DOD95: Gifted and Talented

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's neither gifted nor talented. I'm Tom Curry and I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello gentlemen.

0:00:34 Thomas: Jeez.

0:00:37 Eli: Speak for yourself, Tom!

0:00:39 Tom: I always do.

0:00:41 Eli: Yeah.

0:00:41 Thomas: Tom, if you don't want to be on the show, like, fuck, we didn't. Did we make you join this podcast?

0:00:45 Eli: Oh,

0:00:45 Tom: Yeah, but you guys said you wouldn't mail me checks if I stopped showing up.

0:00:46 Thomas: God. God.

0:00:50 Eli: We made him do too many parenting stories at the end, you know? Doesn't get every third parenting story off like the fucking Heath Enright of the podcast, so now he's starting to resent us. Do you need vacation, Tom? Is that what you need? You need your guaranteed 97 weeks to vacation.

0:01:05 Thomas: No.

0:01:08 Tom: All right, all right. I took an afternoon off once, and I'll never stop hearing about it.

0:01:13 Eli: I'll never do it again. It was terrible.

0:01:15 Thomas: One more gracious than Tom Curry, because the comparison of Heath to Tom in any sort of work ethic, yeah, I love my buddy Heath, but that's, that's like, so I'm insulted on your behalf. Actually, Tom, I'm more, more insulted than you are.

0:01:28 Tom: I'm just too tired to

0:01:30 Thomas: I, yeah, that, that makes more sense. Actually. I going to take some NyQuil wake up tomorrow, 10 hours later and just punch Eli right in the face. Just like, I can't believe he said that.

0:01:30 Tom: Be insulted, I think.

0:01:32 Eli: Oh, if Tom got eight hours of sleep tonight, he'd wake up hopping mad.

0:01:42 Eli: That's right. Yeah, no. Right now I'm a dancing rabbit that hovers in front of his computer screen, so it's not that big a deal to him.

0:01:44 Thomas: No, I was Going into this narrative Tom about how it's like, God, he's such a balance. Like his character is so, he so, you know, like so many different ways that that he's healthy as a person. Tom's like, no, I'm just too tired.

0:01:49 Tom: Not

0:02:00 Thomas: I'm exhausted. I'm actually really offended, but fuck, that would take effort.

0:01:59 Tom: Me. No, this is...

0:02:01 Eli: My Keep bleeding tears. So I was like, you can superglue your eye ducts closed. They won't tell you that. But you can do it. What do they know? And you know the only thing worse than living in the literal torture state that is Tom Curry's sleep schedule? Why, it's the auto ads. The Abu Ghraib of podcasting. Yes. If they haven't already assaulted your ears years, these algorithmically generated ads will appear at random points, perhaps while I'm in the middle of the joke, perhaps after I've said something particularly interesting. But there's only one way to fight back. There's only one way to get the sweet, sweet sleep of pure podcasting you deserve. And that is to support this podcast over at patreon.com/dearolddads. Where, for as little as a dollar, you'll get an extended version of every single episode when Tom feels like it, because that is the area of his life in which he has failed, and it's committed to the internet forever.

0:03:05 Eli: Forever, but when Tom does feel like doing the job, you'll get an extended ad-free version of every show over at patreon.com/dearolddads. Glue your eyeballs closed with the dollar of your support. Sure.

0:03:04 Thomas: Oh,

0:03:21 Tom: Well, Thomas, you wanted to do this episode because I think you got a letter about Phoebe.

0:03:25 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. This was something where that I had no fucking idea about. And so you guys know me and my stupid brain. Often a parenting thing comes up that I have no fucking idea about and I don't march up to anyone and go, I had no idea. Because most likely what happened is some email was sent or, you know, someone told me at some point, but I don't remember because my brain doesn't work. So normally I'm like, fuck, was I supposed to do? Oh shit. What was I suppose to do. I know I suppose do something. Something. And then I, you know, try to track it down. This one, I know it wasn't me because I asked Lydia and I was like, do you know what this is about? And she's like, no, I have no idea what that is. So that tells that me that this was genuinely sprung upon us, like out of a whole clock, like just out of nowhere.

And so this is something I had not even considered and thought about it at all. I mean, maybe in a broad sense, but not certainly not in the immediate sense. And it went from, I'm not thinking about this, this doesn't exist, to, oh fuck, what do I do about this, in an instant, and I wanted to get your guys' view, but I also wanted to tell the very brief story about what happened.

So all a sudden we get an email in the fucking inbox that's just like, accelerated program testing, you know, available now, you fill out the thing, and this is for Phoebe's school because she's in school. Arlo's still just in the, uh, the daycare stuff, but, uh, get, and I'm like, what the fuck is this?

And out of nowhere, all of a sudden there's talk of an accelerated program, and I don't, I've never heard of it, I didn't know if like, oh, maybe the teacher should have told us, and maybe that means Phoebe's not doing, you know, like I had all these thoughts of like, what's, what is this, and then when I finally got my ADHD brain to read the email and actually, you know, look into the the whole thing, which takes, takes a minute, this testing.

And I think they're doing normal, the regular standardized testing that I guess they still do. Actually, do you guys know about that? Are we still into standardized testing? I thought that was like a thing of the past.

0:03:25 Tom: Oh.

0:03:49 Eli: Oh.

0:05:21 Tom: Yeah. Standardized testing is yeah standardized testing is is a constant. Yeah.

0:05:23 Thomas: Okay. Oh, okay. I

0:05:21 Eli: Yeah. It's country ride baby yeah not In special ed though, not in fucking special ed. Baby.

0:05:28 Thomas: Thought it was kind of like not super Well regarded anymore, more, but maybe that's just among

0:05:29 Tom: Yeah.

0:05:28 Eli: Oh. They hate it but it is still there. It's not gone. They

0:05:33 Thomas: Oh okay, okay. Oh

0:05:34 Tom: It's it's so not gone. Depending on what state you're in, it oftentimes determines a lot, lot of of teachers' individual lives, whether the schools continue or shut down. Funding levels. Yeah so like standardized testing is still a big deal.

0:05:43 Thomas: Wow geez okay so I'm in a progressive bubble by thinking that, that, yeah, I got you so

0:05:49 Tom: Yeah

0:05:51 Eli: No no, it's it's interesting because like part of the progressive message is like, we're against standardized testing while it just simultaneously goes on. Yeah.

0:05:59 Thomas: I just thought it was like on the outs kind of, because I know the SAT is less and less important, right? Like they've, I think, like they're definitely, California universities, I think they don't even require it anymore. Like they

0:06:06 Eli: Yeah bunch of universities don't require it anymore. We've got a bunch of fucking Donovan's walking around just answering C. So fuck, are we gonna do about it? Right, all the smart kids are like, I've actually opted out of the, and you're like, oh, cool, great, now I'll just, I guess I'll, I'll fucking guess who's good at college then.

0:06:10 Thomas: Yeah so yeah Yeah,

0:06:29 Eli: Let me just send this 97 -year -old alumni to Bayonne, New Jersey to figure out whether or not your fucking kid belongs at my school.

