Ever since he was about 2, it was obvious that Ian was smart. He just knows tons of stuff about tons of things. (Right now his speciality is football). Other than being the top reader in kindergarten, and blowing through regular math (they have always been afraid to move him to excel, because he is not a worker bee, and there is much more work there) This intelligence has not transferred well to school. He gets okay grades, has trouble organizing his assignments, and generally performs right at to below average. He has severe test anxiety, so much that he now has an IEP for school that allows him to test in a room by himself with a proctor, not where he has to see other kids finish, have background noise, ect.
Just goes to show that intelligence, and school performance are not always related.
Any teacher who has ever taken more than a second to talk to him about a subject in which he cares, knows this. He wins history jeopardy, he can tell you the names of all the presidents, anything you want to know about sports, solve any math problem, and create elaborate projects from paper, foil, and other meduims.
Yesterday, he was able to perform in a traditional setting. He scored the highest on his team of 150 kids on the geography test. Then the top 15 kids competed in a 3 strike tourney to see who would represent their team school-wide. Ian took second. He is moving on to the next round. And at least for yesterday, he was able to believe what we have known all along. He IS a smart kid!
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