School was never my forte
My issue however wasn’t so much on grades or homework, as I did everything I could
I struggled with behaving properly. I did not like the rules and I wanted to do things my way
Such is the dilemma of highly gifted students. Growing up I was always highly competitive, wanted to destroy everybody
I wish schools can realize that and allow us to learn on our own
I feel like the common rule doesn’t apply to us and it restrains us from being us
There is intelligence and there is competitiveness. You combine the two and you have an absolute "savage" on your hands in terms of someone who is going to move up quickly through the ranks. They will run people right over and never look back.
Whether it was academics or athletics, I was always just good enough to beat my competition. If I didn't know who or what I was trying to beat, I found myself doing well, but with nothing or nobody to compete with I never felt like I could rise to the top.
Most modern schools are designed about having everyone meet some minimum standard. The "no child left behind" mentality of standardized testing that catered to and focused upon the lowest performer in the classroom. The top 10% or so of the class were bored out of their minds, sometimes acting up in class (because they could) and managed to get the top grades without putting in any sort of effort or really learning how to study. It's quite the dilemma for a teacher now-a-days when you have students that manage to achieve the top academic scores without putting in any effort and are not really engaged in the lessons.
Historically, it was not unheard of that high-achieving students could skip grades. However, then you have the situation where you have an emotionally immature child in a class of older children, which can open them up for alienation and bullying. If the parents are not able to afford to pull the child out of that situation, have private tutoring, and allow the child to learn at his/her advanced pace, the poor kid suffers. I am not a fan of home schooling in general, because most parents are not trained instructors and often don't have time to learn the lessons themselves, and certainly, when you have a kid who is say, 14 years old and is doing advanced-level mathematics or sciences, the parent simply is inadequate. They really need a real instructor and that comes with a financial cost. Some kids can push themselves and learn on their own, self-taught. Some kids still want to be kids and get distracted easily without constant prodding. Then learning becomes a negative thing.
I wish there were specific schools or even specific wings on existing schools with classrooms where high academic achievers can be allowed to push themselves ahead at their natural advanced pace. Intelligence and academic achievement are rarely celebrated and supported. It's a crying shame that we don't prioritize our top performers, but to the contrary, we are perpetually holding them back.
Maybe this is by design. I don't know. A huge population of "worker drones" just smart enough to do the work and data entry, but not really smart enough to question what's really going on behind the curtain. *Off topic: We'll see what happens when the humanoid robots become commonplace in the workforce. The Tesla Optimus robot comes out next year at a price point under $30,000, no sick time, no benefits, no bathroom or lunch breaks, precision work, can work all day, etc. and can replace a line worker getting paid $40, 50, 60,000 a year. Money and productivity talk and real humans can walk.
