man didn’t notice this was so old.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
didn’t do that well in high school until my junior year but was on the Dean’s List every semester of college. It took me that long to learn how my mind worked. I have a hard time ONLY focusing on one thing at a time. If I am doing multiple tasks or dividing my attention, I can memorize anything. It’s weird, but I didn’t figure that out until my English teacher in the 11th grade has us memorize a poem that was over 2 1/2 pages long. I went home stared at the page and turned on a CD I just bought (Me Phi Me…don’t laugh) and went back the next day and recited it to her. She worked with me from that point on and my grades shot up.
I am glad my parents believed in my potential as some teachers I had were pure shit. That is why I don’t relate how well someone will do later on with how well they do in high school. Everyone isn’t made the same and everyone doesn’t mature at the same rate.
[/quote]
I know this is OLD, and I’m sort of off on a tangent, but what you’re saying here is very similar to my 17 year old son. He’s got a high IQ, but tests poorly in school. Q&A and multiple choice tests are his downfall, but he’s brilliant at essays.
Almost all his peers call him a genius because he’s always thinking outside the box, and often knows things (in chem class in particular) that are even beyond the curriculum.
Musically, he’s played classical piano since age 4, and although has difficulty reading music, can play anything by ear. He’s picked up bass guitar only 4 years ago and now the kid who has been voted best bassist in NJ looks to my son as some kind of prodigy.
I really feel it’s kids like my son who often are misperceived by the educational system in this country. Yet in spite of this, I have little doubt that his drive and talents will take him where he wants to go.
Oh, and yeah… although I was born in '62, Yo Momma’s old list was how I was raised as well.
Yo Momma equals MilfShake.
Oh, dont mind me…I’m just the boy next door
all glistening and stuff
[quote]Ct. Rockula wrote:
Oh, dont mind me…I’m just the boy next door
all glistening and stuff[/quote]
Yeah…
You glitter in the sun, don´t you?
Damn, I walked into that. lol
I realized it after I hit submit.
[quote]mikefromms wrote:
I was born on the tailend of '59. I grew up tough, remember going to the Doctor one time, and we went barefooted and didn’t even have a telephone. If I got in trouble at school, I also got in trouble at home.
What happened to our kids, someone asked: Well, this Doctor calling himself Dr. Spock wrote a book on child rearing in the early 60’s and the world swallowed everything he said, hook, line and sinker! The biggest mistake was causing society and schools to frown upon spankings. We need spankings badly today.
Mikefrommms[/quote]
Yep, spankings are needed.
[quote]Yo Momma wrote:
Did you ever wonder why us old farts have no use for these “survivor”- type reality shows on TV? I got this from a friend, and with a little paraphrasing by me, thought I would share it with my contemporaries in this forum.
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes.
Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.
As infants and children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags.
Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank koolade made with sugar, but we weren’t overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD’s, no surround-sound or CD’s, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or chat rooms…WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes. It WAS all fun and games!
We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!
Little League and field hockey had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors.
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives.
And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave (and lucky) their parents were.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it?!
And we have never, EVER curled in the squat rack!
[/quote]
I know this is supposed to be humorous, but I was born in the 80s and grew up pretty much the same way as did my friends. Welcome to the crowd of old people talking about how the young whippersnappers are so much different and rotten etc. Things havent changed that much, you just got older!
[quote]NAUn wrote:
I know this is supposed to be humorous, but I was born in the 80s and grew up pretty much the same way as did my friends. Welcome to the crowd of old people talking about how the young whippersnappers are so much different and rotten etc. Things havent changed that much, you just got older![/quote]
I never once said that wippersnappers are rotten, etc. Nor did I say that things were better then than they are now. All my children were born in the 80’s, and are now adults. Let me tell you, things ARE very different. What I did as a teenager and got away with a warning, if my kids did the same thing, they would get 5 years in prison. Litigation, government regulations, political correctness, media and education have become so restrictive now, you can’t even fart without someone reporting your ass to the authorities.
Things have changed a hell of a lot. Read some history and consider what people have lived through. A perspective is always needed. Get one.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Cars aren’t bad. It isn’t a vehicle’s fault that entire families don’t even walk ANYWHERE anymore. TV’s aren’t bad.
[/quote]
I’m typing this response from Copenhagen, Denmark.
This is a city of walkers and bicyclers. There are cars, but overwhelmingly the bicycle is the ‘vehicle’ of choice.
You know what else? I haven’t seen a ‘fat’ person in 3 days. There are a lot of skinny people, and all the women are blonde haired blue eyed, but not a chubber amongst them. Pastries everywhere. Restaurants everywhere.
These people eat fish and drink beer, but they walk/bike everywhere and it shows in the population. I walked the city for 2 hrs tonight. No fat. Oh, I did see some overweight people in the hotel… AMERICANS!
By contrast, when I get on my connecting flight back to Maine (a FAT state), most of the plane will be populated by people 60 lbs overweight going back to sit on their asses and eat Whoopie Pies.
