It didn't happen in school, ever. There are a handful of moments I can recall when a teacher or professor started talking about something new, and I had a mental twinge of fear: "woah, this is going to be hard!" Then five minutes later it dissipated when I realized that it wasn't actually going to be hard after all. This continued into my Masters program (and is one reason why I don't feel badly about not finishing it). I mean, I spent only two or three hours a week total on my courses for my Masters, and I got As. Isn't there something wrong with that picture?

For me, the deleterious impact of this--the ability to do what I wanted to do well enough to satisfy myself without having to work hard--was twofold: I didn't learn how to work hard, and I didn't learn how to fail. Not learning how to work hard and the problems that can cause is self-evident, probably--most of my classmates from the enhanced programme are not wild successes in the world, and I believe this is because intelligence is a smaller factor in mainstream success than is hard work. I've been reading books about writing (again!) and the thing that strikes me time and time again is how often the authors say that the writers who succeed are the ones who are persistent, who work hard; that the most talented writers they know aren't writing. So clearly it is important to face something challenging enough that one learns how to work hard (I will probably come back to this); but I am only now learning how important it is to learn how to fail.

The first thing I wanted to do well at and couldn't without effort was motherhood. Thank god that my daughter was a fussy baby. It was the first time in my life that I was brought up hard against my own limitations and had to seriously contemplate failure at something I passionately wanted to do well at. It wasn't intellectually challenging, but it was challenging, and that's enough. I don't think it's any accident that only now am I able to seriously contemplate a decade or so of rejection notices in the pursuit of publication. Learning how to fail--learning that failure isn't fatal, that it's possible to try again, that one can learn from failure and do better next time--you know, this should be obvious. But when you've never failed at anything you wanted to succeed at, it's easy (for me) to become so terrified of even temporary setbacks that it's easier not to try.

Now that I'm a bit more desensitized to the prospect of needing to actually work hard at something before I can do it well, I also find fiction to be an intellectual challenge. Of course, knocking off a short story that has a few characters, a "plot" in the most common sense of the word, a denouement and a conclusion, isn't difficult. But doing it well is damned near impossible. It doesn't help that I've set my sights so high (if I can't write the way Margaret Atwood and Ursula le Guin can, what's the point?), but on the other hand, it does help, because it makes it a challenge. So there you go. For instance, I'm working on a story set on the same world as the one I posted on Drafts a while ago, only this one about a Fire Dancer with a young daughter. The daughter is killing me. She keeps wanting to be five, but she can't be five, or there's no story. She has to be two. But she won't act two. What's a writer to do?

And some responses to Lucy's posts:

I guess I should qualify my enthusiasm for skipping by saying that I think it would have been better for me. I have, after all, an accelerated life span; part of my reasoning for not continuing with school (besides being bored of it) was knowing that I would end up graduating with a PhD at midlife. I knew I wanted to have a home, maybe a family, and a chance of paying off my student loans before I died, so the prospect of getting started on all that at 30 was discouraging. Thirty might seem a late enough start when you think you're going to live to 85; when you think you might not hit 60, it's another thing altogether. So for me, skipping grades might have meant ending up with that PhD, or even just a Masters, at an age that would let me do all of those other things. Of course, most people in the situation don't have chronic illnesses that shorten their expected lifespans, so this might not be a consideration for anyone but me. (And I have to add that I'm fond of the Montessori method, too.)

The other paragraph brings us back nicely to the problem of working hard:

Two anecdotes:

1. There was a story of a girl who had once been in the enhanced classes that took on mythical status in our class. This girl had tested high and been placed in the enhanced stream. She was thrilled, and she worked hard and led the class (this was in the elementary grades, before specialized subjects). At the end of the year, the administrators said, "Woops, we made a mistake. You're not enhanced after all. Back you go. Sorry about that!"

Yet the truth remains that she did exceptionally well with all of that (oh-so-challenging) enhanced material. Hard work counts for a lot, even in that subset of the population. The most illustrative facet of this might be that someone who is bright and works hard can easily trump someone who's brilliant and doesn't work hard. But hard work is a learned skill. It's influenced by predisposition, I'm sure; but most people who don't have to work hard don't. When people win the lottery or are born heiresses, they don't work for money. And when people win a big brain, usually, they don't work for grades.

2. In a book on baby brain development I love the author recounts an experiment in which young children were told they were gifted (when they weren't), and placed in a gifted class with a teacher who was also told the children were gifted. At the end of the year, they all showed marked improvement in their aptitude test scores. So besides hard work and aptitude, the belief of oneself and of others also counts for a lot, and extra attention and support is a benefit to anyone.

One possible reading (and one I like) is that it is a parent's god-given JOB to believe their kids are capable of just about anything. Because your belief in them has an actual, measurable impact, as does their belief in themselves. Fostering confidence in children not only makes them happier, but more capable.

Intelligence, raw intellectual aptitude, is not worth much all by itself. If it is properly supported and developed, it can be; but it won't just happen. Anymore than someone with an inborn talent for playing the piano will spontaneously develop into a world-class pianist. Regardless of aptitude, one needs challenging education and training. One also needs the belief and support of others, opportunities to fail and to learn from failure. One needs tasks and goals that are challenging enough to stretch one's abilities. If a gifted programme can't provide this then, frankly, it is failing its students.

I looked up the literature in my current school board area for education for gifted students, and it said:

What is the point of that? How can you possibly speed up the pace if you are keeping kids chained to the curriculum? And increasing depth and breadth basically adds up to "the same as for other kids, but moreso." This is exactly what was delivered to me and my classmates twenty years ago.

There is, apparently, a National Association for Gifted Children. In their policy statement on differentiating curricula for gifted students, they state: