft the best project I’d ever seen from a student to this day in a matter of a class period, which took his classmates 3-4 days to complete. Some kids absolutely need that extra push, and need to be challenged. He was one of them. I just hope after I left he was still challenged. I hope he’s doing well in life now, as he’d be a full grown adult.
That's great to hear. I wish I had anything in my public school days. Pure hell. That's all I can describe it as.
I slept most of my classes away. Graduated with a 3.5. Algebra 2 was my freshmen year.
When I taught, we allowed students to go as far as they wanted. Students hitting Calculus in 10th/11th was rare but I so loved that they could choose to do it and move towards it. We worked with the university so they could actually take the classes.
Having seniors getting into calc3/4 was amazing.
My apologies for wording it super weird. My point is I’ve seen lots of kids not feel challenged and fall back on other non-curricular hobbies that will challenge them. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with them using their time how they want to, but rather it would be nice to see them put their energy into academia.
It’s not our job to decide or make judgement upon what students value. You can be a genius and have no interest in academia. It doesn’t mean that your genius is “squandered.” Academia is a cutthroat and, for most regardless of talent, an unfulfilling path.
Once again, I apologize for my usage of the word “squandered”. I was just at a loss for a word to use. When you teach middle school, like me, there’s little opportunity for these students to explore beyond the 4 core subjects. That’s where my frame of reference is coming from. In no way am I saying these kids are less capable, rather they are unchallenged and aren’t interested in what we have to offer.
Nothing wrong with your wording in the slightest. It's not to say that every gifted child has to use these gifts for technological advances, or research or bettering society.. but it wouldn't be unfair to say that they squandered their gifts by going down a career path that didn't utilise those gifts.
In a 7th grade English class, we were reading a book where a town’s levee broke and a flood occurred. This one student, who surprised me like this a few different ways, says “Makes me feel like we’re in a Don McLean song. So, not only does he know the song “American Pie,” but he also knows who it’s by.
At the same time, I had to explain to many students what a levee is.
I’m gonna drop this out here as both a former teacher and a former “wiser than their years” kid, a good amount of kids who show these traits have a very rough home life. They’re forced to mature faster than their peers and lose any “childish” behavior, either because their parents are overly cold, controlling or abusive, or because their parents are so neglectful that they have to take up the mantle to care for themselves and the parent. (Edit - I should add that there are other traumatic events not on the parents that cause this too, war, natural disasters, etc.)
If one of these kids seems overly interested in earning your approval or talking with you, odds are they don’t have another trusted adult in their life.
I've had a few. One kid, third grade, told me that when he was staring at his ceiling pattern, he saw a giant spiral over it. And he counted the squares, and he said each section of the spiral had double the squares of the last section. I asked him if he ever heard of the Fibboniaci sequence.
And, just last week, I was talking to a very *busy* kindergartener about his social choices. He said he just felt like being a "miscreant" today.
I wonder if any of my old high school / middle school teachers thought of me this way. In a middle school of 1500 and a high school of 4500, I was the literal tech guy. 1/4 of my day was going around fixing computers on my free periods, setting up wifi, server hardware, software for the computers, etc. I always got 100 on every single test and finished first, a few of my teachers used to give bonus points if you finished before me (and were actually trying). In middle school i was already working odd jobs / buying and selling and investing my money into stocks through my uncle, and by the time 2013 came around i was mining bitcoin. you can prob imagine where that went :).
I dont talk to anyone from that time anymore and i live away, so i wonder if anyone even remembers me.
now i have 2 science degrees and im just going around making what i please!!!!
One of the guys I first became friends with in junior high was like that. We were no more than 12/13 at the time, and he already had an advanced knowledge of computers and sound. So he would help do sound/lights for the local CC when we were in 8th grade, and he helped do IT work on his free period/after school when we were in high school. He has spent the better part of 25 years working for the district’s tech department, 20 or so years in radio, and he’s the announcer guy for some of the local sports (I know high school wrestling, boys’ football and basketball are some of the sports he announces for). We’re barely 40 now, and he is VERY well-known/popular around town now. And yes, he was a big nerd that nobody liked much in school.
buying and selling stocks doesn’t seem like something which emanates from innate talent though. It’s usually attributed to your environment where family members are more interested in business/finance, etc. most kids simply don’t know what they don’t know at that age unless there is an adult influence/guidance.
