<p>
This is always the explanation given by these students, and sometimes by their parents. I’m skeptical, when there are plenty of intellectually capable students who do not exhibit this behavior.</p>
<p>It seems to be true that really smart kids react in two entirely different ways to the challenge of new and harder material.</p>
<p>Some have supreme self-confidence: This is hard, but interesting. I can learn this, if I work at it.</p>
<p>Others have instant self-doubt: Maybe I’m not so smart after all. This is too hard. I didn’t want to learn this anyway.</p>
<p>I’ve had both kinds.</p>
<p>But I think it’s also the case that some smart kids don’t do well in courses that aren’t that hard, because they decline to do the assigned work. I have quite often heard such students assert that they already know more than the teacher, or are smarter than the teacher, and that they don’t need to know this material because it is stupid. All of that may in fact be true, but there is another student in the same class who is just as smart, but who is doing all the homework. If you were a selective college, which of these students would you want, if they had the same standardized test scores?</p>
<p>^^That is entirely the point. There are plenty of non-lazy (while sometimes bored) competitors who manage to exhibit enough discipline when it counts. Colleges want Tried and True, not “Just Trust Me.” They don’t need guessing games when they have The Real Deal many times over in the applicant pools.</p>
<p>So let the supposedly brilliant slackers show their stuff in non-top-tier undergrad colleges & then transfer or go to grad school in a more competitive environment. It won’t hurt them.</p>
<p>My experience is that the brilliant slackers are also smarter than their college professors. Supposedly.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You misinterpret what I’m saying. I’m not saying that all intellectually capable students have high test scores and low grades. I’m saying that among such students, there seem to be two possible causes. One is that they are simply lazy. The other is that they are bored, and in my experience, the latter is more common than the former.</p>
<p>By the way, a little background info to give you a better idea where I’m coming from: His “high” test scores are 35 ACT and 2340 SAT, and his “low” grades are a 3.6 GPA at a math-and-science magnet school. That’s a disparity, but not a huge one. If his GPA were 2.0, I would interpret his situation quite differently and say that he’s probably just screwing around.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>100% true, but you sound so snide. “Supposedly brilliant.” Pfft.</p>
<p>mantori, I don’t think you get this at all. I actually have a specialty in gifted education, among many other skills & credentials. I’m all for brilliance, but brilliance needs also to be demonstrated. It’s not that teachers shouldn’t be challenging; they should; and I am one of the hardest drivers for gifted education that you would ever find. I’m also not for pulling any punches as to labels: I don’t care if other parents, for example, are “offended” or “hurt” or whatever by the fact that innate intelligence is not distributed in an egalitarian fashion.</p>
<p>But the fact is, brilliance has to be demonstrated, and in the everyday. No coach or team manager gives a fig about a “brilliant” player, either, until and unless those brilliant plays are demonstrated consistently. So that’s why brilliance in fact needs to be framed in quotes.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Congratulations, but please don’t assume from a few posts that I don’t get this at all. I think I’ve been clear that I’m basing my comments on my own experience and observations, and I’m still discussing it because what you’re telling me doesn’t fit. I could be wrong, but so far I’m not convinced.</p>
<p>Brilliance must be demonstrated. How true! And it can be demonstrated in many ways. As you point out, for some that will be on the athletic field. For others, it will be in the classroom, in the form of grades. For others, it will be in the form of leadership. And for still others, it will be in the form of high test scores, which do in fact correlate with certain useful life skills. And all of which ought to be part of a college’s holistic assessment of an applicant’s potential.</p>
<p>My point is simply that performance in one of those arenas (grades) should not automatically trump performance in another (test scores). This opinion comes more from my head than from my behind, and I submit to you that it does not indicate an inability to get this.</p>
<p>I see some of these same characteristics in my own son, and have seen it to various degrees in other relatives. I still don’t think that being bored and unchallenged is an excuse for failing to do assigned work. Indeed, if the kid is really smart, the assigned work should be a snap and should take no time. I don’t think the issue is necessarily laziness, though. I think probably the nicest way to put it is immaturity and short-sightedness–even a super-smart teenager may lack the maturity to understand how it can possibly matter for him to do a math worksheet when he already understands the material. This is where parents–who are more able to take the long view–have to intervene.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes. This is entirely the point. I wouldn’t expect a student to just “know” what Hunt just articulated. (Although some do, and are honest about that.) But I damn well expect the parents to know, and not to come in and make excuses for non-performance, because never have I met a parent, no matter what their own background, who does not understand the importance & relevance of performance to success in life. Complain all you will – and I’m behind you and will complain louder, believe me, about lack of challenge – but understand that the world, including the academic world, does expect daily performance.</p>
<p>I see this happening much more in boys than in girls. Perhaps it’s just coincidence. Perhaps, OTOH, since it’s helpful for boys as a motivation factor to appreciate the connection between the work today and the goal tomorrow (or several years from now), it’s especially important for parents to articulate that connection. Teachers can and should also do that, but generally it tends to come up at home, in parents’ presence, over homework issues. (“I see/saw no point in doing X;” “What difference will this make in my life or for college?” etc.)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Can’t agree more with that point, but I don’t think any “automatic” benefit is granted or assumed. That’s why there are additional measures. :)</p>
<p>Count on Hunt to wonder if some of us would let post 205 just slip on by. 
