During my first 2 weeks in science classes in the 9th grade, our teacher needed ten daily 'periods' as they were known to teach us that copper sulphate turned blue in the presence of water. I figured that it had taken 7 hours to communicate what I could myself express in one sentence.
Furthermore I preferred to read about it rather that listen about it, as long as school textbooks were kept out of my sight. Furthermore the memorization of minutia always struck me as a particularly idiotic test of anyone's abilities.
These people convinced me so utterly of my inadequacies as a scholar that I ceased to try to impress them. Nothing and nobody could keep me from reading books. I used to borrow 7 or 8 books at a time from the St.Thomas Public Library and despite the daily drudgery of delivering newspapers, drugs and flowers about the city on a bicycle, stayed up half the night reading. It was not unusual for sunrise to catch me with my nose in an interesting story.
Early on I made a point of avoiding children's books. I wanted to know what the real world was all about. And, oddly enough, starting out, I avoided books with quotation marks. I knew that the people who knew the most frequently had very little to say.
In November 1966, a psychologist working for my employer held a framed bell-curve in front of me and said, "You scored up here". I spelled my last name, letter by letter and told him that he was looking at the last guy's file. Then I wanted to know whether a super English language score always meant a super IQ score.
Astounding! Sure! Within seven months our family of three was living and working in the state of California. About ten years went by while I became satisfied that educators in other jurisdictions on the planet were at least as confused as the Ontario Ministry of Education.
This item by George Noviss was included in Montage April-May 2005, The Mensa Newsletter for Toronto, Hamilton, Kitchener/Waterloo, London, Windsor/Sarnia
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