I was reading at an early age, probably because my mom always had a book in her hand. I know for sure I was reading by 3 years old. I think that most of my success at school comes from all the reading I did when I was younger.
I remember going to the library (Willow Branch) and checking out a stack of books, every time. In 1st and 2nd grade, I would always go to the library during um, holiday times as a religious non-participant. My mom got a box full of Hardy Boys books from her boss and I read through all 100 of them or so. And thus I continued my fascination with mysteries, starting first with Encyclopedia Brown. Also in 2nd grade, at the advice of my teacher, I took an IQ test. The only thing I remember about the test was an exercise where they presented you with 2 parallel lines and you were supposed to "complete the picture" So I drew a magician pulling a bunny out of the "hat" that I made out of the two lines.
(Realistic dramatization)
(I wish I could see that old test now, just for kicks.) The results of the IQ test put me at 145 (150 is considered genius) and I was integrated into the Gifted Program. I would generally go once a week to a different school with the other handful of kids and we would do stuff that exercised our brains, research projects, creative endeavors, brain teasers. I would look forward to it every week. In hindsight, though, I realize that it kind of set me apart from my classmates, not that I was much of a social person anyway, but I met some cool people, including a guy who would end up being my best friend in high school (and life)
In 3rd grade, I remember getting in trouble in class because the rest of the class was doing a busy-work assignment while I was reading a book. (Side note: in that same class, I remember the teacher tricking us into trying to split the word "rushed" into syllables.) My 4th grade teacher had a bookshelf of books that students could check out if they finished assignments early. I'm pretty sure I was the only one who took that option.
In 6th grade, I had the start of my busing school life. Yay, desegregation! This meant a 30-45 minute bus ride across town. I met another life long friend here and was my first introduction to academic competitions. We were on "Sixth Sense", a televised trivia game-show (on the local PBS station) Good times. Up through 6th grade, I was always the smartest person in the class (including at least one teacher) and I had straight A's in everything except handwriting. (I still can't draw a straight line.)
In 7th grade, I had applied to get into the new magnet school for college bound students, Stanton College Preparatory School. (It's been in the top 10 schools in the nation for 20 years) It pulled in students from all over the county, so it wasn't geographically based. (Even the busing to 6th grade was still geo-based) There, I was basically surrounded by smart people like me. Well, smart people, anyway. The classes were hard, too, much more than anything I'd had before and my grades slipped for a couple of years. I was still a good student, but I wasn't great. I even nearly failed a class in 9th grade because I hadn't turned in a bunch of lab assignments. After that, I was able to get my grades back up to around 3.5 by the end. I graduated 17th in my class, out of 108 students. My best friend from 6th grade was #1 and the one I met in gifted class was #3 (and the best friend I had a super-huge crush on was #5)
And then I went off to the university and everything crashed down around me. There are a lot of factors I could blame, but looking back, I just wasn't ready for the experience. I needed to mature a little, sort out my priorities and find a system of learning that worked for me. I did 2 years at the University of Florida, scattered classes over the years at FCCJ, UVSC, finally ending up at Stevens Henager to get my Associate's Degree in Computer Science and then onto University of Phoenix Online to complete my Bachelor's in Business and Information Systems. I did ok grade-wise in my last two place, but I learned so much from UoP (and so little at SH)
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