In kindergarten (1975), I was one of six girls in a class of thirty. I knew how to read. I was an ad hoc teacher's assistant: occasionally, the teacher would hand me a book and a handful of kids to read to, and voila! lower teacher/student ratio. (I remember enjoying being helpful. I don't remember it being hard. Overall I still think it was a good thing.)
In third grade, I got in trouble for sneaking the books that were for later in the year off the shelf instead of doing math review. We spent half of each year reviewing the math we'd learned the year before, including the review from the year before. You can bet that got boring and uninteresting fast, especially when I was already reading Zelazny and Katherine Kurtz and Andre Norton's adult novels... at speed-reader speeds.
I guess I got a reputation for having my nose buried in a book even when I wasn't supposed to: in fifth grade they gave me an "avid reader" award. I think they meant well. It just reminds me of all the times I got into trouble for avoiding boredom by sneaking in some reading time.
The annoying part? They figured out I was a gifted reader when I was in first grade: I got sent to the advanced second-grade reading group in the second half of first grade. One of the other girls in my class got skipped a grade ahead partway through first grade because of her math ability.
Did they notice my math skills? No. *is bitter*
And yet my father-the-mathematician says that he taught me the beginnings of calculus in fifth grade. (I'd mostly forgotten that, but now I have to wonder if that's part of why parts of first year calculus were so easy for me in high school, *even with an unconsciously misogynistic teacher*. Seriously, she wouldn't even call on her own daughter very often. I really don't think she knew she was doing it.)
I will admit that they did work it out eventually: in middle school, I took seventh grade math in sixth grade.
In junior high, all my classes were gifted classes, but I don't recall working very hard, even so.
High school was small and for gifted kids. It actually was a really good thing for me, because I learned that I couldn't coast *before* I got to college. And we learned how to use an academic library for serious research in senior English.
Calc II in high school didn't exactly have grades and was really free form, but the teacher of the class told me at the end of the year that I was the best student in the class. I hadn't noticed (largely because we spent most of our time discussing math as a group, sort of like a seminar).
I didn't believe him.
Now I wonder what would have happened if I had?
Dang. This struck a nerve.
I started to write some of this up a while ago, but never finished, largely because I realized for the first time how bitter I was about the math thing.
no subject
In third grade, I got in trouble for sneaking the books that were for later in the year off the shelf instead of doing math review. We spent half of each year reviewing the math we'd learned the year before, including the review from the year before. You can bet that got boring and uninteresting fast, especially when I was already reading Zelazny and Katherine Kurtz and Andre Norton's adult novels... at speed-reader speeds.
I guess I got a reputation for having my nose buried in a book even when I wasn't supposed to: in fifth grade they gave me an "avid reader" award. I think they meant well. It just reminds me of all the times I got into trouble for avoiding boredom by sneaking in some reading time.
The annoying part? They figured out I was a gifted reader when I was in first grade: I got sent to the advanced second-grade reading group in the second half of first grade. One of the other girls in my class got skipped a grade ahead partway through first grade because of her math ability.
Did they notice my math skills? No. *is bitter*
And yet my father-the-mathematician says that he taught me the beginnings of calculus in fifth grade. (I'd mostly forgotten that, but now I have to wonder if that's part of why parts of first year calculus were so easy for me in high school, *even with an unconsciously misogynistic teacher*. Seriously, she wouldn't even call on her own daughter very often. I really don't think she knew she was doing it.)
I will admit that they did work it out eventually: in middle school, I took seventh grade math in sixth grade.
In junior high, all my classes were gifted classes, but I don't recall working very hard, even so.
High school was small and for gifted kids. It actually was a really good thing for me, because I learned that I couldn't coast *before* I got to college. And we learned how to use an academic library for serious research in senior English.
Calc II in high school didn't exactly have grades and was really free form, but the teacher of the class told me at the end of the year that I was the best student in the class. I hadn't noticed (largely because we spent most of our time discussing math as a group, sort of like a seminar).
I didn't believe him.
Now I wonder what would have happened if I had?
Dang. This struck a nerve.
I started to write some of this up a while ago, but never finished, largely because I realized for the first time how bitter I was about the math thing.