promoted by BooMan
For the longest time we had absolutely no idea.
When she was 16 months old she turned her hand over and over in the tub and asked “Mom, what is there in water that makes it wet?”
We thought that was cute- and took the time to answer her.
When she began read Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? we were thrilled! Our family has always enjoyed books. No biggie if she was just under 2.
She spent one day asking us about everything that burned. We tired of listing specifics, so when she asked again at supper we said “Things that come from plants.” She took one look at her peas and corn, then dove under the table- thinking she might combust if she ate them.
We began to look up and realize this was not the experience other parents seemed to be having. In fact, parents began to look at us like we were some sort of flashcard carrying pushers. Ha!
When we took her to the park she was disturbed by the entropy of gravel on the slides, so she took along her little broom to organize the park. We got some serious sideways glances for that!
At 4, she asked a lady at Barnes and Noble to step aside a bit so she could get to a thesaurus. The lady moved, startled, then visibly jumped when our daughter thanked her for “acquiescing.”
We had to cancel the newspaper at 3 because the headlines distressed her. She read Jonothan Kozol’s Illiteracy in America at 6.
This was our normal daily life, and her behavior was completely accepted in our house for being who she is. I have hundreds of such stories.
Then she was old enough that she started to move out of the sanctuary of our home and into the world.
She took a copies of Poisonous Plants in Your Home and Contagious Diseases: Lyme Disease and Malaria to the before school program. Parents subjected her to so much scrutiny that she began to hide under tables to read- and would refuse to answer when anyone asked what book she had.
We looked for friends. Not much in common with the other 5 year olds, so we became an even stronger family.
Then we got “the call”. It seems the preschool teacher thought our daughter was a sociopath because she once pushed a child out of the way for a drink, and (GASP) refused to count beads with the other kids.
And she refused to listen to directions all the way through.
This is a teacher who knew she was coming to math theorems on her own- “Mom, if you add any 2 even numbers or any two odd numbers the answer is always even.”
So we had her tested. The results of the test are hers alone, but I will tell you she is many standard deviations away from the norm.
The school didn’t care. They were worrried about her making friends with a peer.
Peer? Find me a peer with the same interests and we’ll run with it.
They were worried that she didn’t have any friends. That was the end-all of life to them.
So we left. I ended up homeschooling her in my classroom, where parents and children alike made her feel strange (not in front of me, mind you. That’s where sandblasting would come in.)
I had school administrators call her a freak.
She began to hide her work- even the books she read because she didn’t want to be different. All my low key years of acceptance were crushed under mass socialization. She crumbled- at 5.
What can you do when schools and common culture kill your children?
We moved to a state where we have family support and good colleges. I gave up my job to homeschool her- and try to bring back the joyful, intriguing child I love.
One year later-
She’s back. Now, instead of hiding, she proudly proclaims her desire to be a volcanologist- and archaeologist. She has a 2-3 year plan to get into a top college and study geophysics.
She sees every day that this society does not value intelligence- especially in women- but we purposefuly drown out the message by surrounding her with witty, well educated adults.
And horses. I can’t forgt the horses.
Thank you for welcoming me to Booman.
Let me know if you’d be interested in more sagas. This barely scratches the surface.
Please tell us more stories. Raising clever daughters in this world is hard work, and we have to help them to overcome the obstacles.
OK- I’ll do more diaries.
Here’s a story just for you.
One day it dawned on my daughter that libraries have books on parenting skills. It also came to her that if she had access to those books she could give her parents job eveluations, as well as forestall any psychological “manipulations” we might want to do.
Thus began the great chase. Me, to keep her away from such books, and her to get them. (Mind you, she’s 6 at this time.)
Say we would go to a friends’ house. She would saunter off, very casually, to scan through their bookshelves. We found my husband’s education manuals hidden under her pillow, dresser and chair cushions. I saw her on the web looking at parenting sites.
Finally, with a great show of giving in, I gave her some manuals on parenting children- but always ones that addressed children at least 2 years younger.
She knew it was a farce- but we both saved face.
I’m beginning a Psy.D program in clinical psychology this fall. Lately I’ve been putting a lot of thought into where I want to go with the degree. The notion of working with gifted children is one that has interested me from the beginning, and I’m curious as to your thoughts on the this idea.
Throughout grade school and high school, I took part in gifted programs that helped me meet people with similar situations and explore my interests. I value those experiences as they helped me develop creativity and “critical thinking” skills. Your diary hits on the anti-intellectualism that is running rampant in our country these days. Do you think a clinical psychologist could specialize in working with gifted children and do you think it would help?
I strongly believe in helping these exceptional children embrace their gifts, while also providing support in terms of dealing with all the societal and institutional problems that can arise. Hopefully this is something I can pursue with my degree, and I’d like to hear your thoughts as well.
I’d be incredibly interested in more stories – please do a series, by all means!
What an amazing experience for all of you. I’m sorry to hear about the behavior of outsiders, but it would be so hard for others not to be in awe – and in turn, inadvertently treating your precious little girl like a novelty. I can’t imagine the pain you endured when she withdrew – I was aching for you as I read the words.
Thank you so much for posting the diary. (Oh yeah, plus this additional anecdote that I’m inadvertently barging in on. Oops) Most of all, I was so delighted that your story has such a beautifully happy ending.
Blessings to you and your dear family.
I just adore your daughter. š
Thanks, Sandblaster, great story. We’d love to hear more.
I missed your diary because I was gone yesterday, and haven’t read all the posts. But I am thrilled you are NOT subjecting her to the public school system.
Since I vividly recalled the boredom of school when I was a child, I explored all alternatives. My daughter was tested at age 2 by a psychiatrist and was the youngest child ever placed in a private school for gifted children.
Her first two years there were wonderful. She had a magical teacher who catered to the gifted children’s idiosyncracies. The next two years didn’t go as well, and it was horribly expense, even though she was given a scholarship.
We tried the public school in a nice area of Seattle. Not good. Etc., etc. Finally, I just let her stay home a lot. I could have been arrested for truancy so many times (!). She never spent a day in high school, and I think that that’s good. She did go to another private school in her high school years, but it was very relaxed. The kids took classes in Philosophy, Buddhism, Debate/Public Speaking, etc.
She is 23 and still hasn’t gone to college. This drives my mother nuts. But she has no desire to go to college now, is working and has been a big success in marketing and Web development.
She reads voraciously, and so is very adept intellectually. She’d read all the Russian classics by the time she was 13. Lately, she’s been reading books about Africa and all of Malcolm Gladwell’s books.
I am thrilled you have such a fascinating child. It is marvelous to watch them grow and change.
One of the biggest things I had to learn as a parent was to see who my child is, not who I wish she’d be. That she didn’t crawl until 13 months, even though all my friends’ kids were crawling at 6 months … it was OKAY. No biggie. Etc.
Another thing I had to learn was not to be shocked by my child’s requests.
While she was in third grade, the movie “Hoffa” came out. She saw the TV ads and begged me, repeatedly to take her.
I ended up not censoring what she watched on TV or what she read.
that there are teachers of the gifted that specialize in meeting their needs.
A child such as yours would have the room to grow if she were my student. I work closely with parents, considering my partnerships with them to be of utmost value.
Please don’t make sweeping generalizations about public ed- we have enough to be down about these days. Although I know this is your experience, it simply isn’t true for a lot of other schools.
There are corporate interests who’ve worked hard over the last 30 years to have the public believe otherwise.
Sadly, it seems it’s our society (or a large portion thereof) that’s anti-intellectual, not our “age”.