[quote]Iron Dwarf wrote:
[quote]Professor X wrote:
didn’t do that well in high school until my junior year but was on the Dean’s List every semester of college. It took me that long to learn how my mind worked. I have a hard time ONLY focusing on one thing at a time. If I am doing multiple tasks or dividing my attention, I can memorize anything. It’s weird, but I didn’t figure that out until my English teacher in the 11th grade has us memorize a poem that was over 2 1/2 pages long. I went home stared at the page and turned on a CD I just bought (Me Phi Me…don’t laugh) and went back the next day and recited it to her. She worked with me from that point on and my grades shot up.
I am glad my parents believed in my potential as some teachers I had were pure shit. That is why I don’t relate how well someone will do later on with how well they do in high school. Everyone isn’t made the same and everyone doesn’t mature at the same rate.
[/quote]
I know this is OLD, and I’m sort of off on a tangent, but what you’re saying here is very similar to my 17 year old son. He’s got a high IQ, but tests poorly in school. Q&A and multiple choice tests are his downfall, but he’s brilliant at essays.
Almost all his peers call him a genius because he’s always thinking outside the box, and often knows things (in chem class in particular) that are even beyond the curriculum.
Musically, he’s played classical piano since age 4, and although has difficulty reading music, can play anything by ear. He’s picked up bass guitar only 4 years ago and now the kid who has been voted best bassist in NJ looks to my son as some kind of prodigy.
I really feel it’s kids like my son who often are misperceived by the educational system in this country. Yet in spite of this, I have little doubt that his drive and talents will take him where he wants to go.
Oh, and yeah… although I was born in '62, Yo Momma’s old list was how I was raised as well.
[/quote]
My dad tested my IQ when I was still in elementary school…after my teacher told them she thought I had a learning disorder…because I didn’t pay attention but was not hyper. He never told me how I did until recently. They always treated me like I could do more than other kids but I never really believed it at all until I was about to graduate from high school.
I know now that I just needed a different stimulus. Info has to be coming at me fairly quickly for my mind to “engage” it. The faster and deeper the flow of information (assuming it is an area of interest I care about), the more interested I become. I also can’t sit still in a room for over an hour listening to someone talk unless they also dispense the desired info at a rate that “engages” me. Otherwise, I have to get up and move around.
I’m different…and I know I’m not the only one. Your son sounds very similar as far as what I experienced.
People like friends and family tell me they knew what I would be like when I grew up. I always had doubts.
I don’t doubt myself so much anymore…and I LOVE it when people underestimate me.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
My dad tested my IQ when I was still in elementary school…after my teacher told them she thought I had a learning disorder…because I didn’t pay attention but was not hyper. He never told me how I did until recently. They always treated me like I could do more than other kids but I never really believed it at all until I was about to graduate from high school.
I know now that I just needed a different stimulus. Info has to be coming at me fairly quickly for my mind to “engage” it. The faster and deeper the flow of information (assuming it is an area of interest I care about), the more interested I become. I also can’t sit still in a room for over an hour listening to someone talk unless they also dispense the desired info at a rate that “engages” me. Otherwise, I have to get up and move around.
I’m different…and I know I’m not the only one. Your son sounds very similar as far as what I experienced.
People like friends and family tell me they knew what I would be like when I grew up. I always had doubts.
I don’t doubt myself so much anymore…and I LOVE it when people underestimate me.[/quote]
It’s cool your parents didn’t fall prey to the “expert” observations and diagnosis. My wife assisted teaching at a private school some years ago and was disheartened by several parents taking particular diagnoses of their children seriously without a second professional opinion. I imagine many would-be brilliant students fall by the wayside yearly at the expense of these experts.
Anyway, your description of the way you absorbed information is intriguing. Though I can’t completely relate to it personally, I can see the same with my son. When he was learning complex classical piano compositions, his teacher recommended he practice them slowly - especially if he was hitting sticking points within the piece. I’d sit with him for great lengths of time at home constantly reminding him to slow down as she had recommended. Frustratingly those sticking points did not resolve. Then this one time he surprised me by playing the piece at a speed much faster than the sheet music’s pace… and he did it PERFECTLY, going right through his sticking pointy without a hitch! He tried to explain why, but his little kid brain couldn’t express it clearly. It was almost as if he went into a zone while playing it… like some sort of survival mechanism kicked in.
Anyway, from then on, I let him practice in his own way, and he made me proud when he placed highly at a coveted NJ State level piano competition, and the Music School’s highest honor that year.
[quote]Iron Dwarf wrote:
I really feel it’s kids like my son who often are misperceived by the educational system in this country.
[/quote]
Actually I’m guessing that you are lucky that your son is actually in the US system. In many other countries, especially Asian countries, somebody who tests poorly who have very little
chance of succeeding at anything unless somehow his musical talent was identified very early.