If you were shown to be intelligent enough to be bumped up a couple of grades, you were also intelligent enough to choose the most appropriate language for your audience. If people furrowed their brow at "nodes", "miners" and "Byzantine fault tolerance", degrade gracefully to the a simple story of the "Two Generals Problem."
That pattern doesn't work for everything, but it certainly works for anything you would have been talking about in the 4th grade.
Intelligent kids tend to not be observant with respect to other people's reactions. This is why nerds and geeks were social outcasts (until the terms got rebranded). This lack of awareness doesn't mean they aren't intelligent, it means they're kids. Gaining the kind of emotional/social intelligence ot not geek out like that, or to learn to change your language, requires socialization and experience.
All kids tend not to be observant wrt other people's reactions. The ability to communicate with a broad audience at a young age is itself a sign of intelligence.
My point is that OP was treating the "big words" dismissal merely as a signifier of intelligence. It's also a signifier that one lacks the ability to communicate clearly with others. That's hardly a revelation wrt 4th graders, but it's worthy of reflection at whatever age the OP happens to be now. I know plenty of people who enjoy wearing that inability as a fashion just as people now buy designer "nerd glasses."
If you were shown to be intelligent enough to be bumped up a couple of grades, you were also intelligent enough to choose the most appropriate language for your audience. If people furrowed their brow at "nodes", "miners" and "Byzantine fault tolerance", degrade gracefully to the a simple story of the "Two Generals Problem."
That pattern doesn't work for everything, but it certainly works for anything you would have been talking about in the 4th grade.