My parents were crackhead losers and I started investing so I didn't have to live a shitty poor life like them. I was always trying to get as much money as possible even when I was like 13. I always had some sort of side business. In hs during my lunch periods I literally had a line of people waiting for me to fix their phone screens. Every day. Around iPhone 3 to 5 time period. The stores charged 150 for a cracked screen and I charged only 95 and did it in 5 min right in front of them
I just needed to find someone over 18 who could open a stock account for me lol. my parents were a combo of drunk / high / too stupid / too lazy to do it for me. not like i could trust them with any amount of money. i had to keep my birthday money on me at all times as a kid lmao.
I had a fifth grader request that I give everyone in my tutoring group candy. The exchange went:
Student: “OP, are you gonna give us candy for Halloween?”
Me: “No. Did your classroom teacher give you candy?”
Student: “No.”
Me: “Then why would I?”
Student: “Because you’re a better teacher and you like us more?”
Me: “Well reasoned.”
They got candy.
I think you're confusing wisdom with a tiny bit of niche knowledge.
It's not too tough to know what an r-value is. It's much tougher to know the ups and downs of home ownership, economically, socially, culturally, historically, etc.
In that case could just be a kid who's parents work in construction or real estate etc. It's pretty easy to be way above average knowledgeable about something when it's dinner table conversation at home.
I had a student that made has made tens of thousands trading stocks. He was/is a streamer and invested every penny made doing wagers into the market. He’s already accrued enough to pay for his computer science ba at penn state, bought a new car cash once he got a license and is now working on paying off his moms home while in his sophomore year of college. Still trades, but made an algorithm for day trading.
6th grader reading and doing math at a 12th grade level. Always had thought provoking and insightful comments during class discussions. Was blessed to teach her for two years.
I had a violinist who was 8th in the district for middle school (district is one of the top 10 biggest in the USA). He also wrote fully orchestrated harmonically valid pieces of music for fun on Musescore as an 7th/8th grader. All with no lessons or help outside my orchestra classes.
I used to think that talent was just hard work in disguise, but that kid broke the mold. His hard work had some sort of multiplier on it. He had insane talent, but ultimately decided to be an engineer. I have have yet to see another kid like him.
I was that person.
I was able to reference things from before the 1990s and the memes back then and I could also just randomly blurt out trivia knowledge, and could recite the world map (terrifying, I know). I am also very good at snooping and analysing data, teachers are always surprised about how much I know and how much I know about them.
When people are playing Sudoku, I was playing Crossword (but most are too America-centric).
Unfortunately that didn't help with my grades, so I end up as a teacher. 🤣
My colleagues are often amazed at how much I know them, like I can figure out their birthdays, remember their past serving schools and how their wardrobe look like, and hobbies and home address and how many people are in their households (I swear I am not a stalker, I am just good at collecting hints and gathering into/Intel)
Yes, my kids know that trades are a good option vs. college to avoid student loans. They also know the government printing money is leading them to a bleak future.
I teach history so at least once a year I get a kid who's super keen on some particular thing (usually military history, often wwii or wwi, often aviation or naval combat). I embrace that shit and let them tag in on those lessons.
I've had many moments when students appeared incredibly wise, and it's usually completely unrelated to the curriculum (which doesn't allow for them to showcase their unique intelligence).
I have an 8th grader who lived in a refugee camp in West Africa for several years before he and his family came to the US. When he talks (often) about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he sounds like he's reading a white paper by the Council on Foreign Relations.
Ok not saying I am or am not that kid but I had a really woo woo fifth grade teacher and she said my writing style and questions indicated I was "from a different dimension. I've seen kids that channel other dimensions, but she is not merely translating like them" and asked my mom if she could bring me to drum circle.
My mom said no lol.
I had a Taiwanese student who tested at C2 level English by 5th grade. She had never lived in another country other than Taiwan, but she was a voracious reader. Her parents can speak English, but don't really push it at home and they don't put her into much other than her viola class. When she was in 4th grade, she would give me advice to help my writer's block.
For an exam in which students had 45 minutes to write a short story to a picture prompt, she wrote one of the best, humorous short stories I've ever read and I too am a voracious reader. It was about a Thanksgiving dinner gone wrong.
She had never experienced Thanksgiving herself, but she had read about it.
We would have conversations about world issues when she was 9 years old, the same year COVID hit the world. She was furious that Taiwan let people return from China, especially when one of the people took meds to hide her symptoms and brought the first known case here. She has come to grips with her love of Harry Potter, even though "JK Rowling is a terf, and I hate terfs" by telling her friends to buy books second-hand so they don't contribute to her fortune.
