School as we know it, can be quite hard for students, for others though it seems like a piece of cake. Certain students have been labeled as nerds, others as stupid. The reality is that school systems aren’t made for everyone and are mostly fit for the average hard worker who has a good memory, because let’s be real, standardized testing is all about learning something within two weeks and spitting it all back on your exam. One thing to remember at all times is that your grades don’t define you, and a lot of the times they aren’t representative of your intelligence, because intelligence shows itself on many different levels. The best exemple I can find, is high IQ students; these students have been completely failed by school systems, and have it harder than you could imagine.
A high IQ student, also called gifted, is by definition someone who has an IQ over 130. New studies show that it’s more than just that, different tests can identify it because these students have a “special” way of thinking. In other words, we could say that gifted people are wired differently, as it is extremely easier for them to connect the dots and they often have a tendency of coming up with conclusions on their own, based on what they already know. This is a big reason of why high IQ students can have tremendous difficulties in school: they think further than they actually have to and often end up being completely off-track. Something else that affects them, is the fact that their minds work at an alarming speed, so in tests they’re often found making little mistakes usually blamed on distraction. They have amazing capacities and what goes through one's brain is incredible, but most teachers haven’t been trained to develop those capacities more to extract all of that greatness into the real world.
Another problem is that in school, we have a lot of long lasting projects that demand a lot of organisation and hard-work, and a trait gifted people often develop is laziness. Moreover, according to a study published in the Journal of Health Psychology, high IQ people tend to get bored easily, so they tend to get lost in their thoughts and can often be caught daydreaming. So instead of doing their “boring” homework, they’ll end up doing some thinking on their own. This can lead to not understanding new material, although, paradoxically, if they were fully invested into school they would undoubtedly be the first ones to understand. Overthinking and thinking differently can lead to isolation. This is common for gifted people. They’re also more prone to mental illness such as anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder and more. Actually, some studies show isolation can cause these problems or vice-versa. Suffering from these disorders cause a lot of difficulties in school, such as losing interest in classes, having an unhealthy amount of stress before any “unusual” which can lead to failing classes or even dropping out of school. Statistics speak for themselves: [ in France] 70% of gifted students find themselves failing most of their classes.
These people have outstanding mentalities and, most of the times, we can recognize it from the commencement of their school path. Their amazing creativity is more often than never the first sign of it. Unfortunately, schools have a way of boxing that creativity forcing gifted children to withdraw within oneself leading to a mountain of difficulties in school. Of course, gifted programs exist, but as most of these kids fail certain classes no one's first thought is to test their IQ. So instead of telling students to stay on a certain track shouldn’t we encourage outside of the box thinking, on top of it, isn’t that kind of thinking the kind that will find solutions to our current society’s problems? In reality, what we should do is, instead of respecting a certain school system, we should respect every kids needs, whether he finds himself below the so-called average, in it or above it. Because everyone is their own kind of smart and everyone has great potential no matter what school says, and that is what true genius is.
Sources consulted:
GENIUSTEST, 2019. What is a good IQ score | Genius Tests, https://geniustests.com/frequently-asked-questions/what-good-iq-score, (2019-03-16).
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR GIFTED CHILDREN, 2016. Identification | National Association for Gifted Children, https://www.nagc.org/resources-publications/gifted-education-practices/identification, (2019-03-16).
CICERCHIA, Meredith, 2017. 7 signs of a gifted child at home and in the classroom, https://www.readandspell.com/signs-of-a-gifted-child, (2019-03-16).
TAYLOR, Jim, 2009. The Problem of Giftedness | Psychology Today, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-power-prime/200911/the-problem-giftedness, (2019-03-16).
FLOOD, Rebecca, 2017. Research suggests being lazy is a sign of high intelligence | The Independent, https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/research-suggests-being-lazy-is-a-sign-of-high-intelligence-a7176136.html, (2019-03-16).
KARPINSKI, Ruth, KINASE KOLB, Audrey, TETREAULT Nicole, BOROWSKI, Thomas, 2018. High intelligence: A risk factor for psychological and physiological overexcitabilities - ScienceDirect, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289616303324#, (2019-03-16).
GOBRY, Pascal-Emmanuel, 2018. French Education Is Failing Its Most Talented Students - Bloomberg, https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-04-24/french-education-is-failing-its-most-talented-students, (2019-03-16).
CICERCHIA, Meredith, 2017. 7 signs of a gifted child at home and in the classroom, https://www.readandspell.com/signs-of-a-gifted-child, (2019-03-16).
~ Written by Gabrielle Adams