Some of the most gifted people in human history were sorely misunderstood and sometimes genius stood in the room without recognition at all.
Einstein was four years old before he could speak and seven before he could read. Isaac Newton did poorly in grade school. When Thomas Edison was a boy, his teachers told him he was too stupid to learn anything. F.W.Woolworth worked in a dry goods store at age 21, but his employers wouldn't let him wait on customers because he "Didn't have
enough sense." A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney because he had "No good ideas" Caruso's music teacher told him "You can't sing, you have no voice at all." Leo Tolstoy flunked out of college. Verner Von Braun flunked 9th grade algebra. Admiral Richard E. Byrd had been retired from the navy, as, "Unfit for service" Until he flew over both poles. Louis Pasteur was rated as mediocre in chemistry when he attended the Royal College Abraham Lincoln entered The Black Hawk War as a captain and came out a private Fred Waring was once rejected from high school chorus. Winston Churchill failed the sixth grade. Dian Fossey wanted to be a veternarian, but failed chemistry and physics at UC Davis Helen Keller was declared unteachable as a toddler, and was still mostly untrained in basic ettiquette when Ann Sullivan became her teacher. Helen became a prolific writer, political activist, movie producer, and scholar as well as learning a total of five languages. (I added this one because I believe she belongs on a list of gifted based on her writing, but if there ever was an admirable advocate, it is Helen's mother who sought out Sullivan because she'd never given up on her daughter.)
Mostly taken from the Rhode Island State Advisory Committee on Gifted and Talented site (http://www.ri.net/gifted_talented/rhode.html
It all just goes to show that shoving a child into a mold never really did do anything but frustrate the teacher and mangle the child.