As I previously noted in a dKos diary in February, the U.S. youth culture has an apparently unique aspect we could well do without:
I have a gifted (though perhaps not ultra-gifted like your daughter) son who has just started kindergarten (via “Kamp Kindergarten” summer school). Despite our never having talked to him about this, he came home and told me that he didn’t want to engage in the “prayer” they recited at school. After digging for some more explanation (the hand-over-heart and “under God” made it more clear) I realised he meant the Pledge of Allegiance. I was so proud–chip off the ol’ block, and then some! (I used to get in conflict with high school teachers about my refusal to say the Pledge, but I was an unthinking conformist at his age, I fear.)
So I sent off an email to his teacher (who is very nice, so it was carefully couched) explaining that the Supreme Court had ruled in 1943 that no student can be required to say the Pledge. He reported that she came over and had a talk with him and reassured him that he didn’t have to say it. But of course, it remains to be seen what the social ramifications may be down the line, as here in the rural “heartland” that is some pretty pinko stuff! LOL
Alan
Maverick Leftist
There is no place for a gifted child in any public education system. Glad you got her home where she can learn at her own pace, and have family around. Good family support means no pre-conceived notions, always welcomed. Let us know when she graduates from that Ivy league college at, what, 12?
> There is no place for a gifted child in any public education system.
Why such the broad brush? Clearly, in this case, the structure in place did not encourage the natural abilities of Sandblaster’s daughter.
But that is not the case at all public schools. My brother and I went to one that didn’t do this — we were encouraged to work as hard as we wished, read what we wished, nerd out as much as we wished. We took classes with students many grade levels above us.
I submit that this school was unusual (it was an experimental K-12 program, one that my mother helped set up, within the school district). But it WAS a public school.
I can address this is a future diary, if you’d like, since it is Far to long a saga for a comment! Let me just say I compressed 2 years there, my husband teaches with a specialty in gifted ecucation, and we researched our options very seriously before taking the huge step of quitting our jobs and moving to another state.
Excellent question- and it anticipated my next diary. Points to you.
I’d love to hear about it. Being the daughter of a teacher (and engaged to one, too), education issues always fascinate.
I have the utmost respect for people who take as much interest in their child’s welfare as you and your husband have. But I will be very honest when I say that I am a deep, deep homeschool skeptic. From experiences interacting with homeschooled kids and teaching them at university. But I keep an open mind, because each situation is unique. And it sounds like your daughter is much more comfortable, and growing, than she was before.
Let me say, right off the bat, that there are quite a few home schoolers that have given this a bad name. I was a teacher too- and saw some unfortunate results. But not all by any means.
We are fortunate to be highly educated and able to make this decision for the family, but I worry for parents who haven’t had the same opportunities we’ve had who have kids with similar needs.
I look forward to your insights!
that it’s so awesome having a discussion and not fighting. If I had posted my skepticism on any other blog, somebody would’ve ripped me a new asshole.
Instead, here, we can learn from each other. What a novel concept!
Good luck with your daughter! Depending on what she’s interested in, I may be able to suggest some science-themed books. I get bales of review copies at work.
I was thinking the same thing! I used to have to brace myself to read responses- and I never would have written this anywhere but here.
That said, we love resources!
RIght now she’s into archaeology- wondering about the 100,000 year overlap between Neandertals and Homo sapiens in the Middle East.
She also is into fairies. But I think we’ve got that one covered!
On that note, I’d be really interested to hear what types of problems you’ve run into. I have very limited knowledge of homeschooling – only knowing three families who do so. In all three cases, the parents are highly intelligent individuals who are very much engaged in providing the best education available – and working very hard in the process.
Having seen only the positive side of it, please do share your observations from the other side of the coin.
Thanks!
Thanks for the curiosity. I am brain dead right now (we just sent the mag to the printers, and that’s a strenuous process) so I won’t be able to respond to this until Monday or so.
Perhaps I’ll save it for the next diary…
Have a great weekend!
Have a great weekend yourself – I look forward to your perspective.
But first – I need to explain an important site rule to you. You’re not allowed to post anywhere else until you respond to my inquiry. (Well, okay, that’s my own little rule, and I guess I just kinda made it up on the fly right now cuz with all the new people, Booman wouldn’t have time to monitor those of us who choose to make up our own rules under the radar :^).
Kidding, of course!
(Yes, there’s the site welcome wagon with Diane101, Shirlstar and the gang. . .and then there’s me. Just out randomly hazing the new folks.)
But in all seriousness, I look forward to hearing from you. Bye!
I graduated from college last year, and I have two little sisters- 8 and 11 years younger than myself. Because of some behavior problems they were having at school, my parents asked me to homeschool them for a year. I can attest to you skepticism; my father is a chemist, and I studied the social sciences, and between the two of us we barely kept our heads above water. Their finals are next week, and I’m confident that they will do well, but… what a year. It’s a relief to know that they’ll be rejoining their public school next year.
We were successful under some rather particular circumstances. We’re a relatively nerdy family to begin with; my dad is a scientist who has no qualms about bringing his ‘toys’ home; we rejected almost every religious textbook we saw (impressive, because my parents are very conservative Christians); we have tons of homeschooling cousins and friends for advice and shared activities; and our school district is very supportive of homeschoolers. Without those conditions having been met, I can’t imagine what we would have done well this year.
For every decent homeschooling family I’ve met this year, I’ve also met three or four families who homeschool because they are afraid to let the ‘secular liburl educrats’ get their slimy tentacles into their poor innocent children. I’ve met many couples with only highschool degrees trying to teach highschool material, and not understanding it themselves anymore. Not only do the kids not learn the material, but they don’t learn to value their education; if mom and dad don’t think it’s important, why should I?
Worse, the books from Bob Jones Publishing, which are standard for Christian conservative homeschoolers, are horrifying in their lack of content. My 6th grade sister, who loves social studies, was thrilled about a Bob Jones book we found on world history; we didn’t use it, because about a third of the book was spent explaining that the residents of such-and-such country were mostly going to hell because they weren’t clones of American fundamentalists. (That’s not a made up number. We measured the text at random intervals as a geometry assignment.)
This is getting really long, and I need to get school started, but I want to ask the question that prompted all this writing before I go: why, in areas where Christian fundamentalists control the school system, do liberal families not homeschool their children? I’m not familiar with all the issues in Midwest and Southern schools (we live in upstate NY), but it sounds like the kids are being indoctrinated with fundamentalism. If your kids are in this situation, how do you counteract it at home?
“For every decent homeschooling family I’ve met this year, I’ve also met three or four families who homeschool because they are afraid to let the ‘secular liburl educrats’ get their slimy tentacles into their poor innocent children.”
Last year, I pulled my older son out of school because of a horrendous teacher conflict that I won’t bother to go into here. While we were happy to have such an active homeschooling group in our area, I soon got tired of hearing “What church do you belong to?” followed by a disapproving look when it became apparent that I was one of those “secular librul educrats” who was homeschooling for reasons other than God.
It was an eye-opening experience. I think my son learned quite a bit (in less time) here with me, but I was happy to send him off to middle school this past fall.
Kudos to you for teaching your sisters!
I can’t even imagine what the response would be here if we said we weren’t homeschooling for religious reasons. We all do attend church, though, so we never had to get into that argument.
I did hear two ladies having a conversation about a United Methodist family that was homeschooling, and how they were probably doing a poor job of it because they were obviously liberals. Because of course, conservatives are better educators… that’s why the teachers unions are filled with Republicans. </snark>
Why such the broad brush?
