All this talk about the profoundly gifted and what they need... (college, school)

[StinaTado]

The gift needs to be fostered because, as every other poster has mentioned, once the students stop receiving support, they begin to feel like an outcast and shut down. To create an environment where gifted children can just work on their own, you need to eliminate the people who cut them down (bad teachers, mean children). Nothing kills natural interest and ability like being told you're a freak.

I was very lucky- I had well educated parents who constantly pushed me because they knew I was capable of much more than other people. They constantly reminded me that being smart wasn't a bad thing and helped me find friends with similar academic drives. It was still difficult because my friends would spend hours working to attain the grades and test scores I got with minimal amounts of work. However, my friends all wanted to succeed, and that meant my intelligence was looked on as a good thing. I hated going to church because being smart was considered weird there. Nobody liked the girl who could remember every verse, every sermon, and bring it up to contest a contradictory point. I used to dread going to church because being around people who didn't appreciate intelligence made me feel horrible.

[lhpartridge]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

lhpartridge,

Could you describe the schooling you wish you'd recieved and what you do to try and make sure your students have it? What should have been done in your other classes so you would have learned? What do you do differently with your students?

Personally, I don't see too many gifted kids. I have a few who think they're gifted but I'm not seeing signs of it (they just complain that I write my tests wrong ).

I'd love to, but it will take some thought. It may not be before Christmas, but I'll get started on it as soon as I can.

My fantasy, when I first began playing with the idea of teaching, was to start my own school. It would involve three months of in-class instruction to prepare for a three-month odyssey, followed by three months of reflection and incorporation of the experiences from the trip. I had forgotten that until just now when you asked.

I would have loved to attend a traveling school. There was one advertised in the backs of the women's magazines of the 1970s. If my father had lived, he was going to allow me to choose my school. The one I wanted to attend was on a sailboat making a round-the-world trip each year. I still have a round-the-world cruise as a lifetime goal. Unfortunately, I can't afford it on a teacher's salary.

[StarlaJane]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

Given that our definition of gifted is something like the top 0.3% of the population, I doubt there are more gifted kids than we think. Pretty much 3 in 1000. Are you suggesting that our definition of "gifted" doesn't go far enough down into the standard curve? What percent of the population do you think is gifted?

Why is attention needed to foster a gift? As I've said before, I question how gifted a child is if they need someone else to bring it out. That sounds more like parents who try to create "gifted" children through elite schooling to me.

I'm actually one of those kids. If I had received more support as a teenager, I would have done better in school and at work. Instead, I was negatively labeled by both my peers and the adults in my environment, mostly b/c I got into a lot of trouble b/c I was bored. Rather than direct me towards an environment that would have encouraged my intellectual abilities, I was constantly discouraged in an attempt to make me into something that I clearly wasn't. Even today, I still have to contend with people and negative labels ("different," "crazy," etc. My father actually told me once that I "think too much" )

After finally leaving that toxic environment, I found a more supportive one where I attended a very good college, which I got into via community college and recommendations from teachers who (*sigh*) finally thought that I had potential, even though I scored very low on my SAT's. Needless to say, I graduated with honors and am now in graduate school.

I also taught for awhile and saw many kids in the same position. They didn't have access to a very good education and were not supported. Some of them didn't make it. I also had a professor in college who told me of her similar experiences: she's black and was consistently told by her teachers that she was stupid. She never had an opportunity at a gifted program, and was also always getting into trouble. She went on to attend some very prestigious schools, one from which she earned a Phd., in spite of the challenges that she faced early on. In fact, it was during her class that I read about gifted kids and the challenges that they face (and finally understood why I have had so many difficulties), and what teachers can do to encourage rather than discourage them. IMHO, a rose is a rose but it will never bloom and become a beautiful flower without the right care.

I certainly think that you have a point, though, about the overuse of the label. What I was trying to point out in my first post was that it seems that kids who are gifted are the ones who are never labeled as such. As to how many there are? It depends on your definition (I don't rely on statistics as I often find them to be inaccurate). I think that people are born with gifts, gifts that can be nurtured if identified properly early on. Whether that makes them "gifted" or not really depends on your definition.

[MissNM]

Two groups of kids should get extra support: the mentally/physically disabled and gifted.

• The averge kid has all the tools to grow up and contribute to society.
• The disabled kid needs help to develop the proper tools to contribute to society.
• The gifted kid can develop their tools to advance society.

[NYCAnalyst]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

Given that our definition of gifted is something like the top 0.3% of the population

Where did this number come from?

[qdogfball]

LH,

Thank you for trying to do what you know is best for the future of the lives that you CAN connect with.

As I put in the other thread,

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." -- Marianne Williamson

(often attributed to Nelson Mandela, who quoted Marianne Williamson in his inaugural speech)

And someday, when there are Davidson Institutes (or schools like it) around the USA.. (I pray and hope). we can say as a society that we have done well.