0:06:40 Thomas: So I wasn't sure, but I think, so they're just using, this took me a while to suss out, but I don't think it's like additional testing to out this advanced accelerated program thing. I think they're taking the normal testing that they're doing and for the top, whatever X students, they can opt into an accelerated learning thing, which I assume it's pretty early. Phoebe's in first fucking grade. I don't understand this. I still don't really get it.

0:07:05 Eli: No, that's when it started when I was a kid.

0:07:06 Thomas: Really? Oh, okay. So for, maybe it's just because my school is a tiny piece of shit and you nowhere, California.

0:07:11 Eli: I don't think you had any advanced kids in your school, Tom. I think they were just like...

0:07:13 Thomas: We, we, weirdly we did. That's the funny thing about small towns. There'll be like two or something, you know what? And those two people might be fucking geniuses. Same. We had like two Olympic athletes.

0:07:16 Tom: See, is 30 of the population of your town too so that's intense yeah you

0:07:26 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, we're actually on the map is like, this is, there's something in the water because half of all people here

0:07:32 Tom: Know per capita

0:07:29 Eli: Are you sure? But are you sure it wasn't in comparison to the rest of the school, right? Right? Cause like when, when you think back, was it like, no, he reads both the front and the back of the pages. I'm telling you, man, this kid's got, got what it fucking takes, right?

0:07:33 Thomas: Yeah yeah hey

0:07:33 Tom: That's enormous yeah Oh, yeah percentile wise yeah

0:07:45 Thomas: As a kid who was always really really good at tests and not good at doing homework is my HD. I, I, uh, take exception to that. No, I was it's standardized test.

0:07:52 Eli: They knew they were like, yeah, no. I mean, if he learned to try hard, maybe, but he won't ever.

0:07:55 Thomas: Yeah, no,

0:07:57 Tom: He's reading the life cereal box at a third grade level, that's pretty

0:07:58 Thomas: That, that that is actually what happened. My mom brings that up, like, just the other day she brought it up 'cause like in fifth grade, she has the story of how the teacher told him, like, they're like, his testing is unbelievable. And she brings it up all the time. I'm like, yeah, no, cool. That happened, I guess. I don't know. It doesn't matter.

0:08:14 Eli: Did you want to teach me to executive function?

0:08:14 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Did you want to help me organize a single part of my life at all? That would have helped me like Excel.

0:08:16 Eli: No. Okay. Did you want me to teach you how to get me the medicine I needed for my medical? Nope.

0:08:21 Thomas: Yeah.

0:08:23 Tom: No.

0:08:23 Eli: Now it's just to fucking eat a bunch of candy for my diabetes

0:08:23 Tom: No. Did

0:08:24 Thomas: Oh, but she, okay. I'll give her credit. The last time she brought it up was a few weeks ago and it's because that teacher actually died. He just died. Mr.

0:08:25 Eli: Nice. Got him.

0:08:30 Thomas: Solomon. He was know, those teachers who are a billion years old who know he he actually had played in the NFL, though. But for some reason, I've got like two of these teachers in my life. They played pro sports, but in the like fucking 30s. So like they're just a normal guy. Pretty much. It was back with just, you Know, actually, freaking large. But yeah,

0:08:30 Eli: Yeah. Right.

0:08:32 Tom: He get cut in half or See like the old Charles Atlas, like commercials or whatever, it's like supposed to be like some big guy, and you're like really like that's

0:08:55 Thomas: Yeah, just a Normal guy. Pretty much yeah.

0:08:52 Eli: Yeah. Just kicking sand in another slightly thinner guy's face and you're like, I don't understand the dynamic here. Why is he calling him an octoroon?

0:08:57 Thomas: Yeah.

0:09:01 Tom: Here's like God.

0:09:06 Eli: What's going on? It's

0:09:07 Thomas: Anyway, my stuff that I had, it did actually start in fifth grade. I didn't know they had this early one, but again, maybe that's budgetary reasons. Maybe that's because there weren't any gifted people that, but no, so first grade feels really early. And here's the thing about this email after, again, I can't describe how long it takes me to fucking read. God,

0:09:27 Eli: Impressive, just listening to the story. I'm picturing like Bing and then you being like for a solid 27 minutes before your eyes can trace over the words.

0:09:37 Tom: I mean

0:09:41 Thomas: It's some human with a brain. Can we do a Freaky Friday? Because it's not the topic this show, but this email, it takes me so long to get to where it's like, now you can just read the email. Like, I don't know why it takes so long. If, do you guys, both of you, you just get to get an email and be like, this looks important, I will read it you

0:09:58 Eli: Words. Yep, yes, that's, that's

0:10:00 Tom: That's like most of my job. Yeah, most of my jaw but Most of our job is reading emails and then calling people on the phone. You would literally explode, you would explode and die in your first six hours.

0:10:02 Eli: Yeah. Yeah.

0:10:02 Thomas: Christ. That's so nice, yeah. Well. I had a job where I needed to Read emails, but it's still, yeah, it's like the way it happens is still different. Anyway. So when I finally get my idiot brain to read the email, this so it's going to be based on the percentage of tasting and

0:10:22 Eli: What's happening Sorry, I do want to let you finish what's happening before you read the email in your brain. Like, what is going on is is there a loading screen.

0:10:27 Thomas: Oh, it'S the worst. It'S the WORST. Here's what happens. Kinda. So here's, so here's what has to happen. I'm afraid to even confess what goes on in my brain. I see the subject line of every email and my brain has to go off for hours about what that could be about. And I've now constructed universes of different possibilities.

0:10:33 Tom: So

0:10:44 Eli: Okay.

0:10:53 Eli: Playing Wordle in your head with what's in here. So

0:10:54 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. And, while I'm doing that, I're doing 50 other things. So it's like, oh, I see email pop up. Oh, I am doing another thing. And then part of my brain is like, what is that? That must be this. And then I go off and I come up with a, like a version of it that it probably is, like I'm for some reason I'm like doing, you know, projections, like prognostications of what it is. And and it's such a waste of effort. Like it's absolutely the most wasteful thing because I'm already anticipating and thinking about what I'm going to do in the event of a thing that I just haven't bothered to fucking read yet. So, and And often I can't get to the executive function part where I actually read it. Because here's the truth.

0:11:30 Tom: Are you pre-catastrophizing it, like, okay, this is gonna be bad, this is, yeah,

0:11:34 Thomas: Um, no, I wouldn't say I, what Yeah, no. It is. That's kind of, no I don't, I will say I'm not catastrophizing per se. I'm more just like pre -problem solving in the least useful way possible. Like I'm like wasting. It is like Sudoku. Did somebody say something like that? It's like some sort of wordle.

0:11:36 Eli: My screen was actually a pretty pretty accurate representation.

0:11:39 Tom: I know, right, all

0:11:53 Eli: Wordle. Yeah, I was saying you're playing Wordle with the subject.

0:11:55 Thomas: Yeah, sure. It's kind of like that for no reason. But it is something I'm dreading, then there's an added, you know, bit of like, oh, I need to like do this and then I can't make myself read it. It. But truly the stupidest thing. And it's, it's a waste of time. It's the worst. I wish I could just do it, but it takes me a while to get to where it's like, okay, I can just fucking take this task on by itself.

