Moratorium on "gifted" and "brilliant" - Page 7

cptofthehouse · 05-06-2008, 03:54 PM

Marita, sometimes the greatest virtues are also the deadliest flaws. I know that my kids' problems are very much embedded in their virtues. Makes it very difficult to separate.

Children who are advanced academically should have a curriculum at their level. It is a waste for them to have to spend their time doing busy work when they thoroughly know the subject. It is a problem at many schools that I know, that they cannot adequately provide for such children. It is rare, however, that you come across a child who completely and thoroughly knows
the material. Also even if they know the materials, there is a serious problem if they cannot turn in assignments, follow directions, keep a notebook, take notes, keep a calendar. Those skills are important for everyone regardless of IQ, if being self sufficient is a goal. I have seen too many kids who are too smart to do any of the above skills according to their parents,when the reality is that they don't know how to do them. So what you often have are kids who would qualify for an advanced class if they would do the work, which is a big bugaboo since they just don't. And enraged parents who say the work is beneath the child. We are not talking about the child who is truly far advanced and can and will do the work in an environment that does not bore him to tears, but children who are just bored if any part of the curriculum does not interest them. These kids outnumber the truly advanced kids by a lot. They are a problem we have yet to learn to address. It is a waste their potential because most of them do have the ability to high level work, but if it has to be selected and hand fed to them, it is not going to be a useful endeavor. They need to learn to do the mundane things if they are not able to do them.

I remember one young man who was truly brilliant, in streaks. Oh, how brilliant he was as an elementary school child. And middle school was such a waste, and he did poorly in high school because he was bored. Well, he did get into a college early without finishing highschool, and could not do the work at college either. He suddenly was not so brilliant. Kids with SATs much lower than his, who were plugging along were doing the work, but he could not. He was not used to having to read difficult material thoroughly, not just pick out what interested him. He rarely completed assignment, and that was just fine with the college, but if you don't do all of the assignments in a difficult course, you may flunk that test and the course. He did not turn in those boring assignments for so long that he could not do them when he had to do so. This is unfortunately not a rare happening. Tragic in this case, because he dropped out of college and does not have a highschool degree either. When he gets one, it'll be his GED. So this bright young thing, not only did not get through college, it looks like he is a high school dropout. The mother still goes into rhapsodies of how brilliant, gifted, talented, quick minded, etc he was. How he invented this, and discovered that and learned whatever all on his own. Well, he could not get through a year of college. He has problems with his checkbook and all other kinds of accounting as well.

I know this syndrome well, because I have kids who fit it. I do make them go through some factory floor exercises because I want them to be able to do this stuff if they have to. My oldest has organizational issues up the whazoo, but he knows that they are HIS problems which is a big first step in resolving them. Some of these kids don't understand what it is they are missing, as smart as they are.

For all the years that we have had gifted and talented kids, you would think that the schools would know how to teach them. I find that many of the programs are not that beneficial and are there to satisfy the parents who want those kids recognized and tracked some way or the other. Fortunately, most of those kids are smart enough that they are going to do well anyways. But the ones who can't toe the line, are really a problem that we really should be addressing. We have not gone too far beyond the old dunce cap and corner, and still have a lot of wasted intellect. But I think the waste is not because we are not teaching the right way, but we are not able to teach some of these kids the skills that they are lacking to do the mundane part of learning.

alwaysamom · 05-06-2008, 04:00 PM

MSUDad, most programs for academically gifted children are at the elementary school level. This isn't a question of keeping "him in that class and instruct(ing) him to turn in the assignments, because sometimes life is boring, but you still have to perform." This has nothing to do with laziness. I think most would agree that educating kids is part of preparing kids for 'real life'. Why is it wrong to try to prepare ALL kids in the best way possible? What is it that is preferential about providing academically gifted kids a program which is suited to how they learn? In our experience, there was no added cost to educating the kids in the program. Maybe it's done differently where you live? Are there additional costs to your school board?

vicariousparent · 05-06-2008, 04:00 PM

Ideally, we recognize that every single child has a unique set of gifts and talents and needs to progress at his or her own pace- fast, slow, or average, in reading, math, music, athletics. Ideally, therefore, we would have individual private tutors who teach exactly according to the needs of the child. This would ensure that every child learns every day and is neither bored nor overwhelmed.

Totally customized education. Who pays?

emeraldkity4 · 05-06-2008, 04:20 PM

We recognize that every adult employed by school system has natural gifts and while some may have advanced degrees in areas not usually seen in our school system, from rigorous schools, we aspire not to show bias or favoritism, so we will financially reward a teacher whose students nominate her for national teacher of the year, who puts in long hours off the clock in order to achieve higher standards in her classroom, identically to a teacher whose students don't have to work for their grades, arent' prepared to move on and who is just putting hours in until retirement.