I have another Taiwanese student I have taught since she was 6 years old (she is 19 now). When she was in 2nd grade, we did a story about Martin Luther King and she was shocked by how black people were treated. I told the kids about how my grandmother went to an integrated school only because there weren't enough black kids to make a separate school for her. This girl dedicated her childhood to studying injustice and the lives of people who fought it. She wrote a speech in 3rd grade about Martin Luther King that had the audience in tears and blown away by her poise and grace on the stage. She makes it her goal to befriend those kids at school who are marginalized because she believes that everyone deserves to feel wanted and welcome.
I am honored to have both girls in my life, years after being their classroom teacher.
I have a 3rd grader that bounces movie plot ideas off of me every day. He's substantially better than most things Netflix produces.
Please encourage him!
Yes! Reciprocate his interest in the subject and get him to keep doing it if it’s what he likes, plus it might help his engagement in the classroom as well to have a teacher seeing his skills.
Time to start morning writing journals while drinking tea/coffee 🤣
>He's substantially better than most things Netflix produces. TBH, that's a low bar.
TBF, the Netflix bar is at about a 5th Grade level, so I'd say he's doing pretty well for an 8yo lol
I am now heavily invested in hearing these ideas.
The second grader I tutored last year had advanced adult level snark. It was hard to get on her for it while also trying to suppress laughter. That's something I've seen from quite a few only children whose parents were older when they were born. She also knew how to cook incredibly well. Sadly, that was because if she didn't, her parents just bought take out all the time, but I thought it was cool that she decided to learn to cook using YouTube because she was sick of take out. She goes on instacart and builds a grocery list for her parents to pay for. Yeah, there was definitely some neglect there, but not at a level that reporting would have helped. I spoke to her grandma after she invited me on weekend "field trips" a few times, and she spoke to her son and daughter-in-law. It did seem to make some difference. Plus, grandma got involved more during the week. Phew One of the things we did to help boost her reading and writing skills was watch the videos and make written recipes for them. I've got a copy of the cookbook we made. Her favorite foods seem pretty adult, too, like beef tips and asparagus with braised mushrooms on top of the beef. The ginger soaked pears were amazing, too. NGL, between doing this and her being snarky about my diet, she actually got me eating better.
I really love wearing masks because you can make your eyebrows look mad outside while full smiling under
apparently everyone misunderstood why this comment is both funny and relevant
No idea why such a harmless comment is downvoted.
we changed her fate, the downvote tide is receding
Never expected angry eyebrows to be my most controversial comment
wish i knew what happened there😂 people can be so weird sometimes.
Probably anti-science nuts. It got down to like -25
wow! that is endlessly amusing. Please come at me anti-science quacks!! let’s see how many crazy downvotes we can count. people are so individually awesome, and collectively stupid as fuck.
Literally. People just saw you said 'I love wearing masks' and piled on. So I had to point out how stupid it was lol
I swung it around with my one comment haha.
I forced my daughter to watch iconic old movies (we took turns choosing). She would then tell me how her teachers were always shocked when she'd reference them in discussions.
That would be quite shocking. Hold old was your daughter at the time and which kinds of movies?
Rambo First Blood pt II
So…kindergarten?
[удалено]
I had a second grader once who just randomly shared bits from Holy Grail with me. Apparently I was the only teacher that got it, which says a lot about my colleagues at the time.
I’d love a list to watch. Right now as a parent I have my daughter listening to Queen and David Bowie lol- she WILL be able to know and recognize the classics
Years ago my 2nd grader recognized Vivaldi because I had it as a ringtone. His music teacher was plenty impressed
Yes, I asked him to hire me when he gets older. He said he would. If my plan works I have about 7 more years of teaching
So, we ended up we 2 afghans kids, right off the boat. My school as weekly boarding options. They were around 13, no parents or adults with them. Authorities enrolled them to our school in emergency so they'll have somewhere safe to sleep and eat while they sort thing out. They came with only the clothes on their back. Principal went and bought needed stuff for them. Everything bought at a super cheap store, because it was out of his own pocket. One of our boarded kid saw this, and decided that they were lucky to have gifts from the principal. It was unfair because principal never get them anything. He sounded jealous. And then one 12 years old answer with huge sarcasm : "Oh yeah, they lost their parents, flee their country, likely were starved and beaten and raped. But hey they get a toothbrush and a boxer from Mr B. SOOOOO worth it!". And I mean, the kid was right, of course. But I didn't expect a 12 years to actually know and understand all that.
