'Child Geniuses' Means Little Over Lifetime

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Not to boast, but I was a child genius who did all sorts of amazing and very annoying things including taking graduate courses at 18, etc. I was precocious and totally obnoxious. So I read this stupid story making the rounds this week about a girl 'genius' with great trepidation. Heh. She is like me only much nicer. I was a total brat at only one year of age and I decided, true geniuses were brats.

From the Daily Mail:

Her parents knew Georgia Brown was bright. After all, she could count to ten, recognised her colours and was even starting to dabble with French.

But it was only when their bubbly little two-year-old took an IQ test that her towering intellect was confirmed.

Georgia has become the youngest female member of Mensa after scoring a genius-rated IQ of 152.

At first I wondered if she was worse then me. But then I saw the 'test': can she draw a circle? Use adult language (oh god, that was fun when I was two!), etc. This is all simple stuff. When I was tested at two, the doctor asked me to draw a circle. Since I was born at Yerkes Observatory to two parents who were bona fide genius astronomers and other skills too many to name, the University of Chicago thought I should be tested. Well, I didn't draw a circle, that is boring, I drew a whole village of round headed people with streets that were really just three lines that intersected and the stick figures walked on the lines. But then I was asked to draw squares so I made a village of square headed people!

I could talk like a professor, geeze, my parents were professors and my baby sitter was Karl Sagan! I was surrounded by the top astronomers of the world and I played under Einstein's desk, once. I loved hiding under desks because this was part of my plan to dominate the world by spying on the geniuses of the world and then blackmailing them.

From the Mail story of the girl genius:

(The mother) contacted Professor Joan Freeman, a specialist educational psychologist, for advice.

Professor Freeman applied the standard Stamford-Binet Intelligence Scale test to Georgia and was amazed to find this was too limited to map her creative abilities.

When 'The Family Guy' came out, I collapsed laughing at the youngest child, that, in a nutshell, was myself! I happily ran in and out of Yerkes observatory, day and night, doing whatever I wanted. I figured out how to read books and then music, mostly on my own. So I was like my sister Mary or Carolyn, able to play many instruments over my life, etc. And all my brothers and sisters were obnoxious geniuses. They still are! They never change, rats.

Well, back to my wayward youth: the downside to all this is, one is often smarter than the adults. My parents were accustomed to dealing with a pack of savage genius children who were total brats, they told us to shut up or they would hit us. Heh. I got good at blocking shots. And when I went to school: hell on earth.

In kindergarten, my teacher told us to put on our aprons and fingerpaint. I told her, 'I don't need an apron, I paint very neatly, thank you.' She yelled at me. So I painted a lovely picture using yellow, red and blue and even mixing the colors to get green, a spring picture of grass, flowers and trees. She punished me by slapping her fat ugly hands on my painting and smearing it! I kicked her and was punished by the principal.

In retaliation, I was still only 4 and 1/2, since I got a high score on my tests, I was let in school early, she asked us to bring interesting things to show and tell. I caught a large snake and put it in my bag. I got up and said, 'I love to find things in the fields behind the observatory and this is a nice thing to have as a pet.'

I pulled it out and she screamed and ran from the room. It was as big as me. By the way, since then I have had a bobcat, a poisonous Gila Monster, countless tarantualas, lizards, cats, dogs, horses, all sorts of wild birds, oxen, a monkey, etc, etc. I lived in a zoo most of my life and this kept my mother out of my room and my affairs because she was scared of most of my pets. Ha.

Obnoxious: that's me! I was obnoxious to school mates. In first grade, my teacher gave me the school reading book. I flipped through it and gave it back to her. 'Can I have another book?' I asked. When she told me, it was for the WHOLE EFFING YEAR, I broke into tears and she sent me to the principal who hated my guts.

Gads, can't blame him. I spent most of my childhood, happy in the library. The teachers could have me for an hour or so and then off I would skip! La, la, la. Since my fellow students didn't like this, we fought all the time. I learned more fighting techniques in school as a child, I devoured movies, tapes and books on fighting and spent my adulthood, learning how to sword fight, fist fight and shoot things.

Because I could understand adult talk at my mother's breats, I was a menace at home because I spied on my parents who were spies. This was tons of fun, I even stole their IBM typewriter tapes to decipher what they wrote in letters. I pried into their affairs to the point, the CIA warned me to stop. Heh. So I pried into other affairs, the government was my target. At 14, I decided I should engineer a revolution and take over.

I took all sorts of genius tests and got genius goodies like early-out of prison permission from the goal called 'school' and when I was only 16, my parents gave me full adult rights in court just so they could get me out from underfoot and out of their office and their files! So when I was arrested in Germany when only 17, the Staatspolizei couldn't believe I had full adult rights until the State Department confirmed this. I was still deported.