I also ask " Who pays"?

My daughter has had both kinds of teachers in the public school system
( and ironically, private school teachers receive lower pay than public- of course the money goes toward lower class sizes instead of teacher pay- something that we passed an initiative to do, however we allow school districts to allot more money for teacher pay and training, rather than for hiring, so the class sizes have stayed the same.)

I can tell you who pays.
The children who aren't taught what they need to know to enter college or get a job.
The parents who have to hire tutors in order so that their children can reach grade level, so they aren't held back again the next year.
The teachers who attempt to make up in their classroom, what the kids should have learned the year before.

3xcharmed · 05-06-2008, 07:17 PM

The majority of students fall within a standard bell curve and are often challenged by the standard curriculum. Some within the curve can use a little more challenge, some less, but the majority of that group will do well enough to get through high school and furthur their education if so desired (and in high school the motivated kids can find plenty of challenging classes to take). The issue is the 3-5% (+/-) on each end of the bell that need individualized programs to assure them a resonable education. To hire a teacher for 3 or 4 gifted children doesn't fly financially, so they fill the program with 25 students and suddenly the 3 or 4 who need help, are not getting it (and therefore dissappointed parents). The same is true on the other end of the spectrum. Every child that suddenly needs to be evaluated because a parent (not the teacher) thinks they should be doing better in school takes valuable resources away from the kids that really need the help. Public schools do the best they can with the financial resources they have, and if you are in a public school system you should recognize that as a reality. If your kids need help, hire a tutor or enroll them in a special classes. It is worth the investment.

marite · 05-06-2008, 07:40 PM

cpt:

Everything you say is true. But whose fault is that that a child who is advanced becomes an underachiever and lacks the study skills to thrive in college? This is precisely the scenario that I sought to avoid for my S.
I personally don't believe in the redeeming value of meaningless, repetitive work. I saw first hand the risk that a bored child would acquire bad habits but also become a disruptive presence in class because he could blow off the assignment in a fraction of the time it took the rest of the class.
We were lucky that some--not all--teachers recognized that he needed to be radically advanced. Once he was, he never complained of being bored or being given meaningless assignments. If he had not been advanced, I doubt he would have seen the value of keeping track of due dates, turning assignments in, and so forth. In challenging classes, he actually wanted feedback and he performed much better than in the unchallenging ones.

Keshira · 05-06-2008, 08:16 PM

Quote:

Yes, you can say superior in certain respects, perhaps in many respects. But not superior human beings. It may be a subtle difference but I think it doesn't take a lot of smarts to see that it is a vital difference.

But what characterizes a human, that makes it superior as a being compared to other animals? I thought it had a lot to do with cognitive function, the difference in the way we think...

Hunt · 05-06-2008, 08:37 PM

"Ideally, we recognize that every single child has a unique set of gifts and talents and needs to progress at his or her own pace- fast, slow, or average, in reading, math, music, athletics. Ideally, therefore, we would have individual private tutors who teach exactly according to the needs of the child. This would ensure that every child learns every day and is neither bored nor overwhelmed."

Obviously, that is an unachievable ideal. The fact that it is not achievable doesn't mean, however, that we throw up our hands and say, well, let's just try to find one size that fits most. Maybe we can't have a hundred different teaching approaches, but maybe we can have ten, or six, or three, at least.

cptofthehouse · 05-06-2008, 08:41 PM

One of the things school teaches is how to learn when you are in a group setting. If you are tutored all along, it may be difficult to transition to taking notes and sifting through info from a group lecture or class. This is a skill you learn from school. That is something that is difficult to teach in a homeschooling setting, I know. My neighbors who homeschooled would take their kids to lectures to teach them notetaking techniques. When you go to college or to work, the lack of someone hovering over you can be a problem. Not all kids adapt easily. And you do have to teach some kids how to learn and they have to practice.

scansmom · 05-06-2008, 08:43 PM

I came across an interesting paper on this very topic...

Quote:

Educational setting has been found to have an important effect on a gifted child’s self-perspective. Jin & Moon (2006) find that high-ability Korean adolescents in science high schools had higher levels of satisfaction with their school life than their peers in general high schools. The conclusions are supported by research by Robinson, Reis, Neihart & Moon (2002), who find that placement in a school environment with insufficient academic challenge and inappropriate peers to be an important determinant of social and emotion problems in gifted youth.

