I'm a list maker.

The trick I've used with students who nod and say, "Okay okay okay" is to ask them to repeat back what I just said. If they can, then I let it go because I assume if they repeated it correctly, they will remember. If they can't, then I tell them to write it down as I tell them a second time. It takes a couple of times before they stop doing it and getting it wrong.

Though, in fairness, I'm also overkill on explanation (mainly because I have to repeat myself so often that it's mindnumbing). Now I say things once and write out the steps on the board, even down to page numbers etc. When someone asks me again, I just point at the board.

I admit I'm a bit stunned when I tell people to do things, and they don't.

I say "Pivot your foot." They don't. I pivot my foot and make them look. I say "Pivot your foot." They don't. I pivot their foot and make them look. I say "Pivot your foot." They don't.

Sure, there's not enough money in the world to get me to hit middle C, but it's a foot! Can't you at least tell it's not pivoting? It's right there -- if your kinaesthetics are off, how about your vision?

It's not that I don't get not being able to pivot -- it's the tone deafness about not knowing you're not doing it that makes me confused.

And when I can tell someone's just saying "Yes. Yes." I wonder -- how can you not have realised that you have no idea what I just said, but you're going to walk off and fuck up?

I'm intimately acquainted with the fog in my brain where facts should go when I've skipped the putting-them-in-there part. I do try and fill it before going on, though. It's less embarassing to ask (or take notes) than it is to fuck up.

I wish I could make visible lists at work, or ask people to repeat what I've just said. And I resent being part of a group where that has to happen.

Kat! I used to do that when I taught! Jason laughed at me when I was trying to train Layla, I said "Sit" and when she didn't, said "What did I just say?" out of reflex.

I knew a woman who had started college at 14... and lived in the dorms and dated freakin' grad students. Altogether now "ewwwwwww".

I knew her in her twenties. My impression is that she was pushed plenty.

I was not pushed at all in school. Except when I got good grades I got a "nice job" from my parents. And they were happy when I got on the honor roll because they could save on car insurance.

Sometimes I envy the people who were pushed. I was one of those underachiever folks.

Don't envy the pushed. They might end up knowing more stuff, but they don't end up smarter, or more sensible, or happier as an inevitable result.

Then again, I'm not as cognizant of the whole "right school" thing as I might be. But still -- it doesn't seem to be something worth envying.

Well OK, I don't envy the people who were pushed excessively. But I think I would liked to have been pushed a little.

"What did I just say?" out of reflex.

That's hysterical, Robin.

I had dogs first, so I got good with the Voice of Authority routine with them and it works on kids too.

I try to say, "Oh, right, that's so you can do X." to illustrate the depth and wonder of my understanding (or lack thereof). But I dunno how you work that out to extend to, "Oh, yes, now I understand how to open Pagemaker, thank you O brilliant one without whom I should surely have perished here in my cubicle, alone."

I am Emily, in the two years early and the would have flown into a homicidal rage if I'd had to stay in high school one more minute. Particularly if I'd had to stay knowing I had all my credits a year ago.

For me, I started a year early, then skipped my junior year. I'd miscalculated, because when my family was moving and evaluating schools, I paid attention to the middle school which was marvelous, but not to the high school (which I thought was my sister's realm). Instead, I sat in the principal's office and wrote a play about drug addiction in which the putative drug was some sort of red liquid you could inject. I don't know. I clearly did not have extensive experience in this area.

Sadly, I also therefore did not notice that the high school was not anywhere close to as challenging, dynamic and interesting as the middle school was. So I went, had a great couple of years in middle school, had a phenomenal English teacher in high school and everything else was a total loss. I might as well have been swinging from the rafters.

Leaving was totally the best thing I ever could have done, and I did much better in college where I was challenged and allowed to participate in discourse.

You know, until I met the hot guy and bailed.

All that is to say, it is very sad. Prodigy I was not, but I certainly can understand the alienation and rejection inherent in the situation. I was suicidal for a lot of that time, and I feel lucky to have made it out alive.