Cause I never do one thing at a time, you know? So it's like, this needs focus. And then if it's something that needs focus in that way, it's really hard to get my brain to do it. And that process of doing it, I go through all these these different levels of like what I think the thing is. It's pointless. Okay. So that aside, I've created all these different versions of what I assume this is.

And honestly, I'm usually right most of the time, you know, like, cause the subject line of an email, I had pretty much tells you what you need to know for the most part. Um, but you know this

0:12:49 Thomas: One, I it's nothing.

0:12:49 Tom: The body and text is all just flavor.

0:12:52 Eli: Sending you so many misleading email subjects from now on. Everything's going to be like he killed her and we have 10 minutes to stop him. And it's going to be like, we're eating at Chi -Chi's. That's all you get from me for the rest of our lives, just so you know. It's just the worst, most terrifying email subjects.

0:13:08 Tom: Chichis. Yeah,

0:13:05 Thomas: Yeah, you should. Yeah, sure. No, No, I would always read an email from you. I like your emails and See, you've written a couple in your life, you know, that's the problem. So anyway, the point is I finally read it and it's that it's like, OK, top percentage or percentiles or whatever. And then there's only so many slots and it's only offered at three schools within the district. So if she gets into this accelerated program, she has to change schools. I'm and I'm like, fucking what do I do about this? Because one part of me is and this is truly the part that I don't know that I can kill.

You know, this is this is the part of me, Eli. I think you and I may be bonded on this. My vague memory is that we had kind of the same feeling in the previous episode where I don't know that. I can possibly separate out the part of my identity that was you must be the best in every test and class and you know, like that part's going to be hard. I need to not put that pressure on my kids.

Kids, but even if I don't put the pressure on my kids, I will still feel that like, well, yeah, but they should be the best at the test. You know, like in my mind, it'll be like, okay, I'm

0:13:14 Eli: That's fair. You go.

0:14:16 Thomas: Not going to pressure them. But even if I don't pressure them, they will be the best of the test because that's what I was. Yeah, I don't.

0:14:21 Eli: But I know, I'll just expect it

0:14:24 Thomas: Yeah.

0:14:24 Eli: Silently.

0:14:24 Thomas: So it'll be worse.

0:14:25 Eli: Silently.

0:14:25 Thomas: But as long as I keep it all in my head, maybe it's okay. And not only that, I know that Lydia was extremely gifted in school. So then I'm even more more fearful that I'm like, well, okay. It's also from a place of fear of like, wait, what if they aren't good at this? You know what I mean? Like, it's like, if, both me and Lydia were really good at a thing, then I'm, like, what does it mean if they're not, you know, does that mean, like, I failed?

0:14:41 Eli: Oh, the worst! The worst. You failed. Yes.

0:14:50 Thomas: Yeah, did I, should I, thank you. Okay, so, no, no.

0:14:51 Eli: Obviously no.

0:14:55 Tom: Alternatively, just a separate perspective,

0:14:56 Thomas: We got it, Tom. We We got it. It means

0:14:58 Eli: Tom,

0:14:57 Tom: You know, something. It you know, it could potentially

0:14:59 Thomas: I failed.

0:14:58 Eli: We got you. Don't have to take the SATs if you don't want to. McDonald's is a fun place to work because you get two shift meals, one before you work and one after.

0:15:06 Tom: It, could, it could potential just mean that they are just different people than you, you know, and they might have different different

0:15:13 Eli: Literally impossible. I'm

0:15:14 Thomas: You could be a different person and still be the best at the test, Tom.

0:15:15 Tom: Skills and still they might just

0:15:14 Eli: Gonna throw up. I feel like Thomas reading an email subject when I hear you say that, Tom. I'm terrified. I'm terrified of

0:15:28 Tom: I I got I got two almost two decades of experience here, and I'll, I know we talked about you, but like, your kids aren't like mini yous unless, less, sometimes they are. It's but like sometimes they are, like, is a mini Haley Aisling Just is, in like, in like every way. It's, it's fucking weird how much she's just, but like, my kids are just like, look at him, like, yeah, I mean, like, I can physically see it, you, they're just wildly different, so I'm just throwing that out there, that it's

0:15:29 Thomas: It's yeah. I go through a lot of thoughts. Yeah. No, I know. I know, I Know. Sometimes they are. Yeah, yeah. I'm glad you said that. Cause sometimes they are for sure.

0:15:59 Thomas: No, I know. I know I absolutely. But this is, it's interesting because I, this is a particular area where I know as a parent, I'm going to have a tough time. I'm you know, like, I just know this is one of those, whatever happens, it's going to be something that doesn't come easy to me. And so I'm thinking, what do I do? I went from this didn't exist to what the fuck now there's a thing. And here's the weird thing. I have no fucking idea where Phoebe is school -wise. I'm realizing this is the opposite of what I thought it would be. I thought these days, you know, they gave you every single metric and test and whatever, but no, like kindergarten, she, like her teacher was really nice. She was really great. I liked her. Her teacher was a teacher I would want Arlo to have, but I didn't get a good sense of where Phoebe was academically. And then I thought, eh, it's kindergarten. Who cares? Whatever. She's still young, but you know you still want to of know like well is she reading well you know

0:16:01 Tom: Tough, right,

0:16:50 Thomas: Is she whatever and I know like her progress reports were not great and I remember we and I both were like well I don't know if that means she's not doing a good job or does she have my focus problems where she can't participate in class very well so she's getting marked down for that because for different things we knew like okay she's amazing at that thing like we know she knows all these things but she's not doing it in class and so we never got a firm answer on that and then first grade we're still it's november we haven't got a fucking progress report I don't know I have no idea so I realized in that moment of reading that email I'm like a all of a sudden to my mind this is a mandatory thing like in my brain like my first initial thought is well she has to be in this because that's who I am and that's Who she is and

0:17:31 Eli: Course, yeah. Of

0:17:31 Tom: Okay, Can offer you like a little bit of perspective, although it's, it's old perspective, but I think it might still matter. So similarly, and I think they probably still do the same thing, like those standardized tests. So her progress reports in school are how she's performing in the classroom, on her tests or assignments or homework, etc. But like that letter that you got, if it's anything like the letter that I got when I was a kid, which was like a invitation to go to to the Illinois Math and Science Academy, that was based entirely on standardized tests. So they are They're different, right.

0:18:02 Thomas: It's going to be yeah yeah no and this this wasn't an email I got because of, this was when they just sent to everybody in the district. So this is just them announcing, hey, based on the tests that happened, sorry, maybe I just told the story badly. She hasn't taken the tests yet. This is just them announcing hey, this is the normal standardized test.

0:18:17 Tom: They let, every, yeah, so everybody is allowed to take this test and then they like separate the wheat from the chaff with this, right?

0:18:22 Thomas: Exactly. And so, it doesn't take place until April, I eventually figured out by reading the email that took hours to do. And so I know. The point is I get this email about It's essentially like, hey, but we need to like opt into it. I think that's what it is. So what we have to do now is say whether or not we want a spot if Phoebe does test well. That's where we are. That's the current phase. It's like, Hey, there's only so many spots for this.

So let us know if if you do have a student that does well in these tests, let us know if you're going to want a spot. And then we start the process of like, you you know, pick which school, you know, a bunch of other stuff they start. And I think they don't take the test until, I think I said April, that was wrong. I think they don't take the test until February.

