I had originally written the material in this post as a part of the ongoing series on the causes of my depression. I had taken this material out because it had made the high school section of my chronology far too long, and also because I didn’t think the details were that relevant to the theme of the series. However, as I was writing the next post in the series, which was to be about my experiences in graduate school, I realised that a lot of it didn’t make sense except in comparison with my high school experiences. I have therefore cobbled some of the material back together into this post.
I am not including this post in the ongoing series numbering primarily because it is out of chronological order, but also because I think its theme is important enough that the post should stand on its own. There is a widespread belief that intelligence and sociability are inversely correlated; gifted children are commonly stereotyped as being socially awkward and unpopular, especially in high school. I not only think that this stereotype is untrue, I think it is perniciously harmful. It is especially harmful in the case of gifted adolescents of Asian descent, who are basically hit with the double whammy of being stereotyped as socially awkward for two different reasons… » [Expand post] [Permalink]