…Except that I happened to visit your profile page today and noticed someone complimenting you on your dry humor. </p>
<p>Delayed reaction here. ;)</p>
<p>I’ve seen a number of students, especially boys (including my own brother), underperform in high school & thus were left without their first choice colleges – or even 2nd, 3rd, 4th in my brother’s case. What I meant by a non-top-tier institution not hurting them is that that is usually the way they grow up and either begin doing the un-fun work, or take it upon themselves to find challenge in their work, or in some cases knock off the primadonna stuff. (Wrong gender, I know.) They discover, whatever the category of behavior involved, that they can redeem themselves at <em>this</em> institution by doing the opposite of what they previously did: by working to their ultimate. And very often such reverse behavior lands them excellent transfer opportunities, job or internship opportunities, & more. And it certainly leads to a lot of constructive self-knowledge & self-pride & a more balanced, realistic self-concept.</p>
<p>Both students and parents on CC have narrated such happy outcomes.</p>
<p>“I think probably the nicest way to put it is immaturity and short-sightedness–even a super-smart teenager may lack the maturity to understand how it can possibly matter for him to do a math worksheet when he already understands the material.”
My son was the poster child for this type of behavior. In middle school he won math contests and was known among his friends as “the human calculator”. He did everything in his head and received [too] much praise for his ability to figure out math problems fast. It wasn’t until he really understood from a hard nosed Physics teacher his Freshman yr that 1] he wouldn’t get an A in her class until he showed his work and 2] the Math was going to get harder as he progressed through HS- he wouldn’t be able to just “get” the answers in his head, and he would need to work through a problem on paper in order to go back and find mistakes.</p>
<p>My daughter had a teacher who, I really believe, was not as smart as the kids in the class she was teaching. I pointed out to my daughter that this was an opportunity for her to learn how to deal with such a situation. I told her that her goal in this particular class was not primarily to learn from this teacher (because that really wasn’t happening), but to provide work to the teacher that would result in a good grade. This may seem cynical, but I suggest that it is a skill that will come in handy throughout life.</p>
<p>Hunt, that’s similar to the approach we’ve tried with our son, which we call “Take the A”. When he has complained that a class is too easy and that he’s not learning anything, we tell him, “Just take the A. Your teacher is unwittingly giving you the gift of a good grade without having to work hard. You may not enjoy the class, but you are a fool to refuse the rare opportunity to get a good grade without taxing your brain.”</p>
<p>Ultimately we solved this problem by finding a really challenging school, but until then, the mantra “Take the A” worked reasonably well, sometimes.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’ve had both kinds too, and I only have one kid. :-)</p>
<p>I like that “take the A” suggestion. In my daughter’s case, it was more difficult, because written work had to be crafted to appeal to the teacher’s preferences–even though some of them were wrong (according to us, anyway). So to take the A, my daughter had to regurgitate interpretations that she didn’t really agree with. Again, a useful life skill.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In general, yes, it is. But I also like to keep in mind that for most of the people who make a real difference in the world, the revolutionaries and visionaries, doing this is constitutionally impossible. That’s why, even though I think “take the A” is good advice, I never got too worked up if my son wasn’t able to follow it. I figure, “If he gets a C now and cures cancer later, the trade-off will be worth it.” (Fat chance, I know.)</p>
<p>“If he gets a C now and cures cancer later, the trade-off will be worth it.” </p>
<p>B+ or A- is better with the current admission state.</p>