Because even GATE/TAG (gifted & talented) programs are not designed for a child I’m assuming is a prodigy. (Damn, should have wrote that in the first place). I’m not denigrating public ed, sorry if that was the impression.
Yeah, that is the issue. The psychologist told us those programs would in no way meet her needs.
I do think they are essential and should even be expanded across the country.
In reality though, NCLB means all children fed the same pablum.
but has become much, much worse because of it, as the schools desperately focus on getting as many as possible over the bar (minimum).
Saw this story on C-SPAN about Utah:
Good article here [Assessment Reform-L list]. Apparently Utah is not alone, and that’s a good thing.
But that is not the case at all public schools.
one that my mother helped set up,
I think you just answered your own question.
My niece has had the same reaction. She scored a perfect score on her MCAS two grade levels above her and NO ONE in the school reached out to her. My sister finally got her in the John Hopkins Distance Learning gifted programme.
Now I wondering if she had been white and male… if someone would have noticed.
My favorite story is that when she was in kindergarden she taught her teacher how to use the “new” computer.
There was one school she when she was in second grade that had gifted kids in the same class as “challenged” kids to create a synergy. At first she enjoyed “teaching” then she just got frustrated because she could not understand…why these kids could not understand.
the father of one of my students this past year works in that program. As a result I was approached and asked if I woudl be willing to teach AP Govenment for them online … I declined, primarily because I will be teaching AP Government for the first time this fall, and I’d like to ahve some idea of the reealities of the material and preparation for the exam before I’d take on the additional responsibility for doing it online.
I had a number of long electronic discussions before deciding not to do it (or I’d be starting right now). I know that my own teaching is probably more ffectgive because of the trouble I take to get to know my students more boradly — in a school, I have the further context of talking with other teachers, of observing how the student itneracts with others, of knwoing about the activities in whichs tudents participate — in some cases, I may even coach the kids I teach. There is less of that available in an online environment. I was also concerned because a lot of what I do in my lcassroom is work with the kids on itneracting with one another, of learnhing hwo to learn form and teach one another. I got some agreement about setting up discussion rooms for the kids to be able to share, and I’m sure it will be of some value, but it is still not the same.
I ahve some sense of the difference. When I was working on my doctorate in educational policy, one required course for all the grad students was in educational philosophy. After the 3rd class, the professor through me out. Let me explain. I minored in philopshy in colelge, I was at that point in my 5th years of teaching, and I had already read widely in educational philosophy becausae it interested me. Most of the other students were fresh out of undergrad, and the one other doctoral student had never taken a philosophy course. The prof pointed out that if I spoke it was hard for me not to “freeze” the room, and if I didn’.t, I would be bored out of my mind. He had me do the course electronically, doing more reading, and communciating strictly via email, w/attachments. While it gave me ar better control over my time, I still missed some of the interchanges — even though I might ahve been older, more expeirenced, and mroe knowledgabel, that does not mean that I could not have benefitted from the insights of others.
Sometimes my biggest challenges are very birght, even prodigious, students, who ahve never been challenged by any teachers. I think of my two favorite students in the school in which I know teach. The first, T.T., by the end of the 2nd week was getting 94 and 95 when none of her classmates was getting above a 90. Now, I am a demanding teacher and a tough grader, but of the 29 students in this class 25 I believe finished with final grades of A, so in saying T/ was that much birghter than the rest, it tells you how birght she was. She graduated with 13 APs, with 5’s on all exams, and with a 1550 or so on her SAT’s (and she did not take a prep course). Anyhow, at the end of that beginning period I told her that if she didn’t do more, if she didn’t go into further depth, she would be wasting both her time and mine. She lifted an eyebrow, and then decided to take me up on that challenge. I will tell you that at the end of 9th grade government, she could have sat for and gotten a 5 on the AP exam. She has just finished her sophomore year at Hopkins.
The other, L.A., I can only describe tdhis way — I was prepared to let her teach her classmates after one week. She grasped things that quickly, was that organized. She has finished her freshman year at Maryland, having turned down Duke and a coupel of other good schools largely over money — her Dad is a retired enlisted man and she has a younger borther who will overlap with her in college for 2 years.
What is important about both young ladies is that their incredible intellectual gifts did not in anyway serve as a barrier to their social relationships with classmates. At least in my class i was able to challenge them, to ahve them develop, to not have gthem bored, while at the same time not separating them out from their classmates. In T.T’s case, that was the birghtest group of 9th graders I have ever had, and she was still head and shoulders above them. They were ale to challenge themselves and yet not be resented by their peers, many of whom had been used to being superior to their calssmates in thier middle schools until they encountered these two young ladies.
Thanks for givin me an excuse to reminisce. L. A. an her roommate (also my student that year) stopped by about 10 days ago to say hi. What a delight!
Sometimes my biggest challenges are very birght, even prodigious, students, who ahve never been challenged by any teachers
My sister says that this is the first time she has actually seen her daughter do homework and study. She usually finishes her homework before she gets home on the bus.
We think that this is the first time she has been challenged.
But the real bonus of the program is that she can chat to kids her own age that understand her… she loves it.
Agree.
I’d put money on the fact that you’re twice exceptional, simply because you’ve earned your master’s degree despite being dyslexic.
What’s your history in terms of your schooling? What grade were you in before anyone figured out you had dyslexia?
This was supposed to be down-thread a bit.
Sorry.
I strongly disagree with your assessment
I am a public school teacher. I teach and have in the past taught numerous profoundly gifted children. I am quite able, even with the strictures preparing children for state tests (and next year for AP tests) to both challenge my students, and to help them develop their unique gifts. In my school I am far from being unique in doing so — we have many teachers who act similarly.
I fully accept that not very school can offer such to children — we are, out of over 20 high schools in our country (with over 130,000 students in the system) almost unique — yes, there are teachers in many other schools, but not a critical mass such as we have, nor is there a culture that is so supportive.
We do something else — we help our very gifted students learn how to get along with those not so gifted. We mix all levels in the state required health class, and in things like art, phys ed, and music. I have tuaght social studies electives in which I had students at eery imaginable level except serious special ed, and the sudents learned to work with one another, to cooperate, to value the insights even the less academcially gifted can offer. That is also part of what I think makes us unique – this kind of experience.
We win atheltics championships and academic championships. Since I first arrived in this building in August of 1998, we hae one state championships every year, this year winning 5 — girls indoor and outdoor track, boys outdoor track, girls cross country and girls basketball. We hae also previously won boys basketball and indoor track, football, and girls soccer, as well as individual titles in tennis. We have been at least to the state semifinals (and often finals) in Volleyball, Boys soccer, Baseball and Softball.
We also have won the metropolitan area It’s Academic, Russina and Latin competitions, Robotics competitions, math competitions, and so on.
We have had students graduate with 11-12-13-14 APs with 5’s on all exams. We have been able to challenge them, and to also help them learn how to get along with others.
If the public schools where you are do not offer such an environment, then you need to make a commitment to help change them. I am not saying to scarifice your child before the schools are changed. But the nature of our schools is one of the most important political, social and moral issues facing our society. One reason that I do “blog” is to keep this issue before people, in the hope, however faint, that we can change things for the better.
And I respectfully disagree with your disagreement! :^)
Before I go into detail though, may I ask if you’ve had a chance to read Genius Denied or any of Miraca Gross’ studies?
