Anyone NOT a "little professor" when you were a kid?

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HeroOfHyrule
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24 May 2022, 11:15 pm

I got called things like "little professor" as an older kid because I had a good vocabulary and reading skill for my age, and collected facts about different things that interested me. My brother was more of a "little professor" than me though, and was always better at a lot more than I was and got recognized as one a lot more. I wasn't good at math or strategy games or anything useful.



klanka
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25 May 2022, 2:59 am

For some reason I did well socially at school up until being a teenager.
We were all obsessed with star wars and video games, so its as if we all had collective HFA...the boys of course.



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25 May 2022, 3:00 am

I was the little artist. That was my special interest.
My son, however, may be a little professor. He's incredibly smart and a great memory. But, he's still quite young. It will be interesting to see how he develops.



MaxE
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25 May 2022, 6:19 am

I was a little professor, and it didn't make me any friends. There was a situation (some might not think this relevant) when parents were invited to observe our class in school. The teacher was demonstrating a new teaching approach for more "advanced" arithmetic and it seemed to me that the other kids were confused by the new approach and I told her. She promptly marched me to the Vice Principal's office who suspended me for two weeks. Bear in mind that this type of suspension was usually used for an infraction such as bringing a knife to school.

Throughout elementary and high school I consistently got the highest grades except in situations that emphasized one's work ethic such as term projects but was always being punished for failing to fit in.


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Joe90
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25 May 2022, 6:23 am

I forgot to mention, I had a fascination with teddy bears.


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Earthbound_Alien
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25 May 2022, 6:36 am

I was very curious and asked a lot of questions about things. I also had a big vocabulary from a very young age.



kraftiekortie
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25 May 2022, 7:50 am

I was very unpopular because I had to "show off" that I "knew all the answers."

I usually did, actually.

But, in essence, all this was rather narrow and pretty useless, since I had no critical thinking skills at all. I just digested what I read without forming too much of an opinion.



Lost_dragon
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25 May 2022, 9:46 am

Joe90 wrote:
What sort of child were you?


I was never referred to as a little professor. However, I was considered a tad unusual. I scored above average on reasoning tests but I didn't score as high as my sister. For a while I was a rather opinionated and curious kid. I'd debate and ask questions if things didn't seem right.

My school stuck me in counselling and told me that it would help me think more inside the box. I found this puzzling as I wasn't sure why I'd want to do that. My counsellor was a horrible woman. She'd tell me what to write and would yell at me if I ever questioned or rebelled. I found the sessions rather pointless as she never tried to understand me and seemed to just be ticking boxes. However, I did eventually understand why they stuck me in there. It dawned on me when she yelled at me to pick the obvious choice and I replied saying both solutions seemed equally obvious to me and that there was no way of knowing which answer she wanted. The people around me were likely not following my train of thought and assumed I was talking nonsense. I realised that I shouldn't assume others think like I do and that I need to take time to explain my process and connections. The issue wasn't that I thought outside of the box, it was that I needed to improve my explanation skills. I tried my best to explain my thoughts to her but she wouldn't listen. One day she snapped and asked why I couldn't just be normal. She told me that I'd never amount to anything in life. That I was lazy, stupid and worthless. It took a toll on my self-confidence. She broke down and ran away. At the time I blamed myself since she blamed me, but over time I realised I wasn't at fault.

It took me a while to build up my confidence again and get into the habit of asking questions. A shame really since questions used to come so naturally. My teachers found me annoying for overthinking the stories we would read in class and I would be scorned for challenging implications or debating the moral. I understand why it was annoying though, they'd planned a simple lesson plan and there I was disrupting the plan.

