I remember the 3rd grade, where I had a book open in my lap while everyone worked on something else. The teacher called on me, and a little knowing laugh went around the room in anticipation of me getting into trouble. I looked up, answered the question correctly, then went back to my book. Teacher was Not Pleased, and my reputation with my fellow students did not improve.

Who else got the "You think you're so smart, stop trying to show off" thing?

I still do this.

I was gonna say! Me too!

I did Connie, but I admit that for a long time, I was, if not a show-off, definitely rude about it. It wasn't until much later, when I was a camp counselor, that I understood the complete annoyance of the kid who always had to chime in first with the answer. I finally got it. There's so much power in just staying silent sometimes, even when you know the answer. When I learned that, life got a lot more enjoyable for me (and for everyone around me, most likely).

Cereal:

I also learned the art of phrasing a question (that I already knew the answer to)in such a way that fellow students (and later, colleagues)would be helped. If I saw that some around me were/are looking confused or the "I got it" gleam isn't there in the eye, I'll ask the question that they're too timid to ask, just so that they can hear the answer.

It wasn't until much later, when I was a camp counselor, that I understood the complete annoyance of the kid who always had to chime in first with the answer. I finally got it.

I learned this somewhere in my grade-school education. By the time I got to Jr. High, I'd adopted the strategy in my math classes of not raising my hand unless no one else knew the answer. Which I guess was sorta' show-off-y, but not as much as always trying to get called on....

Who else got the "You think you're so smart, stop trying to show off" thing?

I think I've told this story before (and the fact that it still rankles is something that, perhaps, indicates I should Let It Go). When I was no older than 5, the whole extended family -- including cousins aged 7, 9, and 10 -- were gathered for some reason, like you do.

The cousins had a book on Why You Should NEVER Get In A Car With Strangers, and the adults thrust it at me to make me read it. Perhaps I was prone to glomming on to strangers; it's possible that as a child I didn't hate people the way I do now.

So I read it. Come on, it was written for 5-year-olds. I read it in a couple of minutes. When I announced I was finished, every adult in the house told me that I was lying and I hadn't really read it, that no child could read that quickly. Even my own parents, who goddamn well knew I could.

So I summarized the book, including the ugly fate of the poor fictional character who Got In A Car With A Stranger. Even though I demonstrated that I read the fucking book, the adults repeated that I couldn't possibly have read it, and thrust it at me again and told me to read it "for real."

33 years later, I'm still planning to pee on their graves.

Who else got the "You think you're so smart, stop trying to show off" thing?

In third or fourth grade, I went to India for my grandmother's funeral and missed the first couple weeks of school after winter vacation. When I got back, my classmates said, "People actually got to answer questions!"

What's that line from Pride and Prejudice where Elizabeth teases Darcy by saying they're the same sort of person - neither of them will say anything in a large group unless they're sure it will delight and impress everyone listening?

Yeah. I resembled that remark.

Going to a math/science magnet for middle school (where I was in the top tier track, but nowhere near the smartest kid in the room at any given time) was really good for me.

There's so much power in just staying silent sometimes, even when you know the answer.

My fervent hope is that one day I will learn this and not NEED to be the one who always has The Right Answer.

(It would help if my dad didn't have the habit of always contradicting me. ALWAYS. [Which might explain where I got my need to be right from. Hmm.])

I did. I went into school able to read (learned at age three or four out of boredom, like many others) was identified as gifted by the district by 1st grade and sent to a program at another school two days a week. Teachers tended to hate it, so they'd make a point of singling me out for material covered in class the days I wasn't there in hopes of tripping me up. The times that I did have trouble, they enjoyed pulling out the old "not quite as smart as you think you are, are you?" End result was I wound up hating "regular" school, but loved gifted, because the learning was so much more fun and relevant.