The Smart Kid

I was "the smart kid" in school. I got the best grades, knew almost all the answers, raised my hand all the time, etc. I was the Hermione Granger of my time, only I was a guy and didn't even have to study the way she does. My lovely wife claims she wasn't that way in her school (something I doubt -- I suspect she was bored), but she does have her PhD and can see way deeper into a millstone than most (unless she's looking for her keys, but that's a different sort of thing).

So while there were no guarantees it would happen, Jacob was very likely to get a double dose of the gray matter. So far, that seems to be the case. We met with his teacher today for the regularly scheduled parent-teacher conferences at his school. And with one small exception, he's tops in everything. When it comes to reading, he's actually off the scale. Her main concern is keeping him from getting bored.

Pardon me a second while I strut...okay, I'm done.

Now, I do worry about this a bit. By the time I was in 4th grade or so, I had learned to wait and see if anyone else had raised their hands before raising mine. I'd also learned to be very careful about the answers I gave. I wasn't wrong much, but when I was wrong, people seemed to enjoy it a lot. It wasn't as if I was ridiculed for being smart as much as people resented what they saw as showing off.

And I did get bored. Eventually, I took to reading in class after being done with work and daydreaming a lot when the teacher spoke about something I already knew. And I think either thing can cause a kid to get turned off from learning. It didn't happen with me, but it could have.

I don't want my son to have to deal with either of these issues. In many ways, I think schools (at least the ones around here) seem to have striven to deal with that, but there is a limit to what they can do. And I really don't have the foggiest idea what I can do to help out.