(I’nm not trying to be dismissive, just trying to find a good starting point for the conversation.)
nope
and not on my list
here I should note that I was diagnosed/ evaluated as extremely gifted when I was in kindergarten. Our school system did not beliee in skipping, but they wanted to make an exception in my case. But my mother had graduated from Hunter Collee HS at 14, Cornell at 18 and Columbia law at 21 and never really grown up. She wanted to shelter me from what she went through. Thus I was not put on the concert stage (piano) despite being something of a prodigy (I tuaght myself to read words and music by 3, by 4 could pick instruments out of an orchestra, and by around 7 could read and follow a complete orchestral score). I finally skipped 6th grade, largely because I was bored. I was not challenged until senior year in AP US history, bywhich time I had horrible work habits and did very poorly in hs (not in top 1/3 of calss), and did not graduate from colelge until almost 27 nor did I ever get straight A’s until a graduated student in my 30s.
I think I know something about being gifted, even being very gifted , and I had further experience from kids I knew at National Music Camp in Interlochen Michigan during my summers.
Feel free to disagree. That’s what makes for interesting discussions.
I am not saying that a choice made for one child in one set of cirumstances is necessarily wrong, anymore than I would say that such a situation should be universalized.
It’s fine if you (a have the time, (b) don’t need the money, and (c) have the competence to homeschool a gifted (or any other) child. For any of the foregoing reasons, such may not be an option for parents of other children. That is why I am somewhat insistent n our responsibility to improve our public schools to make that kind of difference for all chldren. That may include fighting tooth and nail (or should I say tooth and claw, since we will be red in both?) those things such as NCLB that in fact dminish what our schools can offer not only our gifted children, but all children.
I ahve some formal training in gifted education, and actually explored doing a masters in the subject at one point. Where I disagree somewhat is that I beliee that every child is entitled to develop her gifts to the fullest, and that I see children who are extremely gifted in certain ways that often schooling does not recognize or accept or affirm. I try to provide the kind of environment that does all of those things, and in my school I am far from unique.
I’m under the impression that it’s in CT and, if so, I’d like to file the information away for future reference. I’m only a few miles south of the NY/CT border and we might move in a few years to escape the very high cost of living here.
Nope
I teach in Greenbelt MD. It is a terrific school (Eleanor Roosevelt HS) in a “struggling” district (Prince George’s County — I won’t bore you with the details of the trials and tribulations of the district, but our most recent head of district (who is NOT called superintendent) had to resign, and is likely to be indicted — the FBI came and seized his computer a while back.
Our school does pretty well on things like test scores. A better sense may be from what Jay Mathews of the The Washington Post called his Over the Back Fence Survey. It appeared in the Sunday Post magazine back in April. I cut and paste the intro to the article and the material on our school and put it on my website. You can read about it Here
and yes, that is me mentioned in the article. I have taught both of the boys the parent describes, and also helped coach her athletically gifted son. According to Jay, the four teachers mentioned were mentioned most frequently and fairly often in the many contacts he received from parents and even students. I don’t quite know why my name is included. The two music teachers have national reputations, and the Latin teacher was a Disney American teacher Award winner. All four of us regularly get mentioned in Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers, but so do about 20 other teachers in the building — it is that kind of place.
So, unless you plan to move to the DC metro area, I am afraid I cannot be of much help to you.
Moving to DC is not in the cards. Your school sounds like just the kind of place I’d want my kids to attend. And from reading your posts all these months, I’m not surprised that you’re included among the “legendary teachers”.
but I must challenge the premise of your argument. You could not possibly have encountered “numerous” profoundly gifted children; by definition, there are very few of them. You have certainly taught many bright or gifted children, and also a few highly gifted children. A profoundly gifted child like the one described in this diary is worlds apart from my son, who is highly gifted, and he, in turn, is worlds apart from a bright child. (I almost gag when I used these labels, and I hate the term “gifted”, but they’re the only terms we have.) I read something once about the experience of being profoundly gifted that stuck with me. Imagine yourself, a very bright person, being in a world where everyone else had an IQ of 60. This is what life is like for the profoundly gifted, who are surrounded by the merely bright.
My son is different from most other kids. During his elementary school years he had two incredible teachers who were able to effectively teach an academically heterogeneous class. The other years were hell for him. Fortunately, he is low enough on the “gifted” scale that there are other kids like him around, one or two in each grade. One thing the special counsellor (who was hired to set up programs for the bright kids) does is to get these kids together. They differ from other kids not only in level of intelligence, but also in terms of curiousity and motivation. Even though they are talented in different fields, they quickly bond.
I couldn’t agree more with your comments about learning to respect, and to get along with, other children. If there is anything that I’ve accomplished as a parent that makes me proud, it’s the fact that my son is modest about his abilities. I’ve always impressed on him that his good mind is a gift, not something he earned or deserved, and that it brings responsibility. He actually is quite a charming and courteous boy, not at all demanding or “entitled”. He is well-liked by the other kids, although his circle of friends, which used to be quite large, is small these days because of differing interests. (Not many 12-year-olds choose to spend their time doing distance-learning math course, reading books on physics and, e.g., Ancient Greece, building models and designing car engines.)
Your school sounds incredible, and I knew already from the many diaries and posts I’ve read on dKos that you’re an exceptional teacher. But I seriously doubt that a profoundly gifted child could thrive even at your utopian school.
Yup…
I gotta agree..
My niece reminds me of Hermione in Harry Potter. Teachers have called her Miss Know it all.
and I definitely do not agree that these services are available to inner city kids.
Imagine living in a world where everyone has an IQ of 60? That’s what it’s like to be profoundly gifted? Come on… people of average intelligence have language, people of superior intelligence have language, but people with profound mental retardation don’t have language. “IQ” is not a homogeneous continuum like that. And while precocious children may exist in a rarefied atmosphere, even the most intellectually gifted adults are as stupid in some ways as they are smart in others.
I’m sorry that I have to disagree that someone with an IQ of 60 doesn’t have language. A person I worked with had and IQ of 54 and she did quite well with language and could learn if you were persistant and consistant. You have to go really low to have no language skills.
But, I have to agree with you that even the intellectually gifted can have “blind spots” because things like EQ and other forms of intelligence are not tested in IQ tests.
Then there are some that actually have very few “blind spots” that are truly rare.
let me explain
there have been years where I have had none. In the one year I taught 7th grade in Arlington I had 3, two in one class. Usually in my high school I get one or two per year among my around 180 students — while that might seem like a high number I need to explain that 1/3 of our students are admitted by competitive examination in order to attend us (our Science and Tech Magnet) rather than their home schools, and others get in on trasnfers for foreign languages (Latin, Japanese, Italian and Russian as well as the more common Spanish and French) or our strng program.
One student who might qualify at that level was a state championship tennis player, a 4.0 student in the science and tech program, and agifted french horn player. She might be marginal.
Others are prodigious in particular areas — I think of one young lady a few years ago who was an icnreidble creative writer — she went to a summer program after her freshman year with us at a College, which was so impressed they offered to admit her as a 15-year old. Now, she was not a 4.0 student with us, because she tuned out of a lot of classes. Would you agree that she might qualify?
I actually think there are more profoundly or extremely gifted students than we normallyr ecognize, but that often the menas we use to identify even those we will call gifted are too limiting. I know a young man whose very good suburban Westchseter County school district held him back and wanted to classify him as borderline retarded. He refused to take the intelligence tests the way they wanted. he had an active inner life. And when he got to one of the most prestigious liberal arts colleges in the nation, and had some control over his studies, he graduated summa cum laude.
When I taught in Arlington, I remember sitting in a meeting where we had to decide which children should officially be dsignated as GT (gifted and talented) which in theory qulified them for some supplemental services. I was arguing for kids that others on my team did not, because I was looking at things other than grades or test scores. I saw interesting and different ways of percieving the world around them, and the ability to handle new information and concepts without much guidance, and things like that.
