On this whole AS="genius" thing...

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Well, everyone is different. Some people with high IQs do breeze through school. Others, have difficulties because of the social aspect of school, or the way classes are taught don't really connect with them. While I have a fairly high IQ, I really hated school and found it difficult to manage. When I did find a class/teacher that I connected with, I did very well. But the rest of it was a real pain. "If you'd only apply yourself." Ha, if I was only interested in the classes, or if they let me be me instead of trying to shove me into an NT box.

I love learning, I just don't always love a formal school situation.

That is why I needed extra help. I could not connect in the classroom so I retreated into my own little world. There was too much going on so my response to all the stimuli was to retreat into my horse obsession. I did much better in classes where teachers were very strict with everyone and were charismatic when they taught. I did the worst in classes where the teacher sat at the desk most the time while certain students were allowed to distract me. Sometimes I did the distracting, too. It was worse in the lower grades. I got to the point where I didn't say a lot during class and resented the ones who did. I had trouble concentrating with any noise. I was a picky learner.

I can't say whether I am as intelligent as my IQ scores imply or not (lots of people tell me they think I'm intelligent, although I admit it's not always clear to me as to why they say this), but I had similar experiences in school for similar reasons - I had low grades, and instead of receiving assistance so I could learn more effectively, I was punished for not getting the straight A's my IQ scores said I should. It did get bad enough that in the fifth grade, I was put into a special education class, at which point I was able to work at my own pace and ask for help and receive it and I did extremely well. Middle school was back to the same thing from grades 1-4, and I nearly went to a high school that would be more like my fifth grade experience, except for some reason I still don't understand, my father decided I would stay in a mainstream high school, where I continued to struggle and achieve far less than anyone believed I should.

Other people, even people on this forum, who have no idea what this is like will hurl accusations of laziness and boredom, but they weren't there and they don't get it.

I am also tired of people who worship at the altar of "high IQ" as if it is some kind of magical superpower that grants one the ability to do anything one wants as well as simply bypass or work around real cognitive impairments. Not true for me, apparently not true for you. Probably not true for a great many people.

This^ post is a lot funnier then it should be