So right now in this moment, realizing, I'm A, in my dumb parent brain, she has to do this or I'm a failure. Like she has, obviously she has To, of course, otherwise Eli

0:18:23 Tom: Okay, okay.

0:19:11 Thomas: Failed. And actually, Eli, you're a failure too, if Phoebe doesn't make it.

0:19:09 Eli: Course, Obviously, yeah, I also failed. Yeah, no, if

0:19:16 Thomas: Yeah, it's on both of us.

0:19:16 Eli: I allowed a friend to have a not gifted child, that's the worst, that's like not reporting sexual abuse, it's worse than not reporting sexual abuse. And

0:19:20 Thomas: That's on you.

0:19:20 Tom: So so so wait a minute, is your pressure, your, I just want to understand, is your pressure you're putting on yourself not that she just has to take the test, but that she has to to take it and excel and get into one of these schools? Wow.

0:19:39 Eli: Getting one of these schools and then she gets into an amazing college where she's first in her class, she graduates summa cum laude, where she, she is the first female president of the United States.

0:19:41 Tom: Okay,

0:19:39 Thomas: And Course, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now I'm saved from a little bit of that pressure that Eli has by being so bad at doing homework because of executive dysfunction that all I care about is she better test. Such an idiot. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, cause I never did the other stuff well. So I, I'm not a hypocrite. I'm going to expect my kids to do anything that I didn't do, but you better be able to fucking take that test. No, this is all my initial parent thoughts that I'm Not Express, but I realized, okay, this is the state of things. Again, just to make clear, no one's taken any tests yet, but when they take these standardized tests in February, the top X percent can have a spot in the, you accelerated school if they want. We have to opt into it. And I realize, I go to the place in my brain where data about how Phoebe is academic accomplishments or tests is, and I have no data because I don't, it just

0:19:47 Tom: Now just trying to understand the pressure, yeah, yeah, right,

0:19:56 Eli: Oh, interesting.

0:20:08 Tom: Right, right, yeah, when

0:20:31 Thomas: Didn't, I don't know, like, no, no. Because kindergarten, we didn't... You know, it wasn't... It's kindergarten.

0:20:32 Eli: You erased that hard drive. You didn't pay attention. You were busy.

0:20:38 Tom: First grade, teacher sent him an email about it, Eli, and he took him, he'll

0:20:40 Thomas: No, we... Like, Lydia had the same thing.

0:20:42 Tom: Read it in seventh grade, right,

0:20:42 Eli: The subject wasn't, this is how she's doing.

0:20:46 Thomas: Yeah, your student is gifted. No, we don't, we haven't gotten fucking a progress report in first grade. And the kindergarten information was useless. It was too basic. We don't know where she is in class. And I created a real anxiety in me of like, ,I I have no fucking idea how she's going to do on this. And I also know Phoebe. I know that she has a lot of stress and anxiety and like, she going to even be able to take a test? I have have no, maybe she'll be fine. Maybe she won't. I have no fucking idea. So I think in my mind, I'm like, you know, one of the favorite things that I like to do with Phoebe is we like talking about school and subjects. Like she loves learning. She absolutely loves learning, she loves math. Very good at math. I'm not sure, because again, I can't compare it, I don't have the progress reports.

0:21:29 Eli: She hasn't written him an email, so he doesn't know. I'm

0:21:31 Tom: So,

0:21:31 Thomas: But exactly, But no, we do a lot of math for fun. Like start teaching my kids as advanced as they'll allow me to teach them. And know, if they're not into it, I'm like, all right, you know, whatever. But I try them, you know, like, here's hey, multiplication. Let me explain what that is. You know, and I give it a try. And she's starting to get all that stuff. She's in first grade and she's like dividing a little bit. She multiplies doing stuff that I don't remember doing.

And so I that. And so what I thought was, I know I'm going to get my hands on a sample fucking test. I'm just going to see if she even understands it. And she doesn't want to do it, she doesn't have to do it. If she does want to do it. Then I'll just treat it like that where it's we like she like talking about school. Anyway, you know, we like talking about what she learned. We like going through some of her homework.

She does her homework like around us and she likes showing us she can do it so I'm going to turn it into one of those activities, you nothing, know, you know, I'm not trying to put any stakes on to my child whatsoever.

0:22:20 Eli: Just picturing you trying to keep it chill and failing magnificently.

0:22:24 Thomas: Yeah.

0:22:25 Tom: Bad, I'm thinking the same thing, like

0:22:26 Eli: Hello, Phoebe.

0:22:27 Tom: Uh, no.

0:22:27 Eli: Today, it's me. I I'm sorry, ain't bad Chinese food. Want you to do. How would you like to be the president? Would that be cool?

0:22:29 Thomas: Yeah, the flu. Oh, God.

0:22:42 Eli: Let

0:22:42 Tom: Gonna need you to solve for X, Phoebe. And if you can't

0:22:44 Thomas: Yeah.

0:22:45 Eli: Me just sit. I'm just gonna sit backwards in this chair real quick, my leg is caught. Daddy's leg is cut. Call the cops, pops.

0:22:55 Tom: Am I vibrating? I feel like I'm vibrating right now, they

0:23:00 Eli: Daddy's just breathing into this paper bag because there's not a lot of oxygen in the room while we talk about this test you're gonna take. Sorry, go ahead, yeah.

0:22:55 Thomas: No,

0:23:01 Tom: Don't

0:23:09 Thomas: No. So a sample test that's just from some fucking Christian homeschooling whatever. But I can't, you know, like they have a sample tests for the, you know, I look.

0:23:17 Eli: One is equal to three, it's really fucked up over there on those tests yet.

0:23:19 Thomas: Yeah.

0:23:21 Tom: Have a sample test, just to throw this out there, because people aren't prepping their kids for fucking first grade standardized testing. Nobody's taking this test for a reason.

0:23:23 Thomas: Because nobody does. That's what you think. I think

0:23:25 Eli: The parents are

0:23:32 Thomas: That's what you think. There

0:23:33 Tom: This is insane,

0:23:32 Eli: Tom, you and Donovan are over there fucking doing donuts in the fucking Hooters parking lot or whatever the hell you're letting him do. You

0:23:34 Tom: Oh my god,

0:23:41 Thomas: Tom, if that's true, why are there two books on Amazon that I could maybe buy that I haven't yet that are test prep for this? But I couldn't find anything easily available because I was looking at the branding of the standardized test.

0:23:48 Eli: Should oh, you had to click a button. Yeah.

0:23:54 Thomas: Yeah. No, I wasn't sure if I needed it. But I found a homeschool site because the homeschool sites were the ones that had my back because they're like, yeah, they're trying to decide, should we even give our our kids, students these tests, I guess when you're homeschool, you can decide. I don't fucking know. And so they had some samples and the sample was of the same brand of tests. I was like, all right, check it out. And it's very reasonable, easy.

It was like four or five math problems, four or four or reading problems that are just very basic first grade stuff. So I was like, oh, it's like her homework anyway. We'll see. But I wanted to see if she could even one thing I'd never even fucking thought about in a billion years because I haven't been this age in a long time is, wait, can she even read the basic test stuff? You know, like, can she read, hey, choose one of the answers below.