But when I was a teen, I had my own house and car. I was in school and telling jokes in class and memorizing things instantly and giving lots of headaches to the government because of my deep political activities and the endless reams of leaflets I wrote on a nearly daily basis on top of writing my and other people's term papers.

I sailed along happily. Once, when I was still 17, I won permission to take a graduate course. I dressed very conservatively in a suit I got in Germany and sat primly in the front of the class. The professor slunk into the room, grumpling about 'That stupid bratty teenager' he had to teach. I asked him questions and comisserated with him. 'I bet she is terrible. I hope you can kick her out,' I said.

Then, when everyone was there, he read the names on his list and when he came to the last name, he was very pale indeed. He choked and tried to read my name as I sat there grinning like the Cheshire cat. 'What are you going to do to me?' he asked in despair.

'I want you to be my advisor! You tell me the truth!' I said happily. And Professor Oncks became a dear friend. Alas, the things I learned in school were not money makers so far. Indeed, when I was only 19, I got a contagious disease and nearly died. I had a 105 fever for three days and went into a coma. When I came out, I couldn't read. I also couldn't walk.

I remember trying to write to Prof. Onchs, 'Dear Prof, I can't remember anything.' I would pass out and then write this same sentence again when I came to. He was very upset when he got this letter.

But I learned something. I couldn't read anymore, so I watched Sesame Street with my young nieces. I would call out the letters and numbers. Then I graduated to three box comic strips. I would forget the first box by the time I got to the last so I would do it over and over until I could figure out how they were connected.

Rapidly, I began to recover but never again would I have photographic memory, the ability to pick up anything, any time, music or physical stuff. I had to now learn things the hard way like everyone else. Guess what?

THIS WAS WONDERFUL! The post-genius phase was much easier than the pre-frontal lobotomy phase. I was a totally obnoxious brat and got worse as a teenager. Authorities kicked me out of everything and I would storm rough shod over anyone, anywhere. I couldn't be outwitted at a ridiculous age (try having sex with someone like that...it is impossible). I dropped out of college because the post-genius Elaine could have sex finally and I got pregnant with my first child and had to support her. This led me into construction since my devious plans to have a revolution and then take over America collapsed. Heh.

So I moved to NYC and got involved in real estate. Only I don't really want money and have a wide number of reasons to avoid getting rich at anyone's expense so I live within my means and charted a course that is safe and sane only I ended up raising my second child in a tent on a mountain out in the middle of nowhere.

When I was 15, I belonged to a club we started that was for geniuses. At our first meeting, we decided we all loved each other and then we discovered, all our dads were heads of their departments at the University of Arizona and then we figured out that we were all insane and we spent several years going nuts together. One of the hanger-ons in our group is the guy who does the TV show, the Simpsons. Um, hello, Lisa. Lisa is actually Lisa and Anne. I am the bratty one, ahem. The one that is the most obnoxious and likes to fight.

Aside from that, one of our group became a comix book artist and writer. And I became a burr under Bush's saddle. The hopes of youth wither into the goofy present as we cannot fathom based on some dopey psychological tests, who will be a 'genius.' Just for example, my son's ability with numbers far surpasses my own but he was very clumsy as a child and didn't walk until 3 (ah, like Einstein and a host of other geniuses!). My daughter walked at 9 months, spoke like an adult at 3 and drove all her teachers nuts and she struggled to do math at age 16 that her brother breezed through at age 9!

She spoke English perfectly as a child, he had to have speech therapy and the basic grammar of English explained and didn't master the language until he was 12. He now learns any language he wants to focus on in a flash as an adult! And this is the true mystery of 'genius': it has its own stages, ages and styles as well as manifestations. It also doesn't mean one will be great in adulthood. Many geniuses, due to the need to be obnoxious, have a very hard slog in life. Indeed, I would call it a handicap!

I suggested to Yale, where they study this stuff, child geniuses should be allowed to refuse school and instead, be moved to some island with lots of wild animals, swings, swords (heh), a huge library and a bunch of computers along with regular tools, a lab and an observatory. Then they can park us there for those dangerous years and not worry that some of us might want to take over the world, at least, not until we get our mechas perfected and rigged up with sufficient laser weapons!

Ah, and this has to be multi-national and we must get Japanese TV. Thank you.

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Comments

[Canuck]

I think some would send you to that island now as a reward and some would send you there to be rid.

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Yup. I'll take Bermuda because it has all those banks, too! And you can come along, OK?

[Krista]

I completely agree with the idea of allowing child geniouses to refuse school! I was a child genious and I hated going to school. I didn't learn anything and I thought it was a complete waste of my time. Your idea of the island is fantastic-although a little unrealistic-and deserves consideration. It is almost like William Sidis' idea of a 'perfect life'. He thought living in seclusion with just himself and his books was the perfect way to live...I agree.
Anyways, thanks for sharing your story.