<p>Yes, you can. I don’t think it’s all that likely, though.</p>
<p>For example, someone I knew has a son “Andrew” whose family had always believed he was brilliant. They may have been right. He’d certainly succeeded at some pretty impressive challenges he set himself, and he appeared to have done it without much adult support.</p>
<p>The family in general believed that “gifted” kids are often “bored” in school and that as a result they tend not to go to class, not to pay attention to class when they did go, not to do their homework, and not to do well on tests as a result of these other things. Andrew definitely qualified as gifted on all of these counts, and the family reacted admiringly whenever they were called in because he was cutting class or anything like that.</p>
<p>He ended up with a four-year free ride to a public university as a result of his performance in some competition or other (and what he did was really impressive). </p>
<p>When he got to college, he didn’t go to class, didn’t pay attention when he did go, didn’t do his homework, and did badly on tests. His family was shocked. They had been certain that once he got to a school where they taught interesting things his boredom would vanish and he’d work very hard, get good grades, and demonstrate his brilliance through conventional achievement. (The members of his generation of the extended family have all failed pretty spectacularly, in different ways, and I chalk all of it up to the firm belief all the parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles – all college-educated, some with advanced degrees – have that children “develop” completely independent of their experiences and that it makes perfect sense to reward children for behavior you don’t like because when they are “developmentally ready” to behave the way you want them to, they will just start doing it. It is a huge mystery to the adults that these kids continue to behave in the ways they have been taught to behave and never become “developmentally ready” to behave otherwise. Andrew, though, was the oldest and the shock may have been especially great in his case.)</p>
<p>It didn’t surprise me at all: for thirteen years he had been rewarded for approaching academics in a particular way, and I didn’t see why he’d change. While he definitely had academic talents, I doubt that he was equally talented in all fields, and I suspected that being “gifted” and “bored” had especially paid off for him when he didn’t understand something: he wasn’t being rewarded for struggling with it and mastering it but rather for not even trying, and as long as he didn’t try there was no risk that he would “look stupid.” And I suspect that the courses he was taking fell into two categories: courses in things he already knew a lot about, which probably seemed painfully boring to him, but that he couldn’t exempt out of because he’d learned it on his own and had no record of success anyone else could see, and courses in things he didn’t know a lot about, which I suspect were a bit intimidating to him.</p>
<p>But his family doesn’t see the connection: the only reason he had lousy habits in primary and seciondary, they believe, is that he was intelligent, and intelligent people naturally develop great habits in postsecondary education.</p>
<p>At Christmas he landed on academic probation, and he dropped out before he could flunk out in May. He’s had a series of entry-level jobs at different companies, none of which recognize his genius, and he doesn’t seem too happy with his life. </p>
<p>He might have done better, I think, if he’d taken a gap year and worked at some really crappy job (like the crappy jobs he has now). If he’d understood the connection between working hard in college and having access to a job you like, he might have had the desire to overcome his past. But he didn’t.</p>
<p>If you don’t have the self-discipline to succeed through effort in high school, I suspect that it’s hard to develop it in college. I’m sure there are people who do it, but for most people it would be hard. I suspect it’s easier for people who aren’t really indolent, but seem that way to outsiders. </p>
<p>I once worked with “Janet,” a young woman who was in high school, was working as many hours as the state labor board allowed her to and often getting home after midnight because she was taking the bus, was pregnant, and was responsible for looking after her relatives’ kids when she wasn’t at work. Janet was bright and she worked hard, but she was also getting up in the morning after not enough sleep and going somewhere to sit passively in lectures on topics she already understood. She wasn’t doing well in school. If I had been as exhausted in school as she was when I was in school, I wouldn’t have been doing well either. But people thought of her as lazy because she showed up unprepared an awful lot of the time.</p>
<p>Of course, I really doubt that Janet (we lost touch after she quit her job when she had her child) ever had the chance to show what she could have done in college with a 20-hour work week and no childcare responsibilities beyond those associated with her daughter, and I think that’s really too bad. If she’d had the aid Andrew got, I think she could have made an amazing life for herself and for her daughter, and been a great example for the other kids in her family.</p>