<p>@kkmama That is really interesting. I actually wrote an analytical essay on rhetoric that argued that the author of a text actually did not agree with what he was writing, based on alliteration, assonance, and word connotations only. It was pretty fun. But I think your story also brings up another great point- that giftedness isn’t always practical, and that being smart may sometimes-not always, but sometimes- be better (although these two categories can be vague and often do overlap).</p>
<p>Good question. What is gifted? I got a buddy from childhood who has a 170 IQ. Never finished HS, got a GED and tried college and then dropped out. He was very cynical about education. He eventually dropped out of society and currently lives in a trailer park in the desert. By the way, all of this was planned – he purposely decided to go off the map and live a life with as few interactions with corporate society and government as possible. He is brilliant, but did he use his talents to improve the world? I’d say no. Did he live life on his own terms? I’d say absolutely yes and he proved his point protesting the current world order to himself and his friends but no one else.</p>
<p>You can be brilliant, but you are not gifted until you give back. My buddy who I love dearly is brilliant. But, never gave back or used his talents to improve the world. At times I envy his engineered simplified life and how he raised some great kids on a poverty level income. He made it fun to barter and trade services. He and his wife made a trailer park feel like a palace.</p>
<p>One of my favorite quotes is from a very famous woman who I admire. She’s done quite a bit of philanthropic work (BornBrave bus) and her latest album advocated acceptance and tolerance. She also happens to be an alumni of Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Talented Youth, which I’m also in.</p>
<p>“If you have revolutionary potential, then you have a moral imperative to make the world a better place.”
-Lady Gaga</p>
<p>It is difficult to be different- hard, especially for kids, to cope with others not understanding them. Imagine yourself being forced to live with people with an IQ 30 or 50 points below yours (eg below 80 or 70), it would be frustrating. It is easiest being within two standard deviations of average so you have plenty of people who think like you do. Giftedness isn’t a matter of being able to function in society, it it can be a real handicap. We can all offer opinions here but those most interested should read the literature. Many just can’t understand how people can be so much smarter than they are- hard when it is the bright school teacher encountering the highly gifted child.</p>
<p>Sg12909, i recently ended up helping out at a marathon my daughter was competing in.
They had barely any water or snacks for the runners ( usual at the completion of a race to feed them, as well as along the way, if needed). </p>
<p>When I asked about it, the organizers exclaimed " but we have medals! For *everyone! *"</p>
<p>My retort was, " like in preschool?" ( I couldn’t help it, it just came out)
They weren’t even embarrassed.</p>
<p>Note that generally runners are at least 18, if not much older.
D is long past the stage where she needed a medal just for showing up.
:rolleyes:</p>
<p>Thanks to all who suggested reading about multiple intelligences. Quite enlightening, and I will definitely look more into the topic!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Because some kids “top out” the standardized tests usually given to their age group. If a kid is scoring 100% on tests, what is the test testing? How does one determine their ability?</p>
<p>Kids who do very well – top 5% – of the “usual” standardized test(s) for their age/grade range are sometimes offered the opportunity to take the SAT as part of a “talent search,” this to possibly open resources to them. My son took the SAT in 7th grade so he could (continue to) qualify to attend Center for Talented Youth (CTY) or other similar programs. He’d been to a couple as a younger student, loved them (they beat the heck out of his usual special education summer educational program! Yes, gifted kids can have disabilities, too.), and wanted to keep going. And he did! He liked these so much, he attended his last one after his freshman year of college (he was 16; that was the last summer he was eligible for the regular CTY summer program). </p>
<p>
I find this a ridiculous statement. You can make up your own definition of gifted if you’d like, of course, but that doesn’t mean it’s a valid definition.</p>
<p>wis75 has it right, and I absolutely agree: “those most interested should read the literature.”</p>
<p>emeraldkity, wow on the marathon; it’s horrible that the organizers thought medals for everyone were more important than the participants’ health! Not having enough water is unconscionable.</p>
<p>sg12909, as you read on Gardner’s theories, please balance that reading with criticisms of them, too.</p>
<p>But there is the metric IQ giftedness and talent I would say. </p>
<p>Being gifted (talking of the former) is incredibly exhausting. I am somewhere between 125 and 140
I think, and I can hardly cope with life. My dad is at 155, he can’t at all. I forgot who described this a few posts ago, but I see the world in a different way. To me, everything is a riddle to be solved. I see so many problems and I am constantly faced with the incredible pressure to solve them all, knowing that I won’t be able to. I skipped to grades, but still I don’t quite feel on the same level as my class mates. One of my best friends is 27, we get along very well because we share our depth of problems. People don’t understand me, and I often don’t understand them. I am hyper sensitive, feel responsible for everyone around me; I was calculating our mortgage when I was 11 and still oversee our finances. I might move out at 16, because that’s what my 19 year old friends are doing. But it’s not always easy to be different from everybody around you.