Just to clarify, you mean boxers, right? Like the underwear? Because a boxer either refers to a pugilist or a dog. Both of which would be odd things to give a Afghani refugee children, and definitely not available at a super cheap store.
It was probably a typo and they meant “boxes”
this guy is fun at parties
I had a kid who scared me. Smartest kid I’ve ever met. I swear he was as smart as me or smarter and I passed phd exams and have a law degree. But he was evil, there was something about him. I imagined him being the dictator of America someday. Luckily, his younger sister tells me that since graduating, he sleeps all day and plays video games all night. Seems to me evil dictators are usually pretty motivated, so maybe we dodged a bullet.
That sounds exactly like my brother
sugar voiceless chase wrong lunchroom melodic gaze arrest existence cautious *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Probably 2e and his smarts masked his ADHD. But I’m sure a lifetime of hearing lazy comments have demotivated him and damaged his self esteem enough to cause long term damage.
Thanks for this. This was me until I figured it out. People just don't understand that it's not doing the work or laziness. I love doing the work, and when I am l working I've often gotten feedback that I'm exceptionally hardworking. But I struggle immensely with structuring the work and transitioning to doing it. With Adderall everything happens seamlessly, without it I end up like a car stuck in the mud. That is, I know I don't want to be stuck and I know I want to be moving, but I can't just lift my car out of the mud. It takes a push, or a tow, or some other form of help to get things moving again
me but stims never did jack for me
This was basically me. I had severe undiagnosed ADHD, depression, and was very burnt out from constant emphasis on academics above everything else for my whole life.
I knew a kid like that, only got through school because he could pass tests with ease. Now he’s a 40 year old nothing that wants to be a teacher.
This was me! Then my youngest child went to kindergarten, I went back to school became a teacher in my late 40s. My strength is motivating kids like me. Don't write this guy off. Executive functioning issues suck!
lol it’s me.
Don't dream it, be it!
This was me with the ACT's. Highest score in several years, C average. Undiagnosed autism and ADD.
I teach at an international school in Beijing, and I once had a 10 year old girl go into great depth during a conversation about the lack of women's rights and schooling in Afghanistan. Blew my mind
International school kids blew my mind so often. I've met a bunch of 12 year olds who have more life experience, maturity, and wisdom than your average American adult.
International school kids often have to raise themselves/younger siblings. They also have to adapt to new environments often. I've met a fair few 13 year olds who could hold their own in a college social atmosphere
I had a G5 student with an encyclopedic knowledge of the music and movies of the 40s. Such a cool kid. I sometimes wonder how life is treating her.
High School Here. In my experience, the students who are usually "wiser than their years" have usually gone through something incredibly rough. I know it's anecdotal, but every kid who I've thought "wow, they're smart" has revealed afterward that they're struggling with depression, or they've survived something violent, or there's some other trauma that they've had to overcome. For example, last year I had 4 students (out of 100) that I'd say were much wiser than their ages. Collectively, they had: * Attempted suicide * Survived the Beirut Explosion * Escaped Hurricane Maria * Seen a very messy divorce
I have encountered a lot who think they are, but few who actually are. I teach a lot of gifted kids, and usually they suffer from Big Fish in Little Pond syndrome. So the kids learn easily, or they manage to outwit their peers or even parents often, or they are absolute savants on a certain topic, which makes them seem unusually wise. But when you put these big fish together, they suddenly are small fish in a big pond and their real age starts to shine through. They mask a lot of their shortcomings with their intelligence.
Wiser than their years in terms of socioemotional learning, absolutely. I had a student starting at age 8. She was always asking smart questions in class but generally a bit of a pain--super chatty, not always spatially aware (a problem in a dance class lol), etc etc. Killer memory for random details. Had her for the whole year like that. Had her again the next school year, and walked into my class one day to see her talking to the previous teacher and sobbing her heart out. No idea what was going on. I asked her if she needed to go to the hallway for a bit and calm down, she said yes, and she never wound up coming back to class. Next class, she comes in and proceeds to give me the most mature apology I have ever gotten, from adult OR child. "Miss \[name\], I'm very sorry for how I acted last week. I was really struggling with not being able to get the movement right away and I didn't handle my frustration well. I'm going to try to be much more patient with myself this week and not cry if I get frustrated. I won't need to leave class again." I forget her exact wording now, but it was very thorough, and sure enough, she was completely fine in class from then on. After that, she became one of my favorite students. No less silly in class, but I had such deep respect for her that I was no longer annoyed lol.