I am rambling. Let me refocus and end. I would not say that I ahve tuaght many profoundly gifted students. I would say that”numerous” is a fair characterization. I have just finished my 10th year of teaching. I have never added up all the students I have taught. THere was one year I only taqught around 90 (in Arlington), one year only 60 (I taught them both language arts and social studies, and had two groups each for two 72 minute periods), and there were years I had over 240 — it’s complicated. There rae some I have taught more than once. If I ignore those I had in my care for only a few weeks, we are still talking about 1,500 different students. Then I have done SAT classes and tutoring, which adds another few hundred — in one class of 12, the lowest incoming junior SATs was 1400 — all 12 kids were from Thomas Jefferson HS in Annandale, part of the Fairfax County system but open to all the N Va jurisdictions with admission extremely competitive). I won’t count them, but I can easily among my own students come up with at least 10 I would call profoundly gifted. That is soemthing under or at 1% of those I have taught, and remember that for 6 of those years I was teaching in a school 1/3 of whose students wer admitted by competitive exam from a district with over 130,000 students. I don’t think I am inflating the numbers.
And given my experience with my mother, some of my own experiences (although I would not put myself quite in that category, since I do very well on most measures because of strong pattern recognition and extreme reading speed), and also my wife — yes, she was junior Phi Bete at Harvard, and a Summa. Byt that is not the measure. I will offer three. First, when we first started our relationship she was 17 and I was 27 (I knew her family) I was an honors music graduate from Haverford, and i discovered she probably knew more about Beethoven than I did, because when she ahd gotten interested as a 14 year old she had devoured Thayer’s Life of Beethoven and spent hours listening to his music. Second, she showed me a paper she had written on George Mason. I showed it to a friend, himself a Yale Summa, then head of the History Department at Haverford and himself later a Bancroft Prize winner in history. He told me it wa an amazing piece of work from a 17 year old. I then told him she had written it on her own merely because she was interestedin Mason when she was 15. His jaw dropped to the floor.
As Freshman at Harvard, she took a course in Byzantine Icon Painting with Ernst Kitzinger, then one of the two great experts (along with Kurt Weitzmann at Princeton) in the subject. The class was mainly junior and senior majors or grad students in Art History or Byzantine Studies. She had one of the highest grades in the class, the prof called her in to try to get her to major in the subject, which she did not do. When she applied for her Marshall fellowship to Oxford, he wrote her recommendation.
And let me add a fourth. Her M Litt thesis at Oxford was somewhat off the wall. She was in the faculty of English. She was actually writing about her passion, dance. Her thesis was on Macmillian’s choreography to Prokofiev’s music for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. It was longer than most dissertations, but her thesis advisor worried that it was so out of the normal bounds it might be rejected fro a doctoral degree, so she settled for the M Litt. He was one of the world’s great experts on Shakespeare. later, when she applied to a doctoral program in American Studies at George Washington, she asked him for a recommendation. He was delighted and informed her that he had always considered her the brightest student he had ever had and he had told them so.
I think I can make a distinction between gifted and profoundly gifted. You may not agree with me, but I hope I have offered enough background so that you will at least agree that I am not totally out of left field on this. I think we are often far too sparing in how we evaluate, perhaps because students too quickly learn that their unusual minds are often not valued in the early years of their schooling.
very far from it. We have teachers who really don’t belong, and we have behavior problems. I have broken up my share of fights, including between young ladies. Officially I ahve been assaulted four times, although only once were criminal charges placed — this was not a student I taught, but from an incident in the hallway. Our classes are too large, out teacher loads are too heavy — 6 classes averaging 30 students = 180 students for many teachers. The hallways are crowded, we went through this year with 19 temporary buildings, and are likely to open next year with 17.
That said — we also have a core of very bright and gifted teachers who are dedicated to what we do. I can immediately think of 4 teachers in ou science program with earned doctorates (there may be more) some of hwom prefer teaching hs to college because they can really teach. We have incredible community support, and a wodnerful PTSA. Our building administration realize that the school succeeds laregly through its teachers, and is very supportive. We have a strong sense of a school way of doing things that helps keep us somewhat sane.
We have produced our share of outstanding performers in a variety of fields. Sergei Brin, co-founder of Google, is one of ours, and his kid borhter just graduated. Cheryl Mills, the young African-American Lawyer who as assistant WH Counsel defending Clinton before the Senate is also one of ours. We have had NCAA champions in track (Suzianne Reid) , touchdowns in the Superbowl (Jermaine Lewis), grammy nominations (Kenny Lattimore, our graduation speaker this year). well-knwon actors (Martin Lawrence), lord knows how many successful scientists, writers, etc. Some of these might not qualify as profoundly gifted, others less well known clearly would.
Let me finish with this. And I promise I will finish. Every child is entitled to have all of her gifts recognized and utilized. In an ideal situation it would be possible to do in public schools. That is not always true. I fully accept that a parent must do what s/he belives i best for the child. Parents often make sacrifices to help their chidlren develop. My parents didn’t belong to a golf club because they were spending so much on music lessons for my sister (2nd seat 1st violins all-east orchestra) and me (piano and cello and very undisciplined — able to paly the Tschaikovsky piano concerto while in HS but unwilling to practice my scales). others will do it for athletics, ballet, science, entymology — whatever it is that turns on that child. My participation in this thread was in no way meant as a criticism of the diarist. I do disagree with the idea of blanket statements. I acknowledge that a profoundly gifted child may not always have intellectual equals as teachers, but that does not mean the child cannot be challenged by that teacher, at least to some level. While i do not disagree with the particular decision of the diarist, I do think we have an obligation to ensure that we try to make our schools places where it will not be necessary to remove the profoundly gifted children. After all, not all families can afford to make the kinds of commitments about location of living, who works and who stays home, that have been discussed on this thread. And I guess my real concern is that we not miss that point.
I am far too verbose today. That’s what happens with no more lessons to prepare or papers to correct!!
Have a nice weekend. I am too lazy to even spell check this. How’s that for a bad example from a teacher?
I have tuaght social studies electives in which I had students at eery imaginable level except serious special ed, and the sudents learned to work with one another, to cooperate, to value the insights even the less academcially gifted can offer.
I know this is a bit ridiculous to ask, given the constraints of this sort of conversation, but how does this work? When our teachers tried this in high school, it generally involved group work, with one ‘smart kid’ and three ‘dumb kids,’ which devolved into the ‘smart kid’ doing all the work to avoid a bad group grade. (I know ‘smart kid’ and ‘dumb kid’ are poor labels, but they accurately recreate my experience of this classroom mess.) The group work system, at least in our case, led to ‘smart kids’ playing dumb and ‘dumb kids’ freeloading, with no one gaining much from the experience.
I’m assuming your methods are better than this, since they seem to be working. Could you describe them for me (or direct me to a resource where I could read about them)?
I don’t have a “method” I am thinking especially of a Comparative Religion elective a few years ago where several students were preternaturally bright and one kid was a wrestler who in 11th grade read at around an 8th grade level. But what he had was a serious itnerest in religion — he himself went to church regularly.
In that class the kids would peridoically have to do library research in groups. Each time we changed topics, I switched groups in two ways — you did a different religion and you worked with different people. Becuase he was willing to do his fair share, the fact that he did not read as quickly as others was not viewed as a negative.
Since part of the purpose of the course was to teach people to see other religions as they saw themselves, and K. J. (his initials) was willing to share about himself and had a genuine interest in what others had to say, it workd out okay.
