I was dumb until about a month ago.

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I've always been " dumb " ... bad grades, bad ACT, etc. So yeah, whatever... recently I found out that when I don't get forced to do everything like everyone else, I learn it about 50x faster than everyone else. So when I used to do poorly and have to force myself to study with the help of adderall... I could now do with ease and total focus as long as it was complex and interesting and related to cognition in some way.

So right now, after about fifty hours of studying and help from my professors to help me design the " landscape " for my brain to navigate, I am about 3/4 done with the basics of chemistry and moving on to the advanced crap. This is with having never taken chemistry before, and being in college algebra II for a second time. Didn't quite fit the requirements.

No, joking aside... I am upset about this. I could be on my way to a PhD right now instead of 21 years old and figuring out that I'm actually pretty smart. This is just the first chance I've gotten to prove that my grades weren't poor due to my lack of understanding or being lazy... but because it was like putting a senior in college in a freshmen high school class and telling him to memorize all of this useless junk that he will never need.

K... rant over, wait... one more thing. Why can I not tell any of my friends about this without them appearing to be annoyed, or at the very least not even remotely happy for me?

Alright, rant over. Also, I'd like to hear similar stories like this too if you have any. Thanks.

Because they're jerks.

We need to write a song. Something with a simple refrain like "Gee Ma, I wanna go home," but about the Aspie life. Then we could each write a verse.

Or, as Paul Simon said, "Its the same old story, Everywhere I go, I get slandered, Libeled, I hear words I never heard In the bible..."

One of my favorite rants -- Elementary Math:
Lots of people suffer from the popular delusion that “you need to crawl before you can walk.” Not true. My sister’s kid never really learned to crawl properly, pulled herself up to stand and, before learning to walk, she just started running one day. It happens.
(She is now in her first year of college, no weirdo symptoms of any kind).

In my case, I never learned the multiplications tables properly and was never handicapped by this. In seventh grade, I caught on to the concept of the binary system in one lecture, and I was done. I had a place to hook it in my brain, all tailor made and ready to go. (Cable-ready?) The rest of the class was still struggling a year later. The difference is that the binary system is real math, while memorizing the multiplication tables is not math at all. It is a crutch, invented by and for math phobes. For me, it was an obstacle and an annoyance. Unfortunately, most elementary teachers (a self-selected group) have math phobia. They also suffer from a basic, fascist personality disorder that insists on everyone doing and being the same things. No one outside their tiny world is permitted to exist.

You want similar stories? This place is full of 'em. Let me look around. It's one of our specialties.

I am kind of like this as well. I did ok in school, but not great. It wasn't that I was dumb, it's just that I wasn't interested in those subjects at the time, I got bored easily, or there were too many distractions. Must be an ADHD thing. I like to learn everything there is about a subject if I am interested in it, otherwise, you might as well forget it.

Part of the problem is, schools aren't set up properly for the way we learn. The teacher rambles on and on (in which we don't pay attention), writes a bunch of stuff on the board, or they have us read a book, and expect us to remember it (although not really learn it)...this doesn't work very well.

The way we learn best is to find a subject we really like, with the ability to work at our own pace, and have plenty of quiet time, away from distractions. We are also visual learners, which means we learn a lot more seeing something in action, rather than someone telling us about it (and not remembering what they said).

Last edited by SilverStar on 28 Feb 2009, 1:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

There is no one-size-fits-all. Never was, never will be.
It's not just about ADD or Asperger's or any specific learning difference.
EVERYONE should be treated as though we have legitimate differences.
School choice isn't just about incompetent schools.
It's just that whoever is in charge at the moment wants to impose one system or
method on everyone, and that whole attitude is the problem, not the solution.
Everyone needs a different approach, different atmosphere...
Some need more structure, some are choked and suffocated by structure.
Very few people do as well in school as they should.

Some of it is that kid's nowadays have different priorities than they used to. Try to teach them math or history, and they could care less about it, and wind up failing the class, but give them a computer, and they could tell you everything there is to know about it.

There's nothing new under the sun.

Ok, there's a few new things under the sun. So what is it about the computer that makes it an Aspie's natural habitat? Why is it easy to learn that way? How can we bottle it and sell it?

Last edited by Tahitiii on 28 Feb 2009, 1:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yeah, that is half the reason for my doing poor in school. When I am getting insanely deep into my information processing model/theory/equations and or doing this chem stuff I will blow off all other things. I've always had this fantasy since the start of college where I would be able to pay for college, but instead of being forced to go to class and all of that... I could just study on my own, collaborate with professors when needed, and use the facility's (with some training, just incase). That would be absurdly efficient and the best thing ever.

Oh... and a soundproof room. Little abrupt noises take my multidimensional universe+web+pattern+videogame map+microscope+telescope ... and break it like glass. Then I have to recall all the crap, which doesn't take long... but still.

Developing quick and efficient methods for deciding on learning styles. Which comes after myself or someone else completely stops out the theory of multiple intelligences. Bleh, which I've already done. After you learn to properly identify how a child functions you can then remove A LOT!! !! !! !! !! !! of problems.