Generally I was average in most areas and under average in subjects such as maths. I did well in IT, Art (not at first, but I kept at it), English and Marketing / Business studies as a teenager. People tend to assume I was a well-behaved teacher's pet as a teenager but that's fairly inaccurate. After regaining my confidence, I had a bit of a rebellious streak. I spoke back to my teachers, helped out class clowns by expanding their vocabulary to help them insult teachers I didn't like and doodled during boring classes. I disliked RS and preferred to spend my time drawing optical illusions of my own design. Sometimes other students would ask me to draw a piece for them if they were also bored in that class. The bottom RS set in my school never did an exam so as to not tank the scores, so I didn't see much point in paying attention in that particular class since we weren't being graded.


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Joe90
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25 May 2022, 12:47 pm

As a kid I often wanted to mess about and be silly, and would avoid doing intelligent things, except drawing because I liked drawing and colouring (although my drawings weren't that good, I just did it for fun). I remember my NT cousin got out an encyclopedia and wanted to look through it, and I started crying because I wanted to go outside and play on our bikes and not look at "some boring book" (the exact words I used). I was about 10 I think, or around that age.

I wasn't really into reading when I was a kid. I was behind on my reading anyway, and then I stuck to books that were aimed at younger ages. But I wasn't the sort of kid to curl up with a good book and read for hours. I preferred playing with toys, or imaginative games, and with other children. I even hated being alone.

God knows how I got a diagnosis.


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kraftiekortie
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25 May 2022, 12:51 pm

I was a pretty silly kid myself. I didn't take myself too seriously. But I was the type to want to talk about my own interests constantly, without listening to anybody else.

I did like to read----and I read for hours, especially encyclopedias. I used to, very frequently, stay up to like 3 in the morning on a school night just reading encyclopedias. And I didn't even do my homework!



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25 May 2022, 2:29 pm

I was outperforming future scholarship level boys up until I got mumps when I was 9. It went downhill from then onwards.I don't recall being a 'little professor',but my autobiographical memory is far from good. Found out decades later my pre teen IQ was around the 150 mark. My father then said '147'. Tests created and/or normed by a psychometrician over the last couple of years back that up.



naturalplastic
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25 May 2022, 2:32 pm

Sorry.

When I was eight I was the poster child for Hans Asperger by being the stereotypical 'little professor'. Knew all of the planets in the solar system, and their sizes, and characteristics, but couldnt ride a two wheel bike.



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25 May 2022, 3:42 pm

I'm still a little professor.



firemonkey
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25 May 2022, 4:29 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
Sorry.

When I was eight I was the poster child for Hans Asperger by being the stereotypical 'little professor'. Knew all of the planets in the solar system, and their sizes, and characteristics, but couldnt ride a two wheel bike.



At 6 or 7 I knew the kings and queens of England. At some point that ability left me.



Edna3362
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25 May 2022, 5:21 pm

While I get a very conflicting reaction in diagnosis (both making the diagnosis making sense and not making sense)...

The not making sense part is born from sheer ignorance that being autistic means that stereotypical nonverbal nonfunctioning utterly impulsive dependent helpless being who shouldn't even be able to feed themselves let alone graduate at school.
The part of me that had gradually accepted Aspergers and rode leaning towards the supremacists side.

The making sense part is born from sheer social aspects that I've already accepted to begin with.
Paradoxically, this part of me is wondering why particularly Aspergers and not specifically Autism?

Both for the same reasons as the original post -- for not being a stereotypical 'little professor'.


In retrospect, it seems I understand which aspects I truly value more and which isn't.
Obviously I don't value the social aspects as any asocial person would, yet do value functioning aspects that is to do with independence and reliability.


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Last edited by Edna3362 on 25 May 2022, 5:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Caz72
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25 May 2022, 5:27 pm

i never talked untill i was 8 so nah wasnt little professor

despite being quite severely autistic as a young kid i didnt get diagnosed until 12 because i never ever had meltdowns or tantrums never ever made a sound except crying when hurt but that was it and also i was often smiling and waving and stuff so they couldnt quite decipher what i was supposed to be

yes im a very interesting sort of autistic :lol:


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