Therefore I can truly understand that friend who moved Into the desert.
If the world consists only of riddles, and you know you cannot solve them all, why should you even try? Your mind produces enough of them, and everything out there can become overwhelming. So rather than trying and having to fail, he may hide. It takes a lot I strength not to :)</p>
<p>Interesting posts everyone. My D took the SAT in 8th because she wanted to. Her scores qualified her for Duke TIP programs, the highest of the two they offer. She is gifted, according to the tests that were given to her when she was 9 y. She has a hard time communicating/relating with peers, and I think I have addressed this problem quite well. She desperately wanted to “fit” and I found a psychologist who has helped tremendously.
She definitely is different from the rest of her peers, but she is a much happier person than she was before.
I think gifted kids have an internal drive, intrinsic motivation that others don’t have. My daughter, now 13, has learned to be an advocate for her own learning, and I support the decisions she makes, under my guidance of course.
The intelligence curve goes from ■■■■■■■■ to highly gifted, and as a teacher I can tell that it is as hard to teach a gifted student as to teach a borderline student.
We just need to find the way to address everyone’s needs.</p>
<p>Lady Gaga went to CTY? I’m not actually surprised, she’s obviously very smart!</p>
<p>My kids took SAT in Middle School, didn’t study, thought it was fun. No stress. Both did well enough to be eligible for programs. The oldest went and loved them. The youngest said “Why would I want to go to school in the summer?” so he did other things (music camp, regular camp)</p>
<p>Giftedness is definable but probably not quantifiable.</p>
<p>The word probably is a source of pride to parents and gets bandied about a lot, more so than reality dictates. On the flip side, many try to water down the definition by saying we are all gifted or by adding some other more inclusive criteria.</p>
<p>I view giftedness as an innate ability limited to those born with it that allows people to advance in their area of giftedness at an accelerated pace with little sign of reaching a peak.</p>
<p>I developed this notion as someone with a S with an artistic gift. It’s easier to put your finger on when the gift is visible. He could draw and sculpt at 2 years old far better than any other 2yo. He has always tried and mastered different techniques, mostly on his own, and has not shown any sign of reaching the height of his ability.</p>
<p>Giftedness really is doing stuff the average person can not do at the same pace and reach the same skill.</p>
<p>Owlice, well I am sure they had water along the way, but I was only at the finish line, but the previous race I had been to ( which was half the size) had all kinds of water at the finish as well as fresh fruit, pizza, soup & even coconut water.</p>
<p>Re :iq.
IQ changes throughout life. It is just a measure at one point in time.
For instance, take two kids ( real example), one has been tested as having IQ of 160+.
Does very well in school, very strong writer, somewhat creative, works very hard.
Has a good job that they like, good friends, sig other, etc.</p>
<p>Other kid really struggled in school, didn’t test well. Works hard, but playing hard can also be distracting. But persistent, & has a very loud & clear idea of what is " right", and they will move heaven & earth to right wrongs. One of the most compassionate people Ive ever met.