Profoundly Gifted Children Services and Programs by the Davidson Institute

Davidson Academy of Nevada - Reno, Nevada

Often have tried to get my wife to help me start such a school for the gifted where we live.

keep me posted LH!

[psr13]

Well, people on this board have told me since I'm not creative, I'm not gifted. However, I don't agree with it. I've said before that my sister was put into GATE school. Her score for actual intellect was my score for creativity. My score for creativity was her score for intellect. She got into GATE and wishes she were never in it. She wasn't smart enough. She agrees that I needed to be in the class. Instead I was stuck in normal classes. I did cause small amounts of trouble due to being bored. Usually when I was done with work I would just read. However, that does get old. It even gets old for kids who love to read like I did. Usually, the trouble would consist of talking to other kids. I got many needs improvement on my report card for avoids needless talking. I didn't really get into trouble for it, though. My teachers knew what the issue was, they just didn't know how to help me. My school informally broke the grades up into ability. No one really talked about it, but the smarter kids always ended up in the same class. Still, there was no challenge. It really made a difference starting in junior high. You couldn't be put into the highest level math class or honor's science if you weren't in GATE. As such, I wasn't. Luckily, my teacher was able to get me into honor's English. The next year I was also able to get into honor's science, but I couldn't get into an appropriate level math since you have to take all the previous courses. Even the honor's classes weren't challenging. I had the same boredom issues throughout junior high and high school. Instead of just talking when bored, I skipped a lot of school. I still scored 99 percentile on all the standardized tests without being there. The lowest score I ever got was 97 percentile, but it was usually 99. Due to not going to school because of the extreme boredom, I got horrid grades. I couldn't get into a good college. Now I'm having the problem with finding a challenging college. I can't get into the ones that could actually challenge me, and I'm not going to waste my money to be bored out of my skull. I finally found one that is a lot cheaper than my previous university, so I'll actually finish. I won't feel as though I'm wasting a lot of money this way. If I were challenged in junior high and high school, I actually would have gone to school. I love learning, but I can not do it in the American schools with the standard they have.

[jps-teacher]

Originally Posted by NYCAnalyst

Where did this number come from?

She means "highly gifted," or something, I presume.

[NYCAnalyst]

Originally Posted by jps-teacher

She means "highly gifted," or something, I presume.

But why 0.3% and not 0.4% or 0.5%?

[Charles Wallace]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

...has me wondering about gifted people who didn't get what they needed.

Here's a thread for you. Tell us about how not having a program for you has negatively impacted your life. What would be different if you'd had the perfect tailor made education that many here think gifted kids need?

You're asking an impossibility somewhat akin to proving a negative. It is impossible to tell what would have been different.

I can speculate, however, with some children I know, some of whom are still children, some of whom are still adults.

Difference #1:
Tailor the education to the child, not the child to the education

The child I referred to in an earlier post or on a different thread -- sorry, I don't remember -- who came into first grade reading and was paddled for "reading too fast" was ultimately put into the library every single day to do "book reports." Since she loved to read, this was a pleasure -- but when she was re-mainstreamed in third grade, her math skills were seriously lacking.

She believed all her life she was "stupid" because a) she couldn't do math well, lacking a fundamental understanding of math concepts, and b) because she did not fit in with her peers.

It is possible that if this child had been grade-accelerated or at least subject-accelerated in language arts, she would have understood that her abilities in language arts were worth nourishing. She also could have been given appropriate education in mathematics if she had not been effectively isolated from her peers for two (rather crucial) years.

2. A guy I went to school with was extraordinarily gifted. Not knowing his specific I.Q., I can only assume that he was EG or PG based on his abilities in languages, mathematics, and science. He soared above his age-peers and made everyone look stupid -- something that crucially hurt him later. His ego was quite inflated. When he got a scholarship to an outstanding university in engineering, he found that he had no skills to cope with NOT being the smartest person in the room. He had no skills to study at all, actually, because everything had always come easily for him. He flunked out his first semester.

I would think that several whole-grade skips would have brought this child into a place where he was challenged academically, where he would have had to have "worked for it," if you understand me -- not to a level beyond his challenge point, but to a level right on it. He would have learned a) to study, b) that learning often takes effort, that c) you don't always get it the first time, and d) others are smart too, not just you. Equipped with those life skills (and those academic challenges), he would have, I submit, been far better prepared to deal with life at the outstanding university out of which he flunked.

Those are just two. Speculation, of course -- and hindsight, of course. It's impossible to say whether or not a tailor-made approach would have worked better or worse in the long run, but I tend to think that when the shoe is made to fit the foot (not the other way around), we're overall much better off.