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Monday, June 04, 2007

A Childhood of Potential

A couple of small asides, first... I've noticed, particularly lately, that among the new 'circles' of the J-blogosphere, for lack of a better word, are a number of really well-written, young [as in younger than my near-24 years of aged wisdom], bright, and clear-thinking college students. In addition to our friends Chana, SJ, Pobody's Nerfect, Fudge, and Moshe, who have been around a while, there's Scraps, The Apple, Erachet, Princess, and more. Lately, there have been a few posts that have touched on memories from schools past, particularly the different set of struggles faced by people who are smart, so... here's some of my own thoughts.

Growing up, I was one of those "straight-A" students who never had to try. I knew multiplication by Pre-K, and beat 30-year olds in Othello after watching them play one game... when I was 5. I distinctly remember one occasion in first grade in the Hebrew Academy, when we were practicing reading Hebrew words off a page of a large number of words, when the morah (teacher) used to use a timer with a buzzer. Most people got through about 1/3 of the page before the buzzer went off. One day, another teacher had come in to ask Morah Frumie a question while I started reading. I finished the page in seconds, with most of the buzzer time still remaining, and Morah Frumie proudly showed me off to the other teacher, who was astonished... and that's basically how things went for many years.

By third grade, they split a handful of my class off into its own group for math enrichment while everyone else learned fractions and the like. When we finished the (tricky) logical problems, we'd get to go to recess. This usually translated into me doing a good percentage while the others did a few, and then we'd all go to recess. I didn't really take math from 4th-6th grades; the few memories I have from any part of school was drawing, particularly football plays, lots of headaches, and helping to convince many a teacher that they were not in the right profession. Each year, they would place a number of us in a statewide math contest where we'd always place in the top 10%, often in the top few schools.

So far, so good, right? Well, no. I wasn't getting what I needed in terms of school and life, which was to be challenged, and I wasn't doing too well with a few of my friends, either. My best friend had gone to Israel for a year in 4th grade, leaving me in a bit of a rut in terms of friends; the change in the makeup of the two classes for our grade did as well. I got picked on a bit and was definitely cast as an outsider all-around, even though I still had plenty of friends; I lived in the wrong neighborhood (re: not wealthy or trendy, no designer clothes, and friends with those who were too yeshivish) for a lot of them and wasn't "frum enough" (re: no hat, srugi/leather kippa, polo or T-shirts instead of button-down) for the ones I lived around. My best friend had come back for 5th grade, but they left for good after 6th to Israel, while most of the people I hung out with after school were in the other class all day. Being smart didn't help anything, nor did having a huge overbite and lisp (thank God for braces later on) - it just meant that I was either relied on to bail people out or cast as a know-it-all or nerd to get picked on.

One of the parts I found odd was how so many friends would be truly good friends when it was just the two of us... but fantastically mean when other people around, because that was the 'thing to do' to try to be one of the cool kids - put everyone else who was similar to you down. Meanwhile, some of the cool kids themselves had no reason to put on a show (everyone liked them), and they were often the nicest to me, even if that still meant I wasn't getting picked to play in the 'top' basketball or football game unless someone else was sick.

By 7th grade, everything became a bit more extreme. It was the first time they truly split the class into two for anything by level, in this case, math. It was a strange class with a stranger teacher (stories for another time), but it was a class that was right up my alley. The teacher would often offer extra-credit points to students who could answer problems he came up with... and I was quickly banned from answering every other day, as I would be the first to answer each time, giving myself a 119 average. In Gemara, myself and one other guy battled for the best average, where he had a 99.4 and I had a 99.1 or so... except we both knew that he was trying as hard as he could and I was playing finger baseball or some such thing [and keeping stats!] in the back. (That certainly didn't dissuade people from thinking me a nerd. Ah well.)

A few months into the year, we took part in a statewide contest that was considered very big. This one was on an individual level, and our teacher had high hopes that a couple of us could break 30 out of 40 on the 30-minute exam which gets progressively harder from question to question. In a practice taken on an old exam, I believe I got a 32 while a couple friends had between 29 and 31. When we took it for real, I made two careless mistakes... and only one other mistake. My 37 was second in the state of Ohio and I still remember the euphoric feeling when a few 8th graders rushed in, picked me up, and carried me around on their shoulders in celebration. But that was it - a few minutes of fame, then back to being the quiet kid that people made fun of.

The next year, my parents finally got what they had been requesting for years: A special program to challenge me further. We had had one special science program after school in 3rd grade for a handful of guys, but otherwise, the school relied mostly on its own teachers to teach at a high level (which I do think they did, as compared to most other schools). I took history on my own in the hallway, our English teacher was good and challenging, our science teacher stunk and I used to basically point that out to her in class, and I took math at the high school 3 times a week one-on-one with a good teacher they had there [and he canceled on us about once a week, so it was more like 2x/week]. We would generally play basketball for 20-25 minutes (sometimes 1-on-1 or HORSE, other times with the high school guys - remember, G?), then learn math for 15-20 minutes. In just that short period of time, I knocked out both Algebra I and Geometry, which would help a lot once I got to WITS for high school.

