I’m smarter than everyone said I was, and even all the people who hated me thought I was pretty smart. But I didn’t need to prove it to anyone and didn’t care about school, so I just did my own thing. Learned a lot more that way and didn’t need external validation to thrive.
Most “gifted” kids get into the program because they are from rich or well-off families. I was not. My partner wasn’t, either. We both got in on natural fucking talent rather than our parents pushing for it or having us tested. I don’t think this makes me better than anyone else; I am very concerned with cognitive inequality reinforcing and exacerbating other inequalities.
Once I got into gifted, though, it was obvious that most people in there were certainly a bit above average, but none of them seemed all that bright to me. Most just had the right parents. None of them could hold much of a conversation with me. (Later on, I realized there was one kid in there who was my equal or greater, but he never spoke up or did much of anything due to extreme shyness, so I didn’t know it at the time.)
If this all sounds very arrogant to you, you’ll get over it — I’m just reporting what happened. Most gifted kids seemed pretty deficient to me and I only kept going to get out of class.