It seems to me the key to my teaching is that I am NOT locked into methodological approaches. I ahve to get to know my kids, to have them decide to trust me — I can be a very demanding and in some ways scary teacher. I have to demosntrate trust in them, and a willingness to get to know what makes them tick. Parker Palmer has described teaching as a series of overlapping relationships — among the students, between students and teacher, and each person (student and teacher) with the subject matter. It helps that I am passionate about my subjects, but more passionate about helping my students connect it to their own lives. I am more than willing to go off on a tangent if it represents a ‘teachable moment” – it is something real and meaningful to the students. I can always make sure they get the “required material” in some other way if necessary.
Hey, today finished my year, although the kids left after Wednesday (with many not showing up this week). I am probably not very coherent right now, and I admit to being more than a little depressed — I won’t be in front of a class again until August 22, and I miss those interchanges.
I hope this was of some value??
It was of value, and thanks for taking the time to write it.
I gotta ask, though: do you ever have to teach for a test? I went to high school in New York, and almost all my high school classes were Regents oriented. I can’t imagine having had a class as cool as Comparative Religion before I got to college. :O)
I gradatued Mamaroneck NY HS in 1963, and well remember the Regents
Let’s make a distinction. I prepare my students to be able to take tests, but I do not teach to the test. That is, my entire course in Government is not oriented towards Maryland High School Assessment in Local State and National Government, but in the process I cover the testable content from thes tate standards. The state requires them to know the details of 8 Supreme Court cases, ir equjire them to know at least anoher 11. As it happens, if the state givs them some details about a case and asks them how the Sureme Court might decidce it and why, they are likely to know how the court did decide it.
I do go through the released question — they need some practice with formats and pacing, and they alos need to know that on a mutliple choice question the tirck is not to look fo the RIGHT answer (there may be, as the question is asked, none or more than one) but rather the answer they want, by getting rid of obviously wrong answers and then taking waht stinks least.
in teaching an AP course this coming year, I have to be aware of the test, probably more so than the state test (for which they will also have to sit) since for many oner eason to take the course is to get the college credit which will depend on the score on the test. I do not “drill and kill” and I intend to enjoy myself while teaching which means we will explore topics in some depth, not just for how tey might be asked on tests.
Does that help?
Thanks again for giving me a great answer to a nosy question. It was quite helpful!
but in the Rye Neck district.
Kudos for you doing what you needed to do to bring her back, and I’d love to hear as much more of the story as your willing to tell that won’t be invasive.
I have friends with a child who’s different at a different tangent than yours, and they have had to fight tooth and nail for services from the local school system that the law clearly states that they’re entitled to. They’ve got allies in (and out) of the system, but it seems like most decision-making powers end up in the hands of people who think all children learn exactly alike, and any deviation from that is a dasterdly plot by the parents.
Unluckily for those dead-enders, my friends are stubborn, smart, and not only managed to get the law followed, but helped set up a local advocacy group to help other parents get the resources for their kids that the law says they’re entitled to.
True enough! Children are people- and as such develop differently and at different rates. Everryone should have the right to an education that fits his or her needs.
Good for your friends! Give them my best.
Different rates. Gifted students at any level are as much trouble to administrators as developmentally delayed children are – everything has to fit the magic norm.
And I think being treated as A Problem is very damaging to a child.
That haunted us for years. When I just wanted to revel in who she is, everyone kept trying to give us advice to fix “her problem.”
Make her play.
Don’t teach her- see if she levels out.
Only teach her things she doesn’t succeed in…
Blech.
I love her as is.
Been there. Maybe not that far, but close.
Where do you live?
How old is she now?
(I may have some particular ideas for you, depending on your answers.)
We sent our daughter to PEG — the down side is she came home for a couple of years after she graduated and then moved herself back East again.
But did she EVER find friends!
Google for Dabrowski & Positive Disintegration. You’ll find some helpful stuff there.
You’ll find that this one will do better if she is able to clarify her values before she finally selects a career. Since she could do anything, knowing what she cares most about can help her narrow her choices to a reasonably-sized pile
I’m a bit out of the loop now; my kids are all around 30 and the only grandchild is a baby.
If she hasn’t found them yet, start her on Piers Anthony’s Xanth series, and probably McCaffrey’s Pern novels. Both tell complex and entertaining stories, but they won’t saddle her with heavy emotional stuff.
When Taran Wanderer gets too easy, you might look into the Belgariad.
So much bad misogynist subtext in those books. Seriously. I read a couple of them a few years ago, in my mid-20s, and was absolutely horrified to find such antiquated notions of gender and sexuality. For example, the first book included what is arguably the rape of the female protagonist. It even says so in the text.
Personally, I found the Lloyd Alexander books to be good material for young readers. It has the fantasy/mythology element, complex plots, etc. But is relatively free from graphic violence. When she is older, try Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. It’s a bit too heavy for younger readers, but I think that an early to mid teen would like them.
I agree about Pullman – excellent books. my daughter discovered Terry Pratchett at age 9, and loved them. (not the childrens books, the adult ‘Discworld’ series). The great thing about pratchetts books is that the humour works on lots of different levels: it doesn’t matter if you can’t see that ‘Wyrd Sisters’ is parodying ‘MacBeth’, but enhances the pleasure if you do.
I’ve been thinking about you! Hooray!
And how amazing to find that you have had similar experiences.
As for books, it was much more difficult when she was younger. ( I did once remove a copy of “What to expect When You are Expecting, since she was three.)
We usually start our weekly library trips with a trip through the new non-fiction section, head over to animals, physics and meteorology, library science and humorous essays. Then we can go any number of places- like history of cartoons, Dawkins, anthropology…
Public libraries- in my mind the most liberal idea of all time.
great to see you too š
Fiction was the problem – and if others suggested anything, I always had to at least skim it first to check the content. Some people just didn’t get that although she had an adult reading age, she wasn’t equipped emotionally to deal with some adult themes. (One tutor, memorably, suggested a book about cats and magic – a fantasy story – because those were two of her interests at the time, and when I read it, I found there was a nasty chapter with cats being tortured shudder: given that she is/was acutely anxious, prone to nightmares,and adores cats, that one would have been disasterous)
Not for animal-lovers with active imaginations. I found it to be a really interesting novel, but it’s definitely distressing. I would have hated it when I was younger (I was a bit sensitive back then). For those looking for something totally…unusual, it’s a pretty good one, though.
Completely OT …
I’ve been wondering about you, myself, since … well, since you know what! Shew, I wondered if you ever even thought there’d be a whole branch of internet lingo based on one post!
Cheers, to you!
š thank you for thinking of me – good to see you too. You are right – I had no idea what I was starting.
Pratchett would be an excellent choice. His books are clean, but don’t shy away from nasty or bad things – he simply addresses them without going into lurid detail. He’s also got an amazing talent for building multiple levels into the story – his “Wee Free Men” books, nominally for children, are an amazingly entertaining read for adults and children both. A lot of his humour relies on cultural knowledge, which may not work so well, but might also be a good excuse for getting her to study history, mythology, and sociology.
And even without the humour, his stories are damn good adventures.
I never found that. Not that I didn’t see sex stereotyping as part of that culture–but I also saw strong women taking leadership positions to overcome it.
We did read and enjoy them – her take on the gender issue was that for the most part the main characters fought against the stereotype.
Can I put in a plug for Ursula leGuin and Tanith Lee? Brilliant writers both of them, though Lee might need to wait a couple of years.
is one of my favorite authors. She’s read the series with Ged, and I am waiting until she’s old enough for The Disposessed,
Thanks!
but again, I would shy away from those until she’s a bit older. There are some very, very heavy lessons and violence in those books. I really liked “The One-Armed Queen.”