Other causes have been suggested for underachievement. Reis & McCoach (2002) produce an extensive review of causes for this happening, including environmental causes and factors within the individual. The environmental causes they cite are:

-chronically underchallenging, slow-moving classroom experiences (Whitmore, 1986), or moving from a regular classroom to an appropriately challenging one (Krissman, 1989);
-peer pressure to confirm to ‘regular’ norms, to ‘be like everyone else,’ which may be intense for students from underrepresented minorities (Diaz, 1998; Ford, 1992, 1996);
-loneliness, isolation from classmates and the educational enterprise (Mandel & Marcus, 1988, 1995); and
-family dynamics (family conflict drains energies; parents’ centering on the underachieving child masks other conflicts; (Green, Fine & Tollefson, 1988); family has too-low, too-variable, or too-rigid expectations (Rimm, 1995; Rimm & Lowe, 1988).

Individual factors leading to gifted underachievement include:

-internalizing issues, depression, anxiety, perfectionism, failure-avoidance, low-self-esteem (Bruns, 1992; Mandel & Marcus, 1988; Supplee, 1990);
externalizing issues: rebelliousness, irritability, nonconformity, anger (Bricklin & Bricklin, 1967; Bruns, 1992; Rimm, 1995);
unrecognized learning deficits that interfere with learning/performance (Vail, 1987);
nontraditional gifts (e.g. spatial reasoning) that do not fit teacher’s expectations (Gohm, Humphreys & Yao, 1998);
deficits in self-regulation: disorganization, impulsivity, attention deficit (Baum, Olenchak & Owen, 1998; Borkowski & Thorpe, 1994; Krouse & Krouse, 1981; Schunk, 1998);
maladaptive strategies, such as failure to set realistic goals (Van Boxtel, Herman W. & Monks, 1992), short-term rather than long-term coping strategies (Gallagher, 1991); and
social immaturity (Whitmore, 1980) or overemphasis on social, as opposed to academic, pursuits (Mandel & Marcus, 1988; Van Boxtel et al., 1992).

While specialized education for the gifted may not be able to ameliorate all of these factors, they can and probably do help address some of them. Ultimately, as explained by clinical child psychologist Maureen Neihart, “We improve when we work at the edge of our competence, not when we stay in our comfort zone” (Ulene, 2006).

web.syr.edu/~ryyeung/gcq.doc

marite · 05-06-2008, 09:30 PM

cpt:

One of the things my S learned in group work was that he did 3/4 of the work and learned a lot from doing the work. The others 3 kids? Not so much. He never minded because he enjoyed learning.
My S was only tutored for AP Calc. For other advanced classes, he was either in AP classes or college classes.

wis75 · 05-07-2008, 02:19 AM

Thank you Northstarmom for the GT definition! I just scanned the posts, it is amazing how ignorant people can be regarding giftedness (or call it by any other euphamism, we have a lot for retarded, the name doesn't change the condition). A differentiated curriculum is ideal for every student, unfortunately there isn't the money to do so (don't get me started on the enormous expense to value ratio for the other end of the Bell curve...). The gifted ARE different, and vary as much as the retarded. Read the GT literature, people, before you make statements. I could rant some more- but let me leave you with this- would you like your at least average child to be forced to do the curriculum of/at the pace of a child with an IQ of 70? That's the same IQ difference for average to low end gifted.

vicariousparent · 05-07-2008, 05:20 AM

>>>But what characterizes a human, that makes it superior as a being compared to other animals? I thought it had a lot to do with cognitive function, the difference in the way we think...>>>

Keshira: What makes humans superior over animals in my opinion is that they are the same species as me. Others have religious reasons for believing in human superiority over animals.

It is a very slippery slope to say that smarter people are "superior" to less smart people. We have another ongoing thread about prioritizing scarce medical care in case of a pandemic. Assuming we could do it, would you favor factoring peoples' intelligence in that triage process? Would you favor a supersmart dolphin above a slow learning human? I wouldn't.

Hunt: I did not mean to say that we should not have special programs at both ends of the normal spectrum. Tracking by abilities is fine with me. But I think we have to be mindful of the fact that there is a limit to customization.

marite · 05-07-2008, 05:51 AM

Quote:

Ultimately, as explained by clinical child psychologist Maureen Neihart, “We improve when we work at the edge of our competence, not when we stay in our comfort zone” (Ulene, 2006).

That should be the motto for the education of all children.

LACscience · 05-07-2008, 06:01 AM

A book I find really helpful to learn more about the characteristics of giftedness and learning disabilities or other differences such as ADHD, Aspergers etc is: Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults: Adhd, Bipolar, Ocd, Asperger's, Depression, And Other Disorders (author, Jim Webb and others). The book shows how the characteristics of some disorders are the same as gifted characteristics and helps the reader to sort through them. The book helps to understand twice exceptional people (2E) those both gifted and with learning or other differences. Another resource I find useful is the organization AEGUS (Assoc for Education of Gifted Underachieving Students). They have an annual conference. I also dislike the term gifted and prefer high ability but it is the term used internationally in the academic and medical literature so we are stuck with it for now.