You know what I mean? Like there's a whole bunch of basic test taking stuff that I was like, fuck, does she know about this? And here's another reason I wanted to do this. I know her. This is somebody who I, I don't know if I've told the story, but Phoebe is someone who, when Lydia bought her a new kind of lunchable that was a lunchable where you make a pizza, you know, that one, Phoebe

0:24:59 Eli: Yeah.

0:25:00 Thomas: Said she didn't want to bring it to school because she wanted to test it at home first to see if she could make the pizza at home before she took it to school, so that gives you an idea of Phoebe's mental challenges.

0:25:10 Eli: Hey, Tom. Thomas, guy who just spent 20 minutes telling us how he guesses what the email might be about. I think I know where she gets it from. I think I I think I might have Sherlock Holmes this together, yes.

0:25:21 Tom: Sure

0:25:13 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, No, no, so this, is that's that's Lydia's So, I would not, that, this. If this happened to me, I'd be like, yes, give me the fucking pizza thing. I don't care. I'll just eat it however it is. That's a different mental. This is from Lydia's side. So Lydia has the like extreme projecting into the future what people are going to think when they're looking at her kind of thing. I don't have that. Anyway, so I'm thinking regardless of the whole honors program, whatever bullshit that is, accelerated thing, just giving her the experience of seeing what this test is first, first, no matter what happens, will be good for her because she won't be as anxious about it because she really truly does need that pre-exposure to stuff, otherwise, she's super anxious, so

0:26:00 Eli: Side, note, literally everybody does. The reason why those fucking test prep classes work is because you, you get better at taking tests because it's a skill.

0:26:03 Thomas: Okay. Sure. Sure, um, but I think there's degrees, like, to the point where she might shut down in an anxiety mode more than other people will, just at seeing a new scary thing, you know what I mean? Like there's degree of it, sure,

0:26:10 Eli: Oh, Yeah, no, no for sure, it's, it's more helpful to some than others, but like everybody benefits, yeah, unlike,

0:26:23 Thomas: Oh, Absolutely, absolutely. And so, yeah, I'm thinking, like, yeah, worst case, she sees it, she's like, fuck this, and I'm like, all right, at least she knows what that is, and she'll remember, because kids remember fucking everything. She'll remember for February or whatever, or at least have seen it.

And so we start to do it, and I'm like, all right, so I'm telling her what it's about, I'm telling her, like, hey, this thing has instructions that I'm supposed to read you, and then you have to try to read the rest yourself.

And she's like, okay, she's, she likes doing school stuff, so we're, we're doing it, it's fun, and she, I'm not going to go through all of what happened because it's already taken so long because you made me confess my darkest secrets about my idiot brain and how it works. Um, happened was pretty immediately, she started expressing a little bit of frustration and anxiety about it, and she started crying, and I said, hey, never mind, we just were doing, we were just doing a fun thing.

I literally started taking the test as from her, I was like, like, never mind, this was just totally for fun, don't worry about it. And then she physically kept the test and wouldn't let me take it. She's like, no, I have to do it. I was like, Jesus Christ, what have I created? Like, what is, what is happening here? I promise you, I presented the lowest stakes imaginable. I really did. I know, parodies aside, I, I now,

0:27:32 Thomas: I absolutely did This is Phoebe cries in this frustrated manner. This is one of the reasons we're getting therapy for her. She does, does this 4,800 times a day about everything. So, like, it's, you, not that abnormal. It wasn't like an emergency. I was just like, hey, I don't want to add another thing to your, you Know?

0:27:31 Eli: It to me, I do think that the fact that you introduced it by saying, how would you like Daddy to love you more than he already does, I think that's part of the problem, man. I mean, I don't want to, I don't want to be judgy on the air, but just,

0:27:55 Thomas: Yeah. And so she wouldn't let me take it from her. I tried so many times. Hey, no big deal. Oh, you did one of them. That's cool. You did one question. Let's, let's do something else. She's like, no, I want to do the rest of it. Okay. I feel she's

0:28:08 Eli: Weeping over the test that she won't let go that

0:28:11 Thomas: So what happens happens to not go through the whole thing is I witness her every time I read, like I start a question. She has an initial response. That's like way stressed out. I don't get it. I can't figure it out. She starts crying. And then without me doing anything within the same sentence of her saying, I don't get it, she's already teasing out what the question is. She'll be like, I don't get it. It says the capital. And, then it also asks like, is there punctuation? Oh, and then, okay. So, I think it's saying like, she'll go through that. And by the time she started the this sentence. She gets to the end. She started with tears by the end, she's like, okay, it's this, you know? And it's like every single question was that. And to the point where it's like, geez, that's going to be tough.

0:28:50 Thomas: But she goes through this entire fucking test and aces the entire thing. It's every single correct. She missed one that was based on a graph. And I asked her afterward, like why she, I was like, Hey, what were you thinking? What was taking me through this one?

0:28:50 Eli: Sucks

0:29:02 Tom: Why'd you miss that one, you little shit son,

0:29:04 Thomas: No. And she pointed out, she was like oh, because I was counting these white lines. And I realized, oh, it's because my printer sucks. So the printer gave these little white scan lines in a graph that shouldn't have been there. And so she counted something that was four instead of three. And it was because she was counting those scan lines. I was like, all right, I think she would have fucking gotten that if the printer worked. So short of that one question, she got everything

0:29:26 Tom: Was in her eyes, it was a whole thing, right,

0:29:27 Thomas: Right. And she got stuff right a in way that I couldn't, it was honestly amazing amazing to, witness. Like she, she reasoned through stuff in a way that was like, I truly never witnessed a, first grader going through their thought process. You like it's hard to describe, um, because she's obviously she has limited tools. Like these tests are very basic.

It's just stuff that's like, you pick the sentence that has the correct punctuation and capitals and pick, you know, and seeing her puzzle through not only that, but like what a a test even is where she's like oh oh it wants me to pick one of these down here you know like just seeing her do all that stuff truly amazing breathtaking I was like blown away by it but I asked her after the whole thing's done I tried to tell her I was okay Phoebe you what I saw when you're taking that I saw that you um a little scared and you there were some tears early on and then every single question I told her I said every question you try try to make it a little like, you know, fun for her.

I'm trying to help her maybe when she gets a test, not stress as much. Maybe I was like, hey, I saw your brain, your brain did this like robot thing. It went blah, blah, and you like processed it. And by the end of the question, you'd figure out every single one, even even though you you were like really nervous at first. And so I was just trying to tell her like, hey, if this ever, you know, if it's ever happens, just trust your brain.

Like, cause you you freaked out or whatever, you know, in so many words, like you had those tears, but then every time you, you kept at it. Your brain do amazing things. You figured every single one out. So I'm trying to give her a little bit of confidence and help with that stress, you know, test taking stress. Then and I asked her though, I was like, hey, does that happen at school? You know, like where you, if you have a test and you is it kind of, you're crying a

0:29:28 Eli: Sucks, do you throw

0:30:59 Thomas: Bit?