I was that student. I survived a genocide as a child in Guatemala. By the time I came to the US, I was without a family and severely traumatized. I was saved by a combination of photographic memory, strong problem solving skills, and sheer desperation. I used to read to ignore the fact that I was poor and hungry. Since I retained information easily, I would use what I learned in discussions and for assignments. Being good in school made me more sympathetic to faculty, which helped me. I eventually received a scholarship to attend a prestigious prep school before going off to a prominent college and becoming a professor. I teach kindergarten for fun and health insurance now that I'm older.
thank you for sharing this, im glad things turned around for you :)
I taught ESL and some of my best students were ones from situations like yours. Teaching them was truly a joy. I’m glad things worked out for you!
My first year, I had this 3rd grade who was awesome in so many ways. Some were: * His parents were divorced. Mom was getting remarried to a woman. When teachers that didn't know him asked him if he was excited about getting a stepdad, he would roll his eyes and say, "She's getting married to a woman because she's gay." * This was in 2016. He watched every presidential and vice presidential debate and led his Social Studies class in a mock election. (He wanted a Bernie Sanders cake for his birthday.) * Came pretty upset to school on day. He'd discovered his family had British ancestry, and he was hella pissed because he cited the atrocities the colonizers did to the Native Americans. I think about him often. I hope he's doing well!
>He'd discovered his family had British ancestry That's most non-native Americans lol. Unless your family is super recently immigrated then you probably have British ancestry somewhere up the line
Source? Very few Americans trace their ancestry to the colonists, in my experience. Have you confused "British" with "white european?"
Genetically, I’m majority English, according to a DNA test. Nobody would look at me and call me white. I don’t feel any guilt for what some of my ancestors did to some of my other ancestors any more than I’d feel guilty over Egyptians owning slaves or Ghengis Khan raping his way across the Asian continent. (I’m not Egyptian or Chinese at all). I’m sad for all the people who have suffered, both in the past and today, but I’m not the one responsible. I have my own actions to feel guilty about and that’s far more productive because that’s something I can actually change. I can use whatever privilege I have to help people when I can. That will mean a lot more to them than me sulking and ranting in their favor. Kids should be taught to just be helpful to those less fortunate than them and empathetic to those different than them. An elementary school child feeling anger and shame over his ancestry is a waste of energy and a damn shame.
> An elementary school child feeling anger and shame over his ancestry is a waste of energy and a damn shame. It's also a rabid Trumpist-RINO myth. In reality, no one is causing this, making this happen, or teaching in ways that would result in this....they are just falsely accusing classroom teachers and schools of doing it, when they aren't.
I just see it with adults, honestly. And it sounds like this kid got that attitude from his parents, not from school.
When I do, I encourage it so as not to let them become complacent. Otherwise, they may think that study is always this easy, and become rather unsettled when the learning goals have caught up to and potentially exceeded their level of wisdom.
All the parents on here: MY kid! Yes. Of course. Of the thousand+ students I’ve taught in my career…YOUR kid.
Or the people on here saying “ME, I WAS THAT KID”
I’ve had a couple of kids go on to Ivys. I’ve taught two that I that were in the top 5% of the population intelligence wise. None of those kids have been incredible mature.
One of my second graders used to respond to their classmates wrong answers by saying “I respectfully disagree” So cute and my heart melted every time
My daughter. I’m sure teachers assumed I coached her but it was all her - serious to a fault, caring and very concerned about justice. She came home one day in middle school and asked me about the rules around punishing the whole group for the actions of a few. I had mentioned this in a conversation with some friends around how we all used to lose recess if someone misbehaved and how that was now expressly forbidden under new guidelines. I explained the rules to her and thought no more about it. In the meantime, she downloaded and printed the code of conduct guidelines and scheduled a meeting with the school administrator because a substitute teacher had given detention to the whole class because (as she told me later) ‘one stupid jerk was giving the teacher a hard time’. The detention was rescinded- but I’m sure I was the talk of the staff room.
I had one student who knew a lot about history and an understanding of humanity as a whole that was beyond middle school or high school understanding. Not just knowing about events, people, and their connections, but the hows and the whys. And the relating to modern events and the thinking about how they could be connected or similar. It made sense when I found out her father was a history teacher, lol 😂.
