Comments on: I’m Not Like Other Gifted Adults

By: Curious

Curious — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 05:55:28 +0000

Aren’t we all FIRST individuals and THEN perhaps a member of various (perhaps stereotypical) groups? I agree with Matthew saying that he “can do without being seen as fragile, helpless and otherwise “issue”-ridden. Sadly, the mainstream media and many psychologists & teachers who feel challenged or inadequate when facing gifted students contribute to a perception of gifted individuals as either arrogant high achievers with anti-social tendencies or sad and lonely individuals who lack life skills.

By: Why Gifted Adults Are Reluctant To Identify Themselves As Gifted | gifteduniverse.com

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 03:01:15 +0000

[...] by Elisa on Thursday, October 1, 2009 · Leave a Comment In an earlier post I asked: why are gifted adults reluctant to identify themselves as gifted? Douglas Eby, on his site [...]

By: Matthew

Matthew — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:13:55 +0000

Rapidity of thought, greater memory and greater capacity to learn things most immediately, with the greater conceptualization, foresight and drawing of relationships that derive from them secondarily, as compared to non-gifted adults. After that come personalities, talents and experiences which, athough perhaps amplified by exceptional intelligence, aren’t connected to that exceptional intelligence itself.

By: Not like the others?

Not like the others? — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:07:09 +0000

[...] her gifteduniverse post I’m Not Like Other Gifted Adults, Elisa raises some of these issues of [...]

By: Elisa

Elisa — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:03:32 +0000

In your opinion, what do you think gifted adults share in common?

By: Matthew

Matthew — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:41:32 +0000

P.S. “But you’re so normal!” I got from someone when they learned I was exceptionally gifted once. (Gee, thanks.) That, pretty much, sums it up as to why gifted adults resist characterization, if you ask me. Too much diversity for the accepted short answer to allow, again. (Just thought I’d see if there was anything else to add.)

By: Matthew

Matthew — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 17:03:09 +0000

Gifted folk sure do have things in common. However (at the risk of speaking for all gifted adults) they resist generalization for two reasons: 1. The gifted can vary more between each other than they do between themselves and the non-gifted, and 2. The “gifted adult” image is an unduly narrow and therapeutic one, especially to everyone else. This latter reason– look up the perjorative terms “therapy addict” or “basket case”– is likely the main one. (Think of Al Franken’s Saturday Night Live character Stuart Smalley– I’m not that! Do I have to be that?– and the reluctance is understandable.) Worse, some gifted people accept this as an identity, inspiring others who don’t to not be caught dead “gifted” if they can help it. (Personally, I “pass” because I can do without being seen as fragile, helpless and otherwise “issue”-ridden– especially since, being a “hypernormal” clod, I’d be cluelessly lost if sensitively “accomodated” into that role and written-off as “in denial” or worse otherwise… not to mention if assertive, bucking it and upsetting people who “don’t know what to expect” then. Better to just be taken as “normal” from the start.) Either way, sorta like trying to stick a twenty dollar bill into a gumball machine… too much diversity for the accepted short answer allow.