0:30:59 Eli: A big shit fit and your teacher's like fuck are you doing

0:31:02 Tom: How

0:31:02 Thomas: And she's like, no, cause those ones are all easy. And I was Like, Oh fuck. I was was like, maybe she does have the thing where like, she's bored. And I don't know. So I have no fucking idea. She doesn't have that at school, she says. And now I'm thinking, all right, so I think she's probably going to do well at this test. Who knows? That might've been fucking easy homeschool version. I don't know, Christian homeschooled version of the test. Maybe it's actually way harder. It's like calculus and shit. I dunno. Let's But say she does well at this test.

0:31:27 Tom: Many dinosaurs did George Washington ride across the Potomac yeah count

0:31:30 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. I think there's specifically a picture of a dinosaur and a man and said like, like, hey, what time period is this? Oh, that's only 2000 years ago. And so, and so I'm now I'm thinking like, all right, let's for the sake of, you know, like what's the smartest thing to do? Practically speaking, we're going to go through the motions as though she's going to do this because, you Know, if you don't, then you don't get a spot at all. And if we do, we can always say, Nope, you don't want to do this. You know? So we're going to opt into it. We're going TO do all that crap, but let's say she DOES do this.

Like, let's say she gets a spot. Am really conflicted as to what to do, as to how to present it to her, because changing schools for a kid is pretty big deal. You know, I know it's only 10 minutes away, but like that's a different set of friends. But maybe her friends that she likes will also be in this fucking accelerated program. So it's a lot of choices. I would love your guys's kind of thoughts and advice on it.

0:31:39 Tom: The best friends yeah uh -huh well I have a I I have a question that maybe would help help frame your thoughts on this potentially it might be useful to you and that might be that like what is the result you want not from Phoebe but for Phoebe from this and those are two real different questions yeah yeah

0:32:30 Thomas: Hmm. Mm hmm. Absolutely. Well, I think I know that for me personally, it true that if well, OK, I think this much is true. And feel free if you guys have any different information, let me know, because there's a lot of stuff like I don't fucking know if I've read all the parenting books and the current thought on it. But I do think that if you are an academically gifted kid and I don't know that she is, but if she is that you do get a bit bored with the pace of normal school and the fact that she's expressing.

And we've actually gotten feedback from her teacher and we weren't sure what it is, but we've gotten feedback that she's been kind of not dialed in lately. And we thought like, well, she's sick. Maybe it's that, um, we don't know for sure, but now I'm wondering like, I don't know, maybe she's bored. Like she's really smart and she seems to be good at these tests could be wrong. But like, I guess my answer is if she ends up being one of these, you know, students that's in the top and she may not be. I'm, I'm okay with that. But if she is,

0:33:07 Tom: So

0:33:37 Thomas: I'm totally, I know that it's Eli's fault and not my fault.

0:33:36 Eli: Actually great with it I love it I my voice is normal normal chill normal

0:33:42 Thomas: Hello today. And so I, if she is that, I would want her to be in program that's going to be challenging to her and that's gonna teach her maybe more than she would learn. You know, like I know that she loves learning. I know beyond anything else, I I know that she loves learning because she loves me teaching her stuff and we have a great time and I think she'll learn more in one of those programs.

0:33:44 Eli: Oh know what I just realized is Phoebe's gonna listen to this podcast and if she didn't make it into the fucking she is losing she's like 21 right now and you're dead because of the boating accident and she's on her bed and she is like I know my dad was always proud of me and she could just hear you wanting her to get into that advanced program she did or did not get in she is either having the best day or the worst day based on whether or not she got into that program

0:34:05 Thomas: Pick something slightly plausible. Come on, man.

0:34:33 Thomas: Now, here's what happened. Tom's kids already got to the podcast and we realized he said so much that we had to shut it down. And so we don't even, we're not even getting to the part where, where Phoebe reads it.

0:34:36 Tom: Mean

0:34:44 Eli: Tom started to believe that podcasts turn you into a weasel or something and deleted our catalog in the middle of the night without telling us yeah it's

0:34:51 Tom: It's not it's not implausible it's on my list actually it's on the list all Thomas a of things so first it sounds like like your big concern is to make sure that she stays engaged in her own education like And That's, that's a totally, that's just like the note that I took from what you said. I think that's like the most, most fair and most important thing that we want to do for all of our kids, right? Because as soon as they become disengaged from their education, they cannot be successful. Like, as somebody who went through, like, I mean, I went to school to be a teacher. Like that is like the most important element. They cannot be stressful if they disengage from the process.

I think like thing that I would, I would offer as well, and granted my education is almost 25 years old at this point. So like take that with a caveat, is one of the classes we had to take in is to teach the exceptional child. And 95% of that time, and I don't think I'm exaggerating it, was on teaching kids that had special needs, essentially, that were integrated into your classroom.

So I was not going for a special ed cert, but we still had teaching the exceptional child, a lot of kids with special needs are going to be integrated into a gen ed classroom. And so those were considered exceptional children. Also considered exceptional children, we're gifted children. We spent about 5% of the time, classroom time, learning time, book time, on how to best assist gifted kids.

Gifted kids, for the most part, in integrated classrooms, even if they're tracked, in integrative classrooms, one of the things that they often do to keep them, honestly, to shut up and keep them quiet is they say, "Oh, go help these other kids."

0:34:53 Eli: Not impossible it's not impossible fun

0:34:55 Thomas: Yeah, good. Yeah yeah yeah

0:36:25 Tom: Kids, and you end up being a minder or like a little mini TA for the other kids. That's a bullshit way, to be very blunt, that's a bullshit way of connecting to those kids at the level they need to be connected with.

0:36:26 Thomas: Yeah yep yep right can I say I get it though like I get like teachers are underpaid and overworked and like yeah yeah totally

0:36:41 Tom: Oh, I do too. No blame. Yeah, no, no blame. And that's how in the 90s, which I'm old, but that's in the90s, that is kind of what we were taught to do, right? It's like, oh, we want to keep them engaged, right. Engagement is the fundamental principle that you can't lose in education. So we want to keep them engaged. This is one of the things we do.

0:36:43 Thomas: Totally yeah yeah mm -hmm oh

0:36:57 Eli: Fun fact uh you looked at the bottom of that textbook about teaching gifted kids my aunt wrote that yeah and that's still the still the most important thing oh well I can tell you her thoughts on that which is that gifted and talented programs don't matter at all

0:37:02 Thomas: Right you've mentioned yeah yeah shit oh Eli I really need to know your aunt's thoughts on this

0:37:02 Tom: What's Oh, really?

0:37:14 Tom: Yeah, and that's what I was going to say. But I do want to say, I think the separate school would matter.

0:37:14 Eli: Yes

0:37:14 Thomas: Okay that's what I was just gonna come back with With, I,

0:37:20 Eli: Because that that's a proof that you're better than other people yeah can we finally talk about it it

0:37:25 Thomas: But I, so we

0:37:23 Tom: That's... Because weren't you guys in Gifted and Talented? Because Gifted in Talented when I was a kid was some fucking bullshit. It was useless. It was mostly social time.

0:37:33 Eli: Ruled I

0:37:33 Thomas: It actually did for me. It did, did rule actually.