My eight year old son devoured Pullman’s trilogy.
I’m in sandblaster’s camp. I’ve no desire to engage in a pissing match with anyone… or any sort of baked good death-standoff… but my sons have profoundly benefitted from being homeschooled. I’m sure there are exceptions and exceptional cases, but school, by its nature as an institution has a rather Procrustean nature.
Been there, done that, have the amputations to prove it. And relatively speaking, I "fit".
I reject the notion that I owe anything to the public schools that requires my subjecting my children to misery (much less me to misery). There is no moral obligation that can justify sacrificing other people on behalf of others… for some generic social good.
As for teaching children to get along with others, mine have learned that just fine. I’ve had plenty of very positive feedback from adults who’ve observed them with other kids and who have been engaged by them themselves.
The public system is simply not well designed for dealing with children who are tossing around words like "facetious" before the age of four. I’m not sure it can–that’s suggesting that something can be all thigns to all people.
We live in Colorado and she just turned 9.
Our best suppport has been through a private group, The Davidson Institure for Talent Development. (More on these amazing people later.)
One of the best things they do is get these kids together to make friends. My daughter made a friend last summer and they have remained close all year. They get to meet again tomorrow at another get- together. So yes, she now has a friend of her own!
Great resourcse-thanks.
As for clarifying her values and interests, she has been fascinated with disasters and rocks since she was 18 months old. (And of course we will support her should her interests change. No one should be locked in at 9.)
Next to the testing that showed our daughter to be PG, Dabrowski’s Theory on Positive Disintegration did as much to explain our daughter to us.
As for books, DD (daughter dear) loved Brian Jacques’ Redwall series, as well as others in the fantasy genre.
that handle this. I happen to be in one (thank God).
I have two “gifteds” and one kid who’s “only” very, very smart (a whole weird dynamic, where the poor “smart” one is left feeling stupid with a 130+ IQ).
Anyway, our district immediately identified the gifteds (the second was easier) and got them into independent GATE programs that also funnelled them into local colleges for certain classes.
The oldest basically had independent study all the way through high school while she was taking college classes. My son was able to stay in school (barely, he was very bored … and the most gifted) through high school by bulking up on college classes and concentrating on music (double gifted — took piano lessons from the age of 3).
If I hadn’t had the school district, I don’t know what I would have done. I just don’t have the temperament to home school like you seem to have done successfully. For one thing, my son’s math skills outstripped me by fifth grade and I couldn’t have coped with this strength of his. It was still difficult — the kids were bored easily and the oldest as a result became something of a troublemaker. But we made it through, thank God.
As for peers … because they were put in a countywide program, they were able to associate with kids their age who also had their strangeness, so it worked out okay.
But man, it’s a parenting experience unlike any other, that’s for sure. I’d love to hear more about your experiences in the future.
were able to get their needs met. And you are right- it is a trip like none other. I’d love to hear some of your stories.
I was a very precocious little scientist and avid reader at the age of 5. I had memorized Roger Tory Peterson’s field guide to the birds of North America, and could finger-pick most of The Nutcracker on piano.
The kindergarten teacher begged my parents to do whatever it takes to put me into private school. My folks were alarmed at the cost and concerned that I wouldn’t learn how to relate to “normal kids”.
Result: I daydreamed a lot, read under the desk, and never did learn how to relate well to “normal kids.” That came later, in a larger high school, when I finally found some friends who were on my wavelength.
Sandblaster, you are doing such great things for your daughter. I don’t condemn my parents for not taking it to that level — 1973 and 2003 are worlds apart, and they did what they honestly felt was best. But I’m still convinced that the seeds of something great in me were never quite given enough light and water, and I am sure that other gifted children are languishing to a far, far greater extent than I did. All best wishes to you and your family.
Alright, that’s it. I chuckled when the diary mentioned reading under the tables, and now you. I spent the entirety of fourth grade reading the World Book under the desk. Well, exept for the week I was suspended. Is there some kind of club for this? Does this turn out to be sort of normal? Egad!
After that, the school system didn’t quite know what to do with me. I was testing at high school levels, so they couldn’t leave me back. They considered putting me in the “special” classes, so that I could self pace, because that was the only non-standard option, but thought better of it.
Luckily there were a few other kids in similar positions, so I didn’t feel completely alone. Most of them were girls, so most of my friends in elementary school were girls. Funny, that.
Sandblaster, the really smart ones may be a handful, but they’re bound to be a lot of fun too. Sounds to me like you’re doing pretty well, and have a remarkable person in your midst.
I recall having people take books away from me… things like "African Genesis" and "Bored of the Rings"–neither of them deemed appropriate for a 9 or 10 year old… and besides, I couldn’t possibly understand the one, and the other would warp me, if I did.
The only thing worth reading in some of my classrooms–in what was, at the time, one of California’s finer public schools–was the encyclopedia, or the dictionary. Staring out the window… was generally safer.
My brother was mathematically gifted, perhaps far more than I even know. He couldn’t read yet (reading was a challenge for him, curiously), but he could add multi digit numbers in his head as fast as I could throw them at him. But the school was unable to support that talent and help grow it–and despite his trailing edge with reading, unwilling to work with that. He wasn’t far enough behind for them to address it; he had to be at the failing… falling two years behind point for them to react.
In the end, well… he’s ok. Successful. But I have that gut feeling nibbling at near certainty that something wonderful was pissed away.
I spent most of my elementary school career reading under my desk. The only time I wasn’t reliably reading under the desk was when my aunt was my substitute teacher, because she would have told my mom.
In second or third grade, I got a report card filled with A+’s, accompanied with comments like ‘attention skills need improvement,’ and ‘lacks classroom motivation.’ My dad thought it was the funniest report card I’d ever gotten; it went up on our refrigerator.
I grew up on a farm, so I knew about reproduction, but I learned about sex by reading entries in World Book in fourth grade. I couldn’t have pronounced syphilis, but I could have told you way more about it than any fourth grader should.
Been there, and it is no easier on this side of the pond. My daughter is now 19 and things havent gone smoothly. A conference I went to taught me a lot when a speaker said ‘These children don’t only think differently, they feel differently; and that is so right. I don’t want to start telling stories – it would take all night, it’s your diary, and some of it is still painful – but kudos to you for doing what is right for your child – don’t let anyone tell you different.
When you feel up to it I’d love to hear your stories. I know about the painful parts- there is much unsaid in the diary.
As for feeling and thinking differently that is only too true. We have the bonus of her senses being set on 11.
My parents got a first hand glimpse of this the other night. We were having dinner at our house when my daughter kept going on about the water. (She goes on about a number of things, and we have to let some slide in order to have lives of our own.)
Finally she goes to our schoolroom, brings out some pH strips and tests the water. 6.5. The she bring out some records she made of past water samples, all of which recorded 7.0.
Once we saw this we all tried to clear our palates to taste the tang- the very very faint tang.
As you can imagine, such sensitivities add all sorts of complications to life!
My son is not on such a steep learning curve as your daughter but he does enjoy discovering. I encourage him at all times to ask, look, touch, explore and question. Your daughter sounds like a truly remarkable and energetic human being and I am sure you know that you are indeed blessed. My daughter it appears is way ahead of her brother so far in doing the things he did as a infant and I am wondering if she is going to surpass him as she matures. I love both of my children dearly and want them to look beyond the obvious, question authority when it appears to be in error, respect all life as precious and know that they are perfect today because they are human beings. Thank you for sharing your sorrows and victory’s in raising this wonderful child who seeks knowledge and enlightenment.
