This story illustrates it is all influenced by how your parents and others around you help you build your expectations and convey their expectations.
I skipped second grade (not recommended) and heard a lot about "potential". I wouldn't wish that on anybody.
Re:I Was Told I Was Very Smart
by JoeAltmaier on Thursday October 22, 2009 @10:11AM
(#896748)
As a Scout leader I have learned that young people (boys anyway) behave exactly how you expect them to. If you say "We are the best Troop in the district!" then they are. By any measure - leadership, deportment, competition, participation - they do it all if you assume they will, and make that clear by providing support and opportunity.
I think that's exactly it. Age eleven is when I first saw my percentile written down, and before then I had some idea that I was smart; but I also knew about the phenomenon of failed prodigies, like Sidis, and I was terrified of failing to live up to my potential. And yes, the idea of a responsibility to live up to it was also there, very strongly.
The counter-examples of in this thread all share the strong correlation that they were explicitly taught that 'being smart' wasn't an achievement and that praise was withheld until some nebulous 'potential' was fulfilled.
Which is why I don't think they're actually counter examples. The danger described is of teaching children that 'being smart' is, in and of itself, praise-worthy.
For me, it became obvious very early in elementry school that I was smart. So my mother told me that my mind was a gift. She also told me that being given such a gift meant I had a special responsibility to develop it to its fullest capacity.
Henceforth, it was not failure in any given project that I feared. On the contrary, I routinely failed and thought that if I didn't, I wasn't taking on sufficiently difficult challenges. What I feared was not pushing myself hard enough. Not living up to my potential.
In elementry school, I set my own intellectual pace, and as a professional, I still do. I sought out challenges and ideas, and still do. I feared complacency, and still do. Being taught that intelligence equated to responsibility has done more for me than raw intelligence ever might have.