But this post has already gone on too long, so...

To be continued...

27 comments:

  1. fascinating...........................

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  2. you had morah frumie too? she was great.... i remember the big eighth grade boys used to come in and scratch their fingernails on the board....
    i don't remember my childhood education all that well. in 3rd grade the teacher put out special math brain teasers for kids who finished early, but it was basically my pile. in 6th grade, i got in big time trouble cuz the teacher said "anyone who doesn't want to be here can stand up and leave" and me, being very literal, and a chutzpinyak and smart aleck, stood up and left. ah, the good ol days at HAC. hey, that year we were actually in the classroom that linked the girls side to the boys... and we used to sneak out.... :-D

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  3. are you saying it's a good thing you took highschool math before you got to wits? becuase most of what i've heard indicated you don't really need it there

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  4. SE - I don't know where you get that from. They not only have many tracks for math there, they considered allowing me to go to a nearby college campus to take even higher-level courses when I was a junior.

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  5. I totally know what it's like to have a best friend leave. My best friend's family made Aliyah the summer after first grade - and she had been my best friend since we were, I don't know, one and a half years old. So I know how hard that is. It's like your safety net is gone.

    And thanks for the link!

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  6. I don't think I'm as smart as all that, but I remember getting straight a's with zero effort. When I actually had to make an effort to keep the grades up, they slipped fast and furious.

    Then again, I have some kind of attention problem which is undiagnosed, but certainly made studying an excruciatingly painful process for me.

    Add a general disdain of homework and a love of television and long phone calls, and it's not surprising that I finished high school with an average in the 70s, while I came out with 90+ in the only AP class I took...

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  7. "with a good teacher they had there [and he canceled on us about once a week, so it was more like 2x/week]"

    That just about sums up Burin in one sentance.

    "We would generally play basketball for 20-25 minutes (sometimes 1-on-1 or HORSE,"

    Really! How honored you must have felt to play on the haloed hardtile at such a young age.

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  8. Yeah...never really had the "I'm too smart" problem

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  9. "I lived in the wrong neighborhood (re: not wealthy or trendy, no designer clothes, and friends with those who were too yeshivish) for a lot of them and wasn't "frum enough" (re: no hat, srugi/leather kippa, polo or T-shirts instead of button-down) for the ones I lived around"

    **Sigh**
    Ah yes, I remeber it well. Back when the community had REAL division, not like the fake machlokes they try and pass off these days.
    **Sniff**
    I miss that life...neighborhoods, schools and shuls; these are the things that should cause a rift between people not silly issues in halachah.

    Those were the days...

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  10. My best friend and second-best friend left my school after second grade. The next year, a new girl came who was nice and I became good friends with her, but for whatever reason the rest of the class had some grudge against her from outside of school, and so we became their targets. When her family moved after fourth grade, I alone was the class target. Picking on Scraps was the class sport.

    I just had too many strikes against me.

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  11. Really! How honored you must have felt to play on the haloed hardtile at such a young age.

    You mean the covered in white dust thing you called a floor?! :)

    And LOL on Burin and Cleveland.

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  12. Moshe - *cough* BULL**** *cough*

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  13. Jacob - It is?

    PN - I started with her, ended 8th with her husband. It was a great combo.

    They closest they let us to the girls' side was 8th, when we dropped everything from notes to toilets out of those windows. (That last one was Berko.) We also almost lost Yitz W. when he was sitting on the window (they folded into the room) and it started to close.

    Erachet - More than a safety net... we used to do something after school almost every day. I had no idea what to do without him... so I ended up on the computer a lot.

    Trilcat - That's rough. Of course, you'll see something similar when I continue. :P

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  14. Scraps - Ouch. I know that feeling.

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  15. [as in younger than my near-24 years of aged wisdom]

    Oy, you make me sound so old.

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  16. For some odd reason--I wasn't the "odd ball out", but I was really short. For some odd reason a group of girls decided I was a fun target and teased me endlessly. In fact one girl congratulated me in my year book for surviving so many years of her taunting.
    Unfortunately kids can be cruel!

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  17. ezzie please finish unlike your utter procrastination with "how i met srach"

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  18. "I knew multiplication by Pre-K"

    Yeah, I took those lessons too.

    Dad: So, if the Browns can score 3 times before the games ends then they will only lose by...?

    Ez: Ummmm, 10!

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  19. Nice post! It's sort of amazing how motivated you were at such a young age.

    I'm also glad that you mentioned "a number of really well-written, young [as in younger than my near-24 years of aged wisdom], bright, and clear-thinking college students" because I'm trying to be that kind of blogger. Try to keep my blog on your radar! (collegejews.blogspot)

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  20. I was no genius by any stretch, but the burnouts called us beamos when I was in HS, LOL. Um, before you were born, I believe? Wait - if you're 24, then this time in 1983 I was finishing my freshman year in HS. You were SUCH a baby...

