Much is made of the test scores, earning power, and innovative contributions of highly intelligent kids, but we rarely ask what it’s actually like to be “gifted.” In a culture obsessed with exceptionalism, sorting by intelligence has become an educational norm, leading thousands of American students to be ushered through (or noticeably left out of) advanced academic programs. Stereotypes and generalizations about these students—from the socially inept genius to the high-strung overachiever–have filled the gap in data about who they are apart from what they achieve. At a time of educational upheaval and rapidly declining youth mental health, former gifted kids—particularly women and nonbinary people also wrestling with questions of identity, inequality, and parenthood—are reckoning with the role of the “gifted” label.
This work offers personal accounts from diverse voices, each one considered a “gifted kid” in their youth, and considers questions of identity, inequality, poverty, racism, and more. Essays address the dangers of praising achievements over efforts, imposter syndrome, intelligence as identity, and why even the smartest among us often feel like failures, among many other topics.

Kaitlin Ugolik Phillips is a writer and editor living in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her work has appeared in Scientific American, LitHub, Narratively, and Columbia Journalism Review.

Edited by Kaitlin Ugolik Phillips
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages:
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2023
pISBN: 978-1-4766-9242-5
eISBN: 978-1-4766-5132-3
Imprint: McFarland

• “A sobering perspective on the costs of being labeled gifted as a child, told in the form of highly engaging first-person stories. This book will make an important contribution to our thinking about gifted education.”—Ellen Winner, professor emerita, Dept of Psychology & Neuroscience, Boston College, author of Gifted Children: Myths and Realities

• “Should parents hope for a ‘gifted’ kid or be glad when their kid is so-called ‘average’? This may be the last education/parenting topic that hasn’t had its big book yet. Bring it on!”—Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids

• “Finally, a book that brings multiple perspectives to one of the oldest, most elitist problems of American education: the ‘gifted’ tracking system. These essays will resonate with many.”—Sara Zaske, author of Achtung Baby: An American Mom on the German Art of Raising Self-Reliant Children