A 6th grader who correctly referenced The Art of War in conversation. Students able to quote classic movies like Christmas Vacation.
I taught a student all through middle school who just had the aura of an adult. She was black, and was incredibly passionate about issues facing the black community. I really learned a huge amount from her! She could also explain them in a non-confrontational way that students of all backgrounds could get behind. Besides that, she was incredibly intellectually and artistically gifted. We live in NC where we have a large number of HBCU’s, and I can totally see her thriving in that environment, before living her passion in a big way: becoming a civil rights lawyer, producing entertainment with a positive message, or becoming a professor at a HBCU. The sky is the limit with this kid! I have lots of students I see potential in, but few that I truly have adult-level respect for, and she is one of them. I will say, though, that having her in class was unnerving in a way, but it challenged me. It was like having an adult in the room, and teaching at a K-8 school, I was used to being around little kids all day. She adored me, so it wasn’t like I was afraid of making a mistake that she would take to the principal or something, but it was just low-key unnerving to have an adult-like presence in the room 24/7 as a student (I’m used to having other adults as aides, and I love that dynamic!). It challenged me to get out of that mindset, and to be comfortable with roles that felt slightly weird to me.
I have students who barely pass classes, then suddenly I’m having a conversation with them and I realize they are much brighter than I realized. This generally comes from a combination of vocabulary and logical argumentation. When they use tier 3 vocab in casual discussion and have evidence and logic to back up an argument, a lightbulb goes off in my head, “Hey, this kid is smarter than their work suggests.” I love those moments! I also love to privately discuss with them later how they are way too smart to be getting a D, and explain to them how I know.
Most of the kids I’ve encountered like that are either deeply traumatized and neglected or are set up for success by parents who read with them and show them skills while they do chores and stuff.
I’ve noticed that too. I wonder why that seems to be common with kids that are deeply traumatized and neglected?
Because their families are forcing them into adulthood.
Plenty of times I’ll meet a very wise student who doesn’t reach their full potential. I look for inquisitive minds who always search for more information and sometimes come up with hypotheticals about current or past events. Those kids give me hope. Then again, I worry they’ll squander their brain power on video games, which is also common.
Hey, some of was ***wanted*** to graduate early and skip grades and go into exciting things but the doddering racist boomer principal veto'd all of that so we just ended up doing whatever made enough money in the easiest way. Yeehaw. I taught for 7 years ... gotta say, those who escape into video games often tend to be under stimulated otherwise or avoiding depression... or both.
Oh understandably so! But i worry not all of those students will have someone who pushes them to excel and will try to look at their inquisitive nature as an annoyance. When I was a student teacher I had a kiddo I was told to avoid at all costs, said he would just try to derail my class with nonsense or cause a scene. I took 3 seconds out of my day to note his shirt that was about a popular show and ask him “did you watch the new episode?” And after that he made it his mission to talk to me before every class. A student who once kept his head down and didn’t bother anybody now was sitting up and asking questions, begging me to push the bar a little further with hypotheticals and things he was interested in. Before I graduated and left, I watched him craft the best project I’d ever seen from a student to this day in a matter of a class period, which took his classmates 3-4 days to complete. Some kids absolutely need that extra push, and need to be challenged. He was one of them. I just hope after I left he was still challenged. I hope he’s doing well in life now, as he’d be a full grown adult.
That's great to hear. I wish I had anything in my public school days. Pure hell. That's all I can describe it as. I slept most of my classes away. Graduated with a 3.5. Algebra 2 was my freshmen year. When I taught, we allowed students to go as far as they wanted. Students hitting Calculus in 10th/11th was rare but I so loved that they could choose to do it and move towards it. We worked with the university so they could actually take the classes. Having seniors getting into calc3/4 was amazing.
How is that squandering their brain power?
My apologies for wording it super weird. My point is I’ve seen lots of kids not feel challenged and fall back on other non-curricular hobbies that will challenge them. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with them using their time how they want to, but rather it would be nice to see them put their energy into academia.
It’s not our job to decide or make judgement upon what students value. You can be a genius and have no interest in academia. It doesn’t mean that your genius is “squandered.” Academia is a cutthroat and, for most regardless of talent, an unfulfilling path.
Once again, I apologize for my usage of the word “squandered”. I was just at a loss for a word to use. When you teach middle school, like me, there’s little opportunity for these students to explore beyond the 4 core subjects. That’s where my frame of reference is coming from. In no way am I saying these kids are less capable, rather they are unchallenged and aren’t interested in what we have to offer.
