i think it was my parents who insisted they test me, and through whatever test they did which if i remember properly included analogies, geometry stuff with blocks, and like, make a story out of pictures as well as some math, they were like, ok you tested into the 11th grade
-
-
Show this thread
-
but talented and gifted programs were eliminated then. every class from what was then second grade and up had a gifted stream. none of the kindergarten and first grade classes did. they stuck me in first grade…
Show this thread -
ultimately i’m grateful for the friends i made in the class I ended up in. there were still bright kids in class who it was really fun to hang out with, and a statistically unusual number of my classmates have gotten phds or gone on to pretty deep research…
Show this thread -
and probably (surely??) just plunking me directly into the 11th grade would have been hilariously suboptimal. can you imagine? it has been done though, i guess. school was fine as long as i could do whatever i wanted, so long as the work got done. i’d be reading or drawing…
Show this thread -
or talking, quietly, with one of my friends, one of the cleverer or funnier people in class. at one point i was drawing up, kind of, machine geometries for imagined fusion reactors. there was a spelling test and they were like “spelling test” and i said “can’t you see i’m busy”
Show this thread -
they let me get away with it. and the class kept going in jr high, it was not good. the social scene blew up / collapsed as people moved away and new schools merged, and i had a punitive teacher who really hated being corrected or asked questions. she kept giving me detention…
Show this thread -
actually it wasn’t just me. she had tenure, and she was infamous. she would give so much detention that the detention population would exceed her home room population. she would give detention to people in the hallway walking to class.
Show this thread -
anyway, after the nth time this happened, i was like, this is bullshit, i’m locked in here, but i wonder if the doors are actually physically unlocked. so i waited till she was distracted and then slipped out, and checked the doors. they were unlocked! i bolted, hid behind a tree
Show this thread -
and then walked home. my parents, ex world traveling hippies, did not send me back. they decided i didn’t have to, i was ahead a year anyway, and that i was just going to school for recess (for friends, essentially), anyway, a function it no longer provided
Show this thread -
at some point we found out that the tests they had been hiding from a couple weeks before i quit said i was in the 99.97th percentile as scored for uni entrants, or whatever, so we were like, huh, maybe i should just go to university i was too young for the GED, but not the SAT!
Show this thread -
before that, school was books, essays, horseback riding, 3d modeling and programming class at the community college. and lots of videogames; even making some with map editors and engines, little things
Show this thread -
i can’t imagine the level of checked out i would be if i had to suffer through 7-12 at the traditional pace. it is almost unimaginable. like a prison type experience, maybe. this is literally the time you have maximum neurons and are pruning them, and synapses. use it or lose it
Show this thread -
the brain damage inflicted on young people who are forced to waste their talents on doing the exact same thing as their age peers at the same rate is unimaginable. it is maybe the costliest thing that we do to human capital. and the fact is everyone has talents & interests
Show this thread -
remote school *could have been* and should have been an opening up of education into a lifelong process of pursuing one’s interests, refining one’s skills, and learning about the world around you instead, zoom and ai enabled cameras monopolized your attention & gaze. even worse!
Show this thread -
we had a pandemic before, you know, the schooling solution was books, and outdoor classes when the weather abided. (and sweaters!) i honestly fucking weep for this generation. they have all of this technology and it is being put to use melting their brains.
Show this thread -
the quicker people build lifelong education into a parallel system you can seriously opt-in to in lieu of the mainline k-12-college-grad school legible education, the better. i am starting to feel like it is pretty mission critical; like education is getting profoundly bad
Show this thread -
a badge system wherein you are a proven badass in projects of certain categories, like earning your Jump Wings as a parachutist
Show this thread -
people complaining this thread is boring, Sorry! it was not intended to go viral. just thought it would be a good time to talk about something i had experienced. i am sensitive to when learning resources are shut down, but maybe things are still ok (?) in the NYC schoolsystem
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.
