Welcome to Ten Days of Stealth Giftedness: A Crash Course on Incognito Intelligence

This is your guide to effectively hiding your giftedness from the world.

Kind of like being the James Bond or Jason Bourne of smart. Or both.

Like these boys.

Day 8: Grade A. Not.

If there is anything that is a dead giveaway for a gifted kid, it’s good grades. Now, those of us in the know understand that good grades aren’t necessarily the sign of giftedness. You can be highly gifted and still fail miserably at school. It’s probably considerably more miserable for your teachers and parents, but you get the idea. You can also very easily have a hard working teacher pleaser get much better grades than an apathetic gifted kid.

But it is also true that if you consistently get good grades, people will begin to wonder about you. “Is she gifted?” And so the rumor mill begins to churn. If you want to make sure that no one figures out that you’re gifted, you’re going to have to abandon your task commitment and embrace your inner “B” student like this Storm Trooper has done.

You can do it with these two simple steps:

First, you have to learn to shrug. The nonchalance of a shrug (just a simple right shoulder lift will do) conveys that the 82% you are seeing on your math test grade means nothing to you. Even though we both know you are a churning cauldron of fiasco inside. The shrug will be your cover. Practice this move:

Next, you need to learn to stop asking for extra credit when you earn a 98 on something. That’s a dead giveaway. Don’t ask for extra credit at all. Remain silent while others plead for a curve.

Remember – caring about grades will out you every time.