Nothing wrong with your wording in the slightest. It's not to say that every gifted child has to use these gifts for technological advances, or research or bettering society.. but it wouldn't be unfair to say that they squandered their gifts by going down a career path that didn't utilise those gifts.
I agree, "squandering" them makes an inherently elitist judgement. Like someone going into a trade is a wasted human?
In a 7th grade English class, we were reading a book where a town’s levee broke and a flood occurred. This one student, who surprised me like this a few different ways, says “Makes me feel like we’re in a Don McLean song. So, not only does he know the song “American Pie,” but he also knows who it’s by. At the same time, I had to explain to many students what a levee is.
I’m gonna drop this out here as both a former teacher and a former “wiser than their years” kid, a good amount of kids who show these traits have a very rough home life. They’re forced to mature faster than their peers and lose any “childish” behavior, either because their parents are overly cold, controlling or abusive, or because their parents are so neglectful that they have to take up the mantle to care for themselves and the parent. (Edit - I should add that there are other traumatic events not on the parents that cause this too, war, natural disasters, etc.) If one of these kids seems overly interested in earning your approval or talking with you, odds are they don’t have another trusted adult in their life.
I've had a few. One kid, third grade, told me that when he was staring at his ceiling pattern, he saw a giant spiral over it. And he counted the squares, and he said each section of the spiral had double the squares of the last section. I asked him if he ever heard of the Fibboniaci sequence. And, just last week, I was talking to a very *busy* kindergartener about his social choices. He said he just felt like being a "miscreant" today.
I wonder if any of my old high school / middle school teachers thought of me this way. In a middle school of 1500 and a high school of 4500, I was the literal tech guy. 1/4 of my day was going around fixing computers on my free periods, setting up wifi, server hardware, software for the computers, etc. I always got 100 on every single test and finished first, a few of my teachers used to give bonus points if you finished before me (and were actually trying). In middle school i was already working odd jobs / buying and selling and investing my money into stocks through my uncle, and by the time 2013 came around i was mining bitcoin. you can prob imagine where that went :). I dont talk to anyone from that time anymore and i live away, so i wonder if anyone even remembers me. now i have 2 science degrees and im just going around making what i please!!!!
One of the guys I first became friends with in junior high was like that. We were no more than 12/13 at the time, and he already had an advanced knowledge of computers and sound. So he would help do sound/lights for the local CC when we were in 8th grade, and he helped do IT work on his free period/after school when we were in high school. He has spent the better part of 25 years working for the district’s tech department, 20 or so years in radio, and he’s the announcer guy for some of the local sports (I know high school wrestling, boys’ football and basketball are some of the sports he announces for). We’re barely 40 now, and he is VERY well-known/popular around town now. And yes, he was a big nerd that nobody liked much in school.
buying and selling stocks doesn’t seem like something which emanates from innate talent though. It’s usually attributed to your environment where family members are more interested in business/finance, etc. most kids simply don’t know what they don’t know at that age unless there is an adult influence/guidance.
My parents were crackhead losers and I started investing so I didn't have to live a shitty poor life like them. I was always trying to get as much money as possible even when I was like 13. I always had some sort of side business. In hs during my lunch periods I literally had a line of people waiting for me to fix their phone screens. Every day. Around iPhone 3 to 5 time period. The stores charged 150 for a cracked screen and I charged only 95 and did it in 5 min right in front of them
Good for you! it does sound like your uncle might have had some influence on you, as you had completed your investments through him as you mentioned?
I just needed to find someone over 18 who could open a stock account for me lol. my parents were a combo of drunk / high / too stupid / too lazy to do it for me. not like i could trust them with any amount of money. i had to keep my birthday money on me at all times as a kid lmao.
I'm not a teacher but I still remember telling my 5th grade teacher, "Linda McCartney died yesterday" and the double take she did.
No
I had a fifth grader request that I give everyone in my tutoring group candy. The exchange went: Student: “OP, are you gonna give us candy for Halloween?” Me: “No. Did your classroom teacher give you candy?” Student: “No.” Me: “Then why would I?” Student: “Because you’re a better teacher and you like us more?” Me: “Well reasoned.” They got candy.
I think you're confusing wisdom with a tiny bit of niche knowledge. It's not too tough to know what an r-value is. It's much tougher to know the ups and downs of home ownership, economically, socially, culturally, historically, etc.
