My Childhood: Special Class For Special Children

I was a very bright young man. In fact, I was a bit too smart for my own good sometimes. The other students definitely did not like people to behave as if they knew what they were doing. In fact, intelligence was not looked upon as a desirable thing. I remember being mercilessly teased about being so smart. I was called "the brain" - this was not meant as a compliment.

By the third grade, I began to learn to hide my intelligence. I purposely failed a test here and there. I missed some homework assignments once in a while, and I worked at doing less than outstanding occasionally. I also made sure that my hand didn’t automatically shoot up when the teacher asked a question.

After doing this for about six months, my reputation improved. I stopped getting teased about being the "brain", and the other children actually even began asking me to join them in their games. Suddenly I wasn’t "Mr. Perfect" anymore. Since I could make mistakes, just like they could, I became a little more human and approachable. My teachers didn’t even notice the change. I still managed to do very well in school, I just made sure I wasn’t THE STAR in the class.

During one school year, my parents got wind of a "special class". This was a class intended for students who are extra smart and intelligent. Because all of the teachers told them I was very smart, they decided to give me an IQ test. When they told me I was to take this test, I was mortified! The last thing I wanted was to give the other kids at school another reason to tease me.

I couldn’t get out of the test, so I decided to do the next best thing. I tried to do as poorly as possible. To do this, I went though the entire IQ test extremely quickly. I finished it in less than ten minutes - I was later told the average time was well over an hour. It was quite a test too - a couple of dozen pages of questions designed to test my logic and thinking ability.

Well, in spite of my best efforts, I still managed to get a very high score. According to the test, I had an IQ of 125, and a minimum score of 120 was required to get into the special class. I felt very disappointed - I didn’t want to be in a special class. I couldn’t think of a better way to call attention to myself and be cast out from my group of friends.

I went to one meeting of this special class. It was soon obvious that this was a group of kids that thought they were the hottest things since sliced bread. They were so very arrogant and full of themselves that I almost wanted to be sick.

I told my parents I didn’t like the class, and convinced them that I had better things to do with my time. I think they were disappointed, but they let me drop out. I didn’t regret my decision for one minute.