    I loved growing up in Massachusetts - great neighborhood environment to play in, close extended family, access to American history - except for the merciless taunting in school for 9 long years...The school system was and still is excellent, but I had to work at it.

    In HS in Ohio they didn't even offer foreign language until H.S., and in Mass. I'd had 2 years of French. That got me stuck in a class of sophomores as a freshman AND a New Kid - SCARY. Thankfully, the only teasing I got was for my accent, and I was used to teasing that was so much nastier that I'd laugh and say, "*I* talk funny? YOU talk funny!" Well?? They did!! It took me about 3 years to lose my accent.

    Then I moved south of Cleveland for college, where the natives can sound like newscasters OR Kentuckians...

    I eventually took AP English and got the highest score in the school that year - and never took an English class again :)

    There. That makes up for not posting for about 10 years ;)

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  21. I know in some families (especially those that financially were NOT significantly well off- I think they felt their intelligence should have gotten them farther then others) intelligence is a badge of honor. And they love to extoll their family members achievemnets (a lot like how poeple like to extol "yichus" but people who really have it never announce it) Its only an honor if you use it to change yourself and be a better person. Intelligence is g-d given, it is nothing more then beauty. Being proud of your intelligence seems very silly to me. Oh another example of when people feel a need to let people know of their intelligence is when they feel/felt misunderstood and that need (hopefully) goes away with maturity.
    Sorry to be harsh- but I am right :)

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  22. Jack - You are. :)

    LB - Sad but true...

    Anon - LOL. I'll try.

    G - Heh. But in truth, sports helped a lot, particularly statistics. I could divide large fractions at a really young age.

    CJ - I'll try! :)

    Chana - Firstly, this does NOT make up for disappearing. :P As for the rest... sounds like some of my experience. You'll see. :)

    Anon - The 'badge of honor' thing is *partially* true, as is the sense that people's intelligence should have gotten them farther. But they're also not true in the sense that they're smart enough to know that it's not just smarts that gets one 'ahead'. My grandfather went to Harvard Law, but didn't want to do certain things he felt he shouldn't - so he didn't make much money.

    I'll disagree on extolling family achievements, or even personal ones. Extolling family achievements is showing pride in what's been accomplished. Constantly harping on it can be like extolling yichus, but that doesn't mean they're not true nor that they should not be mentioned. It depends on the context and the reasons for mentioning them. There is a way to do so humbly, and there is a way to do so obnoxiously, certainly - but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be said, nor that they're somehow trying to build themselves up in an undeserving fashion.

    Intelligence is g-d given, it is nothing more then beauty.

    The core intelligence and ability, yes. How they're used, no. That requires wisdom, which has little to do with intelligence. Someone who is proud of their intelligence is a fool. Someone who is proud of how they've used it is wise.

    Oh another example of when people feel a need to let people know of their intelligence is when they feel/felt misunderstood

    I'm not quite sure that's true... I would however say that smarter people tend to over-explain why they made a mistake, usually by explaining that there was a misunderstanding. This is often true and sometimes not, but the need to explain it is because they are wary of being seen as having made a 'stupid' mistake. This need does go away with maturity, though there are times when it is important to clarify why a mistake was made.

    Sorry to be harsh- but I am right :)

    I'll agree on the harsh. But you really dug yourself quite a hypocrisy by saying you're right. :)

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  23. Ezzie - thanks for the mention and the link!

    Well, I don't know if I was so brilliant or anything when I was younger, but I read voraciously. My counselors in camp were always amazed by my "high vocabulary." Honestly, I never knew that what I was saying was so prodigious.

    There, that's a big word!

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  24. Ezzie- Im glad you enjoyed the "i am right" line I typed it with a huge smile. Although your arguments actually prove the points i make :) I just want to clarify "misunderstood" I meant in life. Often times smart people feel like they werent given the correct treatment for their brilliace- and the truth is most times they are not- however with maturity they realize ultimatly they have to make a name for themselves and being part of a family or having such intelligence doesnt cut it on the street alone. Sucess (in learning, chesed, working, freindship) does.

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  25. Im glad you enjoyed the "i am right" line I typed it with a huge smile.

    Hey, I'm not stupid. ;)

    Although your arguments actually prove the points i make :)

    Yeah, I figured you'd say that.

    however with maturity they realize ultimatly they have to make a name for themselves and being part of a family or having such intelligence doesnt cut it on the street alone. Sucess (in learning, chesed, working, freindship) does

    Absolutely. That's why you probably would have been better off waiting for the rest of the story to comment. :)

    You assumed (incorrectly) what the point of this post was, though I understand that that's all you can tell from what is written to this point. You got stuck on a side point instead... nu nu. This is why it's good to not jump to conclusions. :P

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  26. So why in the world are you an accountant? You must be bored outof your mind with all the vouching and memo's (it only gets better next year with SAS 104-111)

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  27. Rescue - Hehe. But thankfully, that's not what I spend most of my time doing. I basically cover the investments side of the funds we audit, sometimes their performance stats. I actually get to use my brain and learn stuff. :)

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