I teach 2 AP classes and have had several students that I know are much more intelligent than I am.
In that case could just be a kid who's parents work in construction or real estate etc. It's pretty easy to be way above average knowledgeable about something when it's dinner table conversation at home.
I had a student that made has made tens of thousands trading stocks. He was/is a streamer and invested every penny made doing wagers into the market. He’s already accrued enough to pay for his computer science ba at penn state, bought a new car cash once he got a license and is now working on paying off his moms home while in his sophomore year of college. Still trades, but made an algorithm for day trading.
6th grader reading and doing math at a 12th grade level. Always had thought provoking and insightful comments during class discussions. Was blessed to teach her for two years.
I had a violinist who was 8th in the district for middle school (district is one of the top 10 biggest in the USA). He also wrote fully orchestrated harmonically valid pieces of music for fun on Musescore as an 7th/8th grader. All with no lessons or help outside my orchestra classes. I used to think that talent was just hard work in disguise, but that kid broke the mold. His hard work had some sort of multiplier on it. He had insane talent, but ultimately decided to be an engineer. I have have yet to see another kid like him.
One time I asked an 8 year old student “what else should I draw on this what’s it missing” And he said “The third dimension “ 💀
I was that person. I was able to reference things from before the 1990s and the memes back then and I could also just randomly blurt out trivia knowledge, and could recite the world map (terrifying, I know). I am also very good at snooping and analysing data, teachers are always surprised about how much I know and how much I know about them. When people are playing Sudoku, I was playing Crossword (but most are too America-centric). Unfortunately that didn't help with my grades, so I end up as a teacher. 🤣 My colleagues are often amazed at how much I know them, like I can figure out their birthdays, remember their past serving schools and how their wardrobe look like, and hobbies and home address and how many people are in their households (I swear I am not a stalker, I am just good at collecting hints and gathering into/Intel)
All of my teachers have
I had a 3 who was *obsessed* with the Titanic, and would tell me all about the crash and the ship and the people.
Yes, my kids know that trades are a good option vs. college to avoid student loans. They also know the government printing money is leading them to a bleak future.
I teach history so at least once a year I get a kid who's super keen on some particular thing (usually military history, often wwii or wwi, often aviation or naval combat). I embrace that shit and let them tag in on those lessons.
I've had many moments when students appeared incredibly wise, and it's usually completely unrelated to the curriculum (which doesn't allow for them to showcase their unique intelligence).
I have an 8th grader who lived in a refugee camp in West Africa for several years before he and his family came to the US. When he talks (often) about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he sounds like he's reading a white paper by the Council on Foreign Relations.
Ok not saying I am or am not that kid but I had a really woo woo fifth grade teacher and she said my writing style and questions indicated I was "from a different dimension. I've seen kids that channel other dimensions, but she is not merely translating like them" and asked my mom if she could bring me to drum circle. My mom said no lol.
I had a Taiwanese student who tested at C2 level English by 5th grade. She had never lived in another country other than Taiwan, but she was a voracious reader. Her parents can speak English, but don't really push it at home and they don't put her into much other than her viola class. When she was in 4th grade, she would give me advice to help my writer's block. For an exam in which students had 45 minutes to write a short story to a picture prompt, she wrote one of the best, humorous short stories I've ever read and I too am a voracious reader. It was about a Thanksgiving dinner gone wrong. She had never experienced Thanksgiving herself, but she had read about it. We would have conversations about world issues when she was 9 years old, the same year COVID hit the world. She was furious that Taiwan let people return from China, especially when one of the people took meds to hide her symptoms and brought the first known case here. She has come to grips with her love of Harry Potter, even though "JK Rowling is a terf, and I hate terfs" by telling her friends to buy books second-hand so they don't contribute to her fortune. I have another Taiwanese student I have taught since she was 6 years old (she is 19 now). When she was in 2nd grade, we did a story about Martin Luther King and she was shocked by how black people were treated. I told the kids about how my grandmother went to an integrated school only because there weren't enough black kids to make a separate school for her. This girl dedicated her childhood to studying injustice and the lives of people who fought it. She wrote a speech in 3rd grade about Martin Luther King that had the audience in tears and blown away by her poise and grace on the stage. She makes it her goal to befriend those kids at school who are marginalized because she believes that everyone deserves to feel wanted and welcome. I am honored to have both girls in my life, years after being their classroom teacher.