0:37:36 Eli: Learned to juggle so they made a lady so we had a special, this is my gifted and talent experience and it's my truth, um, had special ed teacher who had been fired, cause they were like, ah, not enough special ed kids. You fucking fired. And she was like, you can't fire me, I'm tenured. And this is public school. And they were like, ah, shit, um, you're the gifted teacher. And this lady was fucking done. I never saw her. She just came in. She was first day. She was like, you guys are going to teach yourself a new skill. And then she left and never came came back and once

0:37:38 Thomas: Oh, okay. Wow.

0:37:39 Tom: That's where... Okay, yeah, so it was useless,

0:38:13 Eli: A day

0:38:14 Thomas: The new skill self -reliance.

0:38:14 Eli: Yeah

0:38:14 Tom: This lady's a hero this is a hero

0:38:16 Thomas: Yeah.

0:38:16 Eli: And once a day I just sat there, I was like, I want to juggle. She was like, cool, I don't know what to tell you. And I was like, can I have balls? And she was like, go buy some, I don't know what the fuck are you talking. And so every day sixth grade I just learned to jiggle, and then I'd that's how I knew how to jogle that I learned to juggle by intuiting it in here's the thing it didn't matter but

0:38:34 Thomas: That is the worst sell job. I actually learned to juggle by intuiting it. That's funny. I did that too, but later not in gifted talented.

0:38:41 Eli: The thing it didn't matter because

0:38:44 Thomas: Yeah. It doesn't matter.

0:38:44 Eli: That's that's the secret behind gifted and talented programs is they're like, hey, rich kids and exclusively rich kids whose parents read an email on their first try, you want to come over to the special kids classroom where you'll socialize with each other and not the poors? Well then come on down to Chinatown where we will teach you they

0:39:02 Thomas: Boy, my parents must have really reacted weirdly when they got that letter back in the 90s because they were the fucking poorest of the goddamn.

0:39:06 Eli: Were yeah they were weird. They to include a couple of euros, but they, they eventually, you know, eventually there's a button to click and they think

0:39:10 Thomas: Yeah. Wipe the McDonald's ketchup right off that letter and like, holy shit, this might be important. So my gifted and talented, I agree that it probably doesn't matter because it was like, I don't know, a fucking couple hours where they would take you away from your class. And then but I will tell you, that's true. I will tell you, I fucking loved it. And I don't, I could not tell you what, you know, there's no way to answer what you got out of any class. Honestly, it's pretty fucking hard. But like I, I'm remembering it was because we had a good teacher for the first year or two of it. And then we got a shit teacher and it sucked and I hated it. So now I think about it. That's all that actually matters. You

0:39:16 Eli: Exactly yeah eventually they eliminate themselves. Oh,

0:39:20 Tom: Right a couple hours a week not even every day, yeah.

0:39:36 Eli: It's the best but

0:39:52 Tom: Look

0:39:52 Thomas: Just need to have a good teach. Teacher.

0:39:54 Eli: About how bananas it was for our childhood that an adult, and a trusted adult, would walk in the room and be like, hey, smart kids, you're going to go to a different room. Let's take all the worthy, good children that just sort of all the children who have aspired to and are the thing that we, the trusted adults who are teaching you your sense of self-worth, can you all come with me to your very special place where you deserve to be. And the, and Tom, hey, you might stay in here with your big swollen head. Like, can you imagine how fucking monstrous that is to actually do to people

0:40:03 Thomas: Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep, yep. But we would go in there and every day when we had a good teacher, the first thing we would do is there would be a coded thing on the board. And it was like, don't know what the activity is called, but it was when there's a substitution code and you have to try to decode what the sentence is. And as a fifth, sixth grader, you're like, okay, well, that's three letters. It's probably the or and. And then you do these process of elimination to figure out, you know, what the sentence says.

0:40:32 Eli: Sure like Thomas reading an email subject. Yeah, yeah.

0:40:58 Thomas: Oh, maybe that's where I learned it. Yeah. And so we'd start with that and it was fucking, God, I love that stuff so much. And then there'd be a bunch of other stuff like that, that I fucking loved. And I have no idea the value of it. I will just say that I love fucking love that. So if if that was just in normal class, I would have loved it too. You know, like if that's, but then not, not a lot of the kids would have gotten, but anyway, I, Tom's point, I was going to say the same thing. I do think a separate, they

0:41:18 Eli: Normal kids can't do puzzles I don't know if you guys know this, they can't they just they try to eat them which is sad there's sharp corners was

0:41:26 Tom: That's fucked up probably

0:41:24 Thomas: Really can't. They really can. I know you're making a joke, but they actually fucking, they don't get it. Like barely any of the gate kids got that one. It was like me and two other ones. Anyway.

0:41:36 Eli: It actually called gate because that's the funniest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life but

0:41:37 Thomas: Was gifted and talented something. I don't remember the last thing they called it gate. Is that just, yeah, Tom.

0:41:43 Tom: Education Education.

0:41:41 Eli: They called it like they couldn't they couldn't come up with an acronym for segregation the

0:41:46 Thomas: Yes, you're Right, it was education? No, hold on, was GATE just a California thing? Hold on hold on is this just a town, this is not from my school, this was other people have had this, okay.

0:41:50 Eli: Winners and having intelligence talent eliminators it

0:41:52 Tom: No, and Talented is a national program. I also was in Gifted and Talanted.

0:42:01 Thomas: Yeah gate it was fucking gate, man, it still exists apparently gifted

0:42:01 Tom: Yeah. Because

0:42:03 Eli: Wasn't called gate why would you call your gifted and talented program gate gate

0:42:06 Thomas: And talented education because it's a fucking acronym

0:42:08 Eli: Yeah

0:42:07 Tom: Eli, if we're going to keep it, we have to gatekeep it. It's obvious. It's right there. It's right there . Jesus

0:42:11 Eli: Literally gate it's literally gate the

0:42:11 Thomas: You're oh my god, that is, that might have been intentional actually that's how, yeah anyway we've gone on the rails but like a different class might be beneficial, especially if, like, honestly I probably, here's the next question, if I did this, I, what, probably wouldn't tell her what it was, I don't want her to get in her mind, like, yeah, you're now with all the smart kids. That's

0:42:19 Eli: National organization of brotherhood lettering a black no blacks, no blacks, that's

0:42:30 Tom: Christ.

0:42:40 Tom: Was it a

0:42:42 Eli: What my parents did to me because they were like, this kid's a miserable piece of shit, uh, we hate it, and they literally, they told me that, like, they would never tell me the results of my standardized tests because they, they were like, he'll be unbearable, we cannot do this. And to be fair, I did eventually find out I was good at a thing and have not shut up about it since then.

0:43:05 Eli: Like, I'm 37 and I'm still like, I don't know if you know this, but I'm a little bit better at puzzles than most people. Like, to be bare, I just eventually found out and am the worst. So, yeah. Good move. Good smart move.

0:43:04 Thomas: True that's truth yeah yeah 10 year old Eli, like, you know, I'm Keats when it comes to fucking, yeah.

0:43:20 Eli: Any of the gates.

0:43:21 Tom: Yeah. Look here, here's the thing, Thomas, she's going to find out because not everyone at that school is also going to not tell their kid. And so they're going to know why they're there. So that's okay. Like I was a kid, I tested into the, in Illinois, it's called the Illinois math and science Academy. So like you get a test into it and then they give you an in special invitation. It's probably very similar to what you're looking at, but just I'm old. So it's like 40 years ago.

