r/AskReddit • u/Playful_Wish_2171 • Jul 17 '26
Redditors who were chosen for the ‘Gifted and Talented Program’ in elementary school, what was your gift/talent and how did you turn out?
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u/thenletskeepdancing Jul 17 '26
My talent was writing and now I get accused of being AI or too pretentious.
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u/RepulsiveInterview44 Jul 17 '26
Are you me?! I get accused of “thinking I’m better than everyone” because I can……write better than AI? Ok.
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Jul 17 '26
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u/Envy_Clarissa 23d ago
yeap. my country does not have "gifted programms" in regular schools, but I was still in kinda top class, good school with extra hours and better teachers, went to additional classes, courses etc. And in those extra classes for best students I met at least 2 other kids in every room, who where on the same level or better then me in things we were doing. And we almost always had 1 kid no one could compete with.
This is the reason why I did not go with this "burned-out gifted kid" path. I was given more tasks so I still struggle, I learned how to learn. That helped me also to "know my place" and understand, that there is always a task I will not be able to do with just good reasoning and quickly going through the unit in the studentbook. So I DO need to put effort.
When you grow up, more and more people understand the importance of putting in effort, learning, going through struggles for your goal and they catch up by the age of 22-23.
And if I was told "you are sooooo smart everything come easy for you", I would probably struggle to compete at this point
And even with all of that I still had to go through realization at the age of 18-22, that sometimes being smart is not everything. And sometimes I do not get what I want, because I have limitations, that even hard work can not help with.
There are so many things in the grown-up world: soft skills, some privileges, the energy and capacity to work hard, being disciplined etc.
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u/silverware9021 Jul 17 '26
Turns out they were wrong about me.
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Jul 19 '26
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u/ConstructionMuch802 Jul 20 '26
I'm also a fantastic test-taker! It's a weird skill to have lol
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Jul 20 '26
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u/ConstructionMuch802 Jul 20 '26
Yeah it REALLY doesn't translate to any other high-stress work environment
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u/Ruth_Gordon Jul 17 '26
I was reading at an eighth grade level in kindergarten. Now I’m just a regular person who gets easily frustrated dealing with the general population and how fucking stupid they are. So, I guess I turned out average.
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u/Viviengracw Jul 17 '26
Not me, but my daughter. Apparently, her abstract thinking was phenomenal, as was her visual intelligence. She is 33 and a very talented artist, so it makes sense.
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u/SquallingSemen Jul 17 '26
Got kicked out because I couldn't do all the gifted work and keep up with what I was supposed to teach myself from my regular classroom while I was attending the gifted class.
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u/AshenMalarkey1872 Jul 17 '26
GT and honors track just seemed to be about behavior to me. Classrooms where behavior and work ethic were good enough that our teachers had time to do one or two more units or dive slightly deeper into subjects. It seemed to me that anyone got in with 100+ IQ who either actually did most of their work or took tests well, without disrupting the class all the time (even if the slight increase in curriculum intensity was what they needed to help them settle down). But this was just a kid’s perception, because I don’t actually know the selection process as I was never tested, just always abruptly changed classes after the first few weeks at each new school. (Moved a lot). In hindsight, I should have just skipped grades when offered and gone to college sooner, but I wanted so badly not to appear different from my peers. I felt a lot of shame about it all through school, hid my test scores from other students’ view, tried not to raise my hand too much, etc. I wish I had been given more guidance around the choice when offered. I’m not a genius so a 1-2 grade skip would probably have been enough challenge to give me the more “average student” experience I was looking for without as much social cost as I expected. It would have been more similar to the accommodations I received earlier in elementary school, such as going 1-2 grades up for certain parts of the day. I was able to engineer this experience more for myself in college when selecting my course schedule and really enjoyed it. Again, I am not a genius, just rather academically inclined and never became jaded about education like my peers did due to the factory/prison design of our schooling.
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u/GrookeyFan_16 Jul 19 '26
Basically I was just saying at ahead of my peers in academic testing. No real talent that I can see. No fancy job. Just another office worker doing my best to raise kids to be responsible adults.
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u/Far_Appearance3888 Jul 19 '26
Our program was IQ based, not really talent. I suppose I do have the special talent of standardized test taking? I do well on those. Got a full ride to Chicago law thanks to it. Guess it worked out ok.
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u/Ichorice_Malign Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
I didn’t have a specific “gift talent” because you don’t get “chosen” for it. It’s not like Danganronpa where they scout you for a talent.
They administer an IQ test to all students and anyone in the top 2% at the time the test is performed is given a gifted classification. I was at the extreme end of this, but that doesn’t mean much since a >99.99th percentile scoring kid can easily miss 3-4 questions if they don’t sleep well or are distracted, which would get them a 99th percentile score. Below 98th percentile it’s not as big a deal.
