I'm a fairly recent graduate (high school class '96). I've never considered myself to be exceptionally intelligent. I've been around very smart people and I know I'm not on their level. I think I have above average intelligence, test well and have very good instincts (which get you farther than book smarts in real life). In grade school, my performance was hit or miss. In 1st grade, there was no attempt to separate kids by aptitude and my class ran the gamut from mental challenged to very bright kids. Me? I was the second to last kid to learn to read. It was between me and the clearly retarded kid. I edged him out by a day (most kids learned to read >1 week before I did). In comparison, I demolished kids in math classes and teachers generally left me alone to work independently in earlier grades.
My 3rd grade teacher believed all kids were the same in terms of aptitude to achieve. She wasn't too keen on me working at my own speed. She also didn't care for my lack of focus (I had big time Attention Deficit Disorder). I'll be the first to admit that I was a disruption in class, but she went out of her way to make my life hell. I had ulcers at the age of 9 because of that woman. Then I took our standardized aptitude tests. I scored PHS (post high school) in almost every category and 9th grade or higher in the others. Basically, the test results indicated that I could handle high school level classes (which was complete BS). All of a sudden, I went from class pariah to poster child.
In high school I was an A- student which means I did just enough to get an A. When I was in high school, there were basically three levels: special education, regular and honors. I was in honors classes for everything except physical education, health and physics. I started out in honors physics and failed out. When I say "failed", I don't mean that I just barely missed passing. I mean I was consistently getting grades in the 20-50 range on 100 point tests. My teacher mercifully neglected to hand over my grades to my regular physics teacher and I effectively started fresh in the 2nd quarter (I had a 40 something average three weeks into the quarter). I went from getting 40's on tests to getting 90s. Did physics finally click for me? No. The tests were just that much easier / competition that much weaker. I coasted my way to an A. My school is nationally recognized for academics, so it's a little difficult for me to guage what regular education is like for most people. If my experience is representative, then I would really worry about the education level of an "average" student.
AI