0:43:43 Tom: And my dad did not let me go to it because it happened to also be in a really shit well

0:43:27 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, oh, interesting.

0:43:45 Eli: Oh, I would have called that. That I would have bet my life savings because he had to drive two minutes across town and that meant he would have missed free car truck at the Buckinghamer.

0:43:48 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah that's

0:43:49 Tom: You well I think, I think in fairness it was, in Illinois Math and Science Academy in the 80s when I grew up, was in a bad neighborhood and yeah, part of it was they didn't offer, they didn't offer buses that got you there, so he was a single dad, so like he had to get up and go to work, so he just couldn't make it happen, yeah.

0:44:04 Thomas: Weird.

0:44:04 Eli: And he would never do that to you.

0:44:11 Thomas: Oh, for sure, if my, if gate had involved a drive, my parents wouldn't have, I wouldn't been in it either. There's no way.

0:44:17 Tom: But my dad just legitimately couldn't makes it happen and didn't think it was safe to do, but like I did get notice and all that stuff for it, but have thought in the past, like, oh, I wonder if things would have been different if I'd gone to Illinois Math and Science Academy, then I thought, no, probably not, because it's like worrying about your preschool it's this kind of all levels out and doesn't matter right when we know it but I think the part that does matter is keeping her engaged and if you feel like by first grade it's already starting to slip a little bit, maybe she's already kind of bored, my feeling strongly is that like public schools don't really know what to do with gifted kids, with talented kids, they really have no fucking idea, so they end up being the paper passer outers, or they help the slower kid in class with their homework, or you know, read to somebody, like I mean, that might be good socially, but I don't really think it has any like real fucking value.

0:44:20 Eli: Didn't love you enough.

0:44:31 Thomas: Yeah yeah, no, I hear you. Yeah Yeah.

0:44:32 Eli: Great, important uses of your time.

0:45:09 Eli: Counterpoint, Because this is the most important thing about being a gifted and talented kid.

0:45:14 Thomas: That you can do the word puzzle decode -y things.

0:45:16 Eli: One, you can do the word puzzles, two, you know you're better than other people, these are all very important things, but more importantly, someday Phoebe will be 18 years old or 19 and in college and life will start to get hard and she will see a meme about being a gifted kid who is, quote unquote, burned out, that if you allow her into a gifted program, she can share and blame anything going on in her life on that meme, and if you don't let her in that gifted program, she's not a burned out gifted kid, and get burned out, normal kids are just failures, that's what we call them, in order to be a burned-out gifted kid, you have to be special, it's important you're you were too smart too good and you burned out, right

0:45:34 Thomas: Yeah. Yep. Yeah, mm -hmm. That's true.

0:46:00 Thomas: Yep, but okay, okay. Remember know, we never know what our version of this thing is, or the next version of the thing is going to be, and like, how there's going to the sad dad instead of the classic rock dad it's gonna be like the emo sad dad kind of thing, similarly for this, what if the meme in 20 fucking 450, or whenever the years are, is, oh, are you a gifted kid whose parents didn't let them go into a gifted program because they thought, like, oh, that's like, they were too hippy dippy fucking progressive to think, like, oh yeah, my kid should learn more, you know, and that's why you couldn't accomplish anything, it's because you were in the in board class, class. That'll be the meme.

0:46:14 Eli: 100.

0:46:33 Eli: My Gen Z-ers, actually, the students that I teach to our Gen Z, do make fun of their woke parents in ways that are really brutal.

0:46:43 Thomas: It's getting scary. Yeah.

0:46:46 Eli: They make jokes sometimes that I'm like, hey, hey shut up, shut the fuck up. Oh, one of my students, she for her monologue, I know this is a little bit of a tangent, for a monologue she did a impersonation of her dad describing her black friend and I was weeping with laughter.

0:46:49 Thomas: That's, that's, too perceptive and not fair that.

0:47:04 Eli: Just the friend, you know, the friend who is, oh, if it were dusk and we were to look for our upon her, her, it was so good.

0:47:02 Thomas: Oh God. Oh my God.

0:47:17 Thomas: That's not, that's not woke though. That's fucking colorblind bullshit. That's the previous version of a, no, that We, okay. No. We, that's Tom's generation of of wokeness Tom would be the one who didn't want to say like black, you know, but we're, we're of the generation that's like fucking that's fine conclusion I

0:47:20 Eli: Nah, it's woke. Woke, okay?

0:47:29 Tom: Oh

0:47:34 Eli: Though, this is important, right? Tom, he was like, whatever your kids want. I'm telling you right now that if she doesn't go into that school, everything else in her life will be an ever -increasing failure ending in meth supported only by the darkest forms of prostitution. And I'm the only friend who will be honest with you about when I say it. And I will tell our listeners, because I am an expert, if your kid is not in the gifted program, that's not your kid anymore. More, and the only thing you can do is have new kids and hope they're gifted, because if they're not, they're not real people. Dear old dads, slash patreon, patreon.com/dearolddads for these good, good takes. All

0:47:54 Tom: My god

0:47:55 Thomas: Think

0:48:30 Eli: Gentlemen, before we go, I once saw a magician make a stick of butter disappear. It wasn't a great trick, but it was butter than nothing. It

0:48:42 Thomas: You should have said it faster, you know you gotta blow through, yeah, exactly, yeah yeah fucking ruined it. No, I'm just, oh wow

0:48:42 Tom: All right so

0:48:44 Eli: Was better than nothing yeah yeah, he's better than nothing, yeah, it's all in the delivery, not

0:48:56 Clip: Want to meet sexy DILFs in your area? Email the dads at DearOldDads.com or, better yet, send us a message on Patreon. You can follow us on all social media by checking the links in the show notes. And if you need more podcasts in your life, you can find Tom on Cognitive Dissonance, Thomas on Serious Inquiries Only, and Eli on Godawful Movies and all the Puzzle in the Thunderstorm shows. Dear Old Dads is edited and produced by my favorite DILF, Tom Smith, who also wrote and recorded the intro music, which is used with his permission. This podcast is a production of Daddy Issues LLC. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.

0:49:35 Thomas: I just lost. I just lost. There was.

0:49:35 Eli: Tom you were a robot for a second there, can you say that again, just in case, yeah, no Tom was a robot

0:49:40 Tom: Oh,

0:49:37 Thomas: Oh, okay. I thought that was. Oh wait but oh, but you're a robot, what the fuck then

0:49:40 Eli: Oh am I a robot too, you're

0:49:44 Thomas: How am I a robot to you guys, what

0:49:46 Tom: No, none of you guys sounded like robots to me.

0:49:46 Eli: Not a robot Oh

0:49:48 Thomas: The fuck, how would both, whoa, this is one of those gifted and talented challenges, if Tom's a robot to both of us, if, if Tom is a robot, Eli and both of u s but Eli's a robo to me, whose upload speed is fucked well

0:49:55 Eli: It's

0:49:55 Tom: Do we still sound robot -y? And what if I tell only lies and Eli tells only truths? Boop robot buzz buzz robot how

0:50:11 Thomas: What? Hello?