You Are Not Dumb, You Just Lack the Prerequisites

Re:You Are Not Dumb, You Just Lack the Prerequisites by wenc on Saturday August 24, 2024 @01:23PM (#41339748)

Also gifted child here, but grew up with parents who drilled into me that "effort matters, you might not be the best, but with effort you can be better than who you were yesterday and that is a worthy endeavor" It's just a slight switch of mindset, but that small switch carried me through times when subjects got too hard and when I wanted to give up because I felt I wasn't talented enough.

I knew so many gifted kids who got perfect scores in college freshman year (engineering) but started giving up when things didn't come as easily to them. They all ended up leading mediocre lives after.

I wasn't as smart as them but I knew I could always do better if I tried harder (even though the ROI wasn't great at first). So I just kept grinding (16 hour days studying). My GPA rose very gradually until eventually I finished with a not-great but respectable 3.6 (the 3.4-3.7 range is typically attained by folks who maybe didn't have natural talent but worked hard). That GPA got me into grad school where I got to study what I loved (way fewer exams, more research).

Carol Dweck wrote a book on "growth mindset" that talks about this. You don't have to read the book, but the idea of growth mindset, though simple, has been really transformative in my life.

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Re:You Are Not Dumb, You Just Lack the Prerequisites by novok on Saturday August 24, 2024 @02:00PM (#41340038)

Sometimes the greatest gift you can give a gifted kid is failing early at something they want, so they learn the grit to achieve it.

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Re:You Are Not Dumb, You Just Lack the Prerequisites by wenc on Saturday August 24, 2024 @02:45PM (#41340430)

Absolutely. No matter how gifted a person is, there is going to be some point in their lives or some domain where pure talent will be insufficient.

Even super geniuses like Terence Tao struggled (he nearly did not pass his generals).

https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2019/06/27/living-proof-stori...

https://web.math.princeton.edu/generals/tao_terence

The American Mathematical Society has a PDF of essays of brilliant mathematicians (including Terence Tao) who despite their abilities, faced obstacles and difficulties that their sheer talents were inadequate to overcome, and they had to persevere.

https://blogs.ams.org/inclusionexclusion/2019/06/26/living-p...

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Re:You Are Not Dumb, You Just Lack the Prerequisites by ikr678 on Saturday August 24, 2024 @11:44PM (#41344193)

> Absolutely. No matter how gifted a person is, there is going to be some point in their lives or some domain where pure talent will be insufficient.

Unfortunately, for some this comes in university where we see peers with worse grades getting access to better graduate roles and work placements because of who they are related to, and you can't study your way to having the right surname.

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Re:You Are Not Dumb, You Just Lack the Prerequisites by JoshTriplett on Saturday August 24, 2024 @08:03PM (#41343012)

> Also gifted child here, but grew up with parents who drilled into me that "effort matters, you might not be the best, but with effort you can be better than who you were yesterday and that is a worthy endeavor"

Can confirm that getting lauded for effort encouraged doing hard things and pushing the limits of my abilities, rather than focusing on things that came easily.

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Re:You Are Not Dumb, You Just Lack the Prerequisites by Jensson on Sunday August 25, 2024 @10:59AM (#41347769)

Being lauded for effort when you didn't put in any effort doesn't help though, just makes you think grownups are dumb.

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Re:You Are Not Dumb, You Just Lack the Prerequisites by JoshTriplett on Sunday August 25, 2024 @02:09PM (#41349652)

Being lauded for effort you did put in can be quite effective, as confirmed both by numerous studies and by the personal experiences of myriad people.

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Re:You Are Not Dumb, You Just Lack the Prerequisites by Clubber on Saturday August 24, 2024 @10:47PM (#41343932)

>parents who drilled into me that "effort matters, you might not be the best, but with effort you can be better than who you were yesterday and that is a worthy endeavor"

This is also taught heavily in middle/high school sports; it's a great life lesson.

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Re:You Are Not Dumb, You Just Lack the Prerequisites by anthonypasq on Monday August 26, 2024 @10:02AM (#41357195)

if you had to grind 16 hours a day studying to get a 3.6 GPA in undergrad you werent "gifted"

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