I'm not sure how hard I really worked, but I was really interested in most things-except biology. I always hated biology. It seemed so arbitrary, like "You need this body part, except when you don't."

ETA: Hee! ita is me!

ita, a kid who is at a B+/A- is at least doing the work. The kids who irk me are the "But I'm GIFTED" kids who do exactly zero work and get an F, but have been told their whole life how smart they are.

"You need this body part, except when you don't."

Placenta! The temporary disposable organ!

Yes, it's been 8 years and it still freaks me out. No less so now that I accidentally saw one.

Ah. Yeah, those usually left Magnet.

ah - that whole thing about how being told they are smart is usually not good for kids. I have been trying to stress the importance of trying and working hard to mac, but god how he hates to try new things and work through figuring them out.

We're reading this book for work called Mindset which talks about the difference between a growth mindset and a set mindset. Lots of teachers and parents view kids with a set mindset (Kid is smart or not... kid is good at math or not....kid can draw or not). We've found that especially in the Gifted/High ability magnet a fair number of kids have what the author would deem a set mindset, that kids think they should be able to do something because they are smart or good at it. When they struggle then it means they are not smart or good at that skill set.

What ends up happening is that those kids have little tolerance for flog/flail or confusion and difficulty, a low frustration threshold.

Which is sort of me and math. I got away for years saying, "I'm not good at math" thinking that was a reasonable response. And in reality, I never really saw math as a set of discrete skills that I could master. It was all, "Math is hard. I'm not good at it." with the hidden message of why try. If a kid said to me, "I'm not good at reading" I would figure out ways to break it down to manageable skills

Pedantry:

Fahrenheit 451 is a novel. And depending on how picky you're being, A Boy & His Dog is a novella.

Oh, interesting. That makes a lot of sense.

{The Mindset stuff}

Or another way of thinking about it is this: I know I don't have innate artistic talent. But undoubtedly if Betty Edwards can be believed there are ways to break skills down enough and focus on seeing in addition to drawing that I could learn how to do it adequately.

What ends up happening is that those kids have little tolerance for flog/flail or confusion and difficulty, a low frustration threshold.

Ugh. That's me entirely, as much as it shames me to admit it. And I have no doubt that it stems from being told growing up how smart I was, and being praised for it, etc.

I don't like pushing past my comfort zone of Stuff I Know(TM) and flailing about to try new stuff, because I don't like looking like an idiot when I'm "supposed" to be so smart.

I know this about myself, and, like I said, it shames me to admit it.

But I *do* try stuff that's outside the zone of Stuff I Know(TM), like learning to fence, which required a FUCKLOAD of flailing and looking like an idiot. But it was FUN flailing, which I think is key.