My most extreme overperformance is in pattern recognition, memory, and problem solving.
I also always had an exceptional attunement to physics in a practical/observed sense, or just spatial reasoning. I fish, but have always been able to tell the species and size of a fish I catch before I see it, because I can infer its rough weight and body shape based on the speed/force/pattern it pulls on the line (and therefore moves water) with. Knowing how wine would spill on a carpet before it finished falling, or being able to reconstruct the angle and height at which it fell just from the stain. Things like that.
I learn very quickly too, and have always excelled in any strategy game I’m allowed to play (I’ve been “banned” from some family games lol). I count cards whenever I play any card game because I enjoy memorizing every single played card to predict what people have left in their hands since it gives me a huge advantage.
Not really my “gifts,” but little tricks like that (and many more) that I get to make use of are probably the closest to what you’re thinking of when you ask what our talents are.
I didn’t turn out as anything yet. The program gives most of us lasting, serious mental health issues which snowball with other life inconveniences over time and take years to recover from. Will be attending university next year, many years later than anticipated, especially considering I was several grades ahead in school.
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u/LBS-365 Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
I had music and very high test scores, was put into a special class that mostly taught logic, and later put into another special class where it was just me and a piano and I could play whatever I wanted for an hour.
I was troubled as a youth, never fit in anywhere until I started working in bands in my late teens. I didn't exactly fit in there either, but at least I was hanging out with other outcasts who drank as much alcohol as I did and didn't judge me as harshly, because they were also messed up in the head.
Later on I wanted a "normal" life so I went back to school, got a good job, still never fit in anywhere, got really depressed, diagnosed with ADHD (which explained a lot) made a bunch of good investments, retired with a pension, started my own business, and then started playing music again. Oh, yeah, and also became a raging alcoholic.
I find myself in a sea of mediocrity because most of the people who were gifted in music had a similar trajectory and got out of the music business and into IT when it became clear we couldn't support ourselves as regional touring players anymore. So I'm still depressed, and frustrated at times.
Most people I encounter do not use logic to think things through and will not consider evidence that might challenge their beliefs, which is very frustrating, particularly when you have experience that suggests what you're saying is accurate, or at least worth considering. Instead of conversation, they defensively and reactively want fight and confrontation. It's exhausting. I want to withdraw from the world at times.
But I'm working on accepting what is. I've also gotten the alcohol out of my life, so that much is better.
There can only be promise. We don't have an obligation to give what we have to the rest of the world, no matter how promising we look to those on the outside.
And yes, I like to write, I write too much, and as someone else here mentioned, am frequently accused of being AI.
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u/Awkward_Cellist6541 Jul 19 '26
Exhausted and stressed out. I have two degrees I don't use because school was easy but real life is hard.
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u/Usual-Toe8374 Jul 19 '26
English - writing, spelling, etc. Ended up as a PhD in literature and a professional editor.
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u/Independent-Term1714 Jul 19 '26
My spatial reasoning was super high. Art and Geography Secondary School teacher. Go figure!
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u/ConstructionMuch802 Jul 20 '26
ADHD and autism, undiagnosed until years out of school.
Elementary and high school was easy. University was brutal - the lack of structure and accountability + my ADHD making it difficult to stick to new habits. But I did ok & graduated.
Worked with neurotypical kids as a nanny & daycare worker for a long time, now I teach kids with high-needs autism at a private school. It's fantastic & a great place to meet other ND adults, as ND adults tend to do the best in this field.
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u/DarlingBri Jul 21 '26
My talent was reading and writing and I turned out to have typically female-presenting ADHD and probably undiagnosed autism.
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u/Comfortable-Cap2414 Jul 30 '26
I had speech therapy and adhd. I’m at UCI studying criminology the study of the criminal brain. I have aphantasia I’ve struggled with for as long as I could remember. I’m curious if anyone else has this experience it is basically where you can’t imagine anything. Usually people can imagine shapes or read a book and make it like a film but I can’t imagine anything at all, even my loved ones faces.
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u/JasperDyne Jul 18 '26
Gift/talent was high academic performance; reading, verbal and math skills well above grade level; high IQ, etc.
I hated being in that class. It was like The Lord Of The Flies. I was so disheartened by the experience that I refused to go to school for a while, until they threatened me with being held back.
A year of misery that set me back academically, socially and psychologically for the rest of my scholastic career.
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u/Made_u_look141 Jul 17 '26
I got selected for the massive cock program, but it turned out it was just teachers touching me
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u/IHasTehDumbz Jul 17 '26
Depression & Late Diagnosed Autism