Also constantly keeps in mind the big picture and makes connections two years before everyone else.</p>
<p>I think both kids are gifted, but while the first is gifted in ways that were more measurable early on ( reading books @ three, for example), the second kid is the one that may have a larger impact just because of their broader focus.</p>
<p>One isn’t “better” than the other, but it is an unusual school system that can teach both ( or either) well.</p>
<p>I think highly of our school system, but the program for gifted students here isn’t really worthwhile, imo. In second grade, one of my kids dearly wanted to be chosen for the gifted program - but the teacher told me there wasn’t a chance; that, in fact, if she could send 18 of 21 kids to that program, my d still wouldn’t be one of them. (Talk about a bad class rank, and in second grade yet. :eek:) The next year, the kids took their first IQ test, and my d scored a 150. She was in after that. But when her first project was assembling a portrait of a US president from fruits and vegetables, I started to question what was going on in there. It seemed to me that she got more out of reading books of her own choosing at home. I’m sure there are better gifted programs elsewhere.</p>
<p>No gifted program in our high school, just an excellent curriculum on various levels. A few years ago, there was a guy who had finished the high school math curriculum in middle school and went to the local university for math classes, winding up in the grad level classes by senior year. Now that’s gifted.</p>
<p>sorry, I posted to the wrong forum. Just deleted my post.</p>
<p>Do read about the Terman study. [Genetic</a> Studies of Genius - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_Studies_of_Genius]Genetic”>Genetic Studies of Genius - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>One of Ds best friends skipped high school after even Lakeside wasnt challenging enough.
</p>
<p>[you have to be 14 or younger to enter the program at the UW](<a href=“https://depts.washington.edu/cscy/programs/early-entrance-program/”>https://depts.washington.edu/cscy/programs/early-entrance-program/</a>)</p>
<p>I have to confess even reading the term ‘gifted’ gets my hackles up. Our school district touted its gifted program, but like frazzled above, the activities and enrichment they provided were often (and I think intentionally) bizarre, maybe to show how edgy they thought they were. </p>
<p>The kids selected for the program were not gifted by any quantifiably measurable data, they were just bright kids (usually from highly educated families) who were great readers and enthusiastic students. Not coincidentally (in my opinion), most of these kids had parents who were quite active in the school and asked a lot of questions of the teachers and administrators. </p>
<p>I (being a conspiracy theorist at heart), developed a deep suspicion that a large part of the motivation on the school district’s part to come up with a gifted program was to shut up the high achieving parents of the high achieving students. Some parents who are questioning the teaching methods of, say math, will inevitably shut up when they are told their child is gifted. As if that label is all that is necessary, and they can stop actually looking at what’s being taught and how it’s being taught now that everyone has realized how bright their little darling is. 90% of the gifted kids in my kids’ groups (including my own kids) were just hard workers and came from stable supportive families who put forth academic achievement as a major family value.</p>
<p>Obviously I have a chip on my shoulder from this anectdotal experience I had with our own school district. It does sound from other posts on this thread, that if done correctly and with the right students for the right reasons, it can be very useful. </p>
<p>Just beware, parents of kids put into gifted programs…don’t stop asking questions and advocating for teaching excellence! ;)</p>
<p>I absolutely reject any correlation between impact on society or level of social contribution and genius or giftedness.</p>
<p>There are gifted people who achieve nothing of worth to society and non-gifted people who do great and wonderful things.</p>
<p>I still think giftedness pertains to innate abilities in intellect, arts, leadership and physical talents. And maybe even psychic and spiritual gifts too.</p>
<p>Hard work can compensate for a lack of giftedness in many cases but is more of a discipline than a gift.</p>
<p>I am still chuckling about the statement made by Ds grade school principal, who said that whatever Intelligence category Gardener came up with, the school would adopt in its learning approach. At the time G was considering spiritual Intelligence. I kept my mouth shut but was dying to ask how they would incorporate that.</p>
<p>* At the time G was considering spiritual Intelligence. I kept my mouth shut but was dying to ask how they would incorporate that.*</p>
<p>Why, by having the kids make shrines in art of course! ;)</p>
<p>Although several schools incorporate yoga & or meditation into the day ( as do businesses), as well as community service projects.</p>
<p>Im thinking of teaching compassion to be as important as teaching math or reading.
[url=<a href=“seedsofcompassion.net”>seedsofcompassion.net]Seeds</a> of Compassion : Why It Matters<a href=“Sorry%20to%20get%20off%20track,%20op”>/url</a></p>