/sci/ - Science & Math

I think a lot of people fail to reach their potential due to life circumstances. I was very poor in the Deep South. The public schools suck. The teachers are basically babysitters, and a lot of them are really stupid. The only way to learn was having private tutors or parents who could teach you. My parents didn't know any math themselves and were always working. I switched schools and scored high enough to be placed in "gifted" classes, but by then I was years behind on even basic math.

The accelerated classes were filled mostly with kids in a different socioeconomic class than me. I was hungry all the time, my shoes were falling apart, my home life was shit. Being poor comes with a lot of BS that changes your outlook and perspective on life. It's hard to care about classes when you're dealing with so many other things. I rarely went to class in high school, I did really well in the math classes when I actually showed up and decided to try, but I failed most classes because I always skipping school and missing assignments.

This turned into a blogpost, but my point is a lot of people never have and never will discover their potential. There's plenty of intelligent kids who will fade into mediocrity because they were poor or their parents failed them. Some of my best friends are illegal immigrants and you can tell they're naturally intelligent but it was never developed. Now they work construction. I've seen kids that were smarter than their parents. What sucks even more is that they're kind of outcasted/seen as weird because they're smarter than everyone else around them. It's depressing to think about how many people this applies to.

Geniuses and prodigies will probably still excel, but theres definitely people who could've been much more.