So you have a child before school... identify his strengths/weaknesses/preferences and how he best processes information. Once you have that score generalized you can integrate classrooms with teachers and computers/internet. Casual kids get the benefit of having their senses bombarded with more information, and having the teacher there, and having the option to do the crawl/walk/run method. And people like myself can, while in a different classroom or the same, use the computer and a " run " method for the information... where the computer simple shows you how it is, and you take that in like a sponge and never forget it. And if you need the teachers help, she's still there.

With how I've retained roughly 80% of two semesters worth of chemistry in fifty hours, all in like eight hour bursts, and had it all tied perfectly together in two hours by having the professor bypass the sequence and get right to it... well it makes my wish that they had the best way for giving me the information already generalized in say... a video game context...because outside of what I taught myself... it feels like I've wasted at least seven years of my life memorizing and forgetting useless crap. Nothing remembered from high school outside biology systems, and nothing in college besides tree names, genetics, music stuff, and now chem.

Depressing...

Maybe you should be writing textbooks and
other materials for high school and college.

Certainly part of the plan. With all the time I've spent thinking of how to make a more effective measurement of intelligence and more effective school system...I would hope that I'm right, or at least on the right track. It makes perfect sense to me... but I apparently learn very differently compared to most people.

I relate to your story. My own academic background was very similar. Unless a subject is very interesting my brain just turns off. If something is interesting my brain is like a sponge soaking up lots of information but also being able to think deeply about that information and see advanced relationships within it and relationships to seemingly unrelated fields.

Maybe this learning "problem" / "style" is related to Aspergers or ADD. I just wish I knew about those things when I was doing my degree 30 years ago! I was once summoned to the head of departments office for missing lots of biology lectures and told I would likely fail this part of my degree. I still did not attend the lectures - the lecturer was incredibly boring, but instead I just read around the subject myself and after the exams instead of failing I felt very smug to have come in equal top place for the entire year of students!

Education was a torment for me. As part of my degree course I needed to do a computing / programming course but found it incredibly slow. So much so that I stopped doing my assignments. Instead I ended up helping the other students in the class alongside the tutor!

My physics lecturer commented that I had a natural ability with the subject. I lived and breathed physics.

In the end I left university before the end of my course. The lecturers pleaded with me to stay because they thought I was heading for a first class honours degree, but I just could not stand the numbing boredom and left. This is the biggest regret of my life. Life could have been so much different had I known why I had so many academic "problems" and had some sort of guidance to help me. I would probably have ended up being a professor of theoretical physics!

Instead I've spent a life churning out business software and not what I really wanted to do and only using a fraction of my abilities and potential.

Ntstanch, I don't know if this helps, but 21 is still young, you know.
There's plenty of time to get a PhD, if that's what you want.

I'll second that sentiment! If I was 21 again, knowing what I know now about Aspergers, ADD etc I'd be heading back to university and finishing my studies and maybe doing a PhD in physics. However, I'd also be checking out what support services there are for aspergers and for help with the highs and lows of education and coping with chronic boredom, bouts of depression and for help with specific learning problems. I'm sure there must be much more support than when I was a student 30 years ago. Grasp your opportunity. Don't waste your life doing things that you have limited interest in. At 21 the world is yours for the grasping.

I know... with the help from the faculty I think it will be a lot easier, and I won't get so put down for finding it so incredibly difficult to do things like everyone else. If I had done chem like everyone else I would be failing pre-chem right now. Thankfully this is actually being acknowledged and encouraged now... so hopefully it keeps up and I get a little leeway in how I do things. If I can continue to learn chemistry this quickly I don't see why they would force me to wait until the fall semester to do chem I already know fluently along with a bunch of other classes who's concepts outside of memorization could be learned in a month at worst.

So yeah... I'm going to work on proving it more and more until I can get the PhD as soon as possible, then probably another considering that the pattern is quite large.

The key is to realize that you need the help... and it took me this long to finally think of it as " Screw this, I'm not the one who's wrong, it's just everyone else... I'm not lazy, or spoiled, or dumb". And to realize that I had to first get extra time on exams... then it all sort've came together, as it does, until I arrived here. Going against everyone and realizing to yourself that you're not just lazy or dumb and what you think you are is fairly hard though. My biggest fear was being wrong about myself... I even had doubts up until that time with my professor where he really listened and gave me the benefit of the doubt. All I need to do now is reinforce that to prove beyond a doubt.

I not only admit to not being able to do things traditionally because it's just too boring and simple, regardless of most people seeing it as really difficult, but I realize that even then, just knowing for myself how it works and having that in my head, but not being able to explain it properly to anyone is also a problem. I can sit down and memorize things and apply meaning to them, but I need someone to help correct me or to proofread my work. And to figure out when I need help... as to not be constantly re-inventing the wheel. Why spend a bunch of time on a really tricky solution to something when it's already been thought up and tested to accuracy?

Err... my first reply wasn't meant to be mean or superior sounding. I meant it to point out that they have, at least slightly, lowered their ignorance of the fact that certain kids/adults can just get bored with how simple everything is and do poorly because of it.

P.S. This group is the first time that people consistently either believe my apologies or don't even assume that I meant to patronize them or anything like that. If I had a dime for every time someone accused me of things like that, or gave off what I felt was a " **** you attitude ... I could probably build a ten inch by ten inch log cabin complete with a dime chair and dime bed, maybe even a dime fireplace. The worst and most frustrating part being that I never understood why, and of course they never told me... because they had no good reason.