Your children are tremendously fortunate to have such a grounded, accepting, insightful parent.
My 12-year-old son is “highly gifted” (so labeled by the school system). He is definitely not in the same category as your daughter, so our lives are much easier. I do remember him at the age of 4 saying, as we drove to his Montessori school, “When you add an even number to an odd number, you get an odd number, right? And when you add two odd numbers, you get an even number. … [and so on]” His math ability is exceptional, in other areas, he’s extremely bright, and he’s very curious and motivated.
There are no gifted programs available to us in our (excellent) small school district. They do employ a person whose job it is to do something for the bright kids, and she has been a lifesaver. I’ve done some things with him, and he does the Stanford distance learning math courses, which are superb, and will start their physics courses soon (www-epgy.stanford.edu). I will state unequivocally that it is not possible to get an appropriate education for a child like mine, let alone a child like yours, in our public school system. The school district does a few things – some enrichment programs, he takes math with a higher grade.
One major problem (now we come to anti-intellectualism) is the prevailing educational philosophy, which maintains that to acknowledge that some kids are brighter than others is to be “elitist”. In our schools, classes are deliberately heterogeneous, with one teacher dealing with everything from special ed to gifted. The teachers are supposed to “differentiate curriculum”, but very few are actually able to do this (when they can, things work quite well). The problem is compounded by the fact that many teachers and administrators believe that it is wrong to present any child with material that he/she is incapable of understanding; therefore, the least common denominator prevails.
In our district, this is the same program and funding, which has always struck me as odd.
As I said above, it works, but it seems to me you are dealing with two completely different populations that fall outside of the norm and which would require two completely different types of specialized knowledge to deal with.
On another note … my youngest (the smart, non-gifted one mentioned above) has a heart defect that has required several surgeries and thus needs “special ed” PE. California schools — or at least MY California schools — are so PC about everything that in elementary school, in order for her not to feel singled out as “different,” the entire class was always forced to have “Special PE” just so she wouldn’t feel different.
That is such a stunning example of self-esteem ruling the roost. Let me pick my jaw up off the floor.
I need a glass of wine after hearing that one!
in NY. None. And I can’t blame the schools for the lack; they are bound by laws requiring them to provide special education, and it’s very expensive. I’ve seen the budgets. They are under pressure to keep costs down (last month a well-justified bond proposal was defeated, and the budget barely passed). This is a very small district (1500 kids, K-12), with very mixed demographics (everything from multi-million $$ waterfront mansions to small houses illegally housing too many immigrants; 15% English as 2nd language). Test scores are among the highest in the county (higher than places like Bronxville, Scarsdale and Chappaqua), a senior just went to the Intel competition and won a prize, the HS made the Newsweek top 100 (the criterion is ridiculous, though), graduates go to top colleges. They’re doing a great job, although my child was almost destroyed by three awful teachers in a row (1st grade teacher repeatedly offered her opinion that he was not very smart; 2nd and 3rd grade teachers did not get tenure the year they had him, putting them in very bad moods and not motivated to deal with an intellectually demanding child).
I’m in a district that constantly floats and passes bond issues for education. Every election cycle, we overwhelmingly and willingly tax the hell out of ourselves to keep our district well-funded. I’m pretty sure the gifted programs are funded through the bond measures.
We also are lucky to have a great community college and a campus of the University of California to help shunt the higher achieving kids into, beginning in seventh grade, if they are gifted.
Spot on.
I’m glad you found the Stanford distance courses for your son- they come highly recommended.
Yes, it is ironic that being good at school is elitist. My husband teaches math at a local high school, and since we’ve just moved down here her doesn’t yet have tenure.
He has to teach all kids Algebra etc. the same way and in the same amount of time, even though he can see some turn off from boredom. He begged for an advanced class- which would cover more math faster, but was told that no child really needs that. Yeah, right. Then he comes home and gives our kiddo just what he wants to give the others.
It sounds like the Davidson Institute for Talent Development might be a good resource for you as well. They have an amazing compilation of gifted research and resources online.
As for teachers- we were once told that a major problem with advancing my daughter (1 grade- not as many as she needs!) was that she would not develop breasts at the same time as the other girls.
You also might enjoy reading Genius Denied, a Davidson book which discusses gifted education/elitism in America today.
and concluded that my child was not “gifted enough”. I will look at it again, though.
I find that as he’s gotten older it’s much easier to supply what he needs intellectually – he supplies much of it himself.
I didn’t think my daughter was either, but friend of mine who teaches at a community college encouraged us to apply. We’ve found it to be a place of incredible support and resources.
One of my most appreciated perks is online seminars with top folks in the field- like Miraca Gross.
Our work has gotten easier as my dd has aged as well.. I hear that 4-9 are the most difficult years, although there is a high suicide rate for this population. I also can’t think about Reviving Ophelia before bedtime or I have nightmares.
Anti-intellectualism is rampant in this country. Even out best universities operate more like waypoints on the trip to the top consulting firms.
Let me be a bit of a Devil’s advocate and ask if that’s a bad thing. A system that rewards intellectual ability alone runs counter to a lot of human nature.
Most intellectuals have an indomitable faith that “knowledge is power”. Maybe this is the dark times getting to me, but sometimes I don’t believe that. Certainly not without fleshing out more of the story. Why is knowledge power? What kind of knowledge? What kind of power? (Or if that’s not your favorite pithy phrase, apply similar skepticism to yours (assuming you have a favorite pithy phrase).)
Do you know of any other parents who you feel did a good job with their children? I’m curious to hear how you would evaluate the “success” of their experience.
I remember having an algebra teacher (and several other teachers in other classes) that just let me go on ahead of the rest of the class on my own. I finished the last 6 weeks just quietly reading or whatever I wanted in the back of the class while everyone else did their work. Maybe your husband (and other teachers here) could do that as a “sneak through” for the bored ones. š
we had some very bad years. He became a behavior problem when he entered the public schools; baffled at the change, we took him to an eminent child psychiatrist (she was one of those called in by the gov’t to evaluate Elian Gonzales). She evaluated him over several sessions, and delivered her diagnosis: “He is a genius and he is bored.” We had him tested, and tried to work with the schools. First, second, and third grade were awful – he was suspended multiple times, the school wanted to place him in a special program for high-functioning autistics (!), and we prepared to apply to the only private school that we thought would be right for him, putting him in their summer program to counter the record of behavioral problems that he now had. (He loved the school, and was an angel there, as he always is in situations that suit him.) In fourth grade he had an incredible teacher; he refused to stay home when he was sick, not wanting to miss even one day of this man’s class. Everyone at the school was amazed at the transformation of this “awful” child into a model child. The time came to apply to the private school, and my son refused, because he was so happy where he was. He’s just finishing his third great year, and his teachers rave about him and his contributions to the classes. He’s not getting quite the right education, but there are tradeoffs. He has plenty of free time (not having to spend over 2 hours a day on a school bus), and he plays multiple sports, has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and constantly does his own projects and studies independently in several areas that interest him. And the $30k/year private school tuition would have been a problem, to say the least.
We also got the “Aspergers” bit until we did further testing.
It never ceases to amaze me how quickly folks are willing to put any label on a child- so long as the label isn’t PG.
I envy and celebrate your finding a place that works for him.
It is a wild and wacky ride.
Thank you for everything you’re doing for your daughter to help her reach her sky-high potential. This young lady is going to figure out how to predict volcano eruptions and earthquakes, at a minimum.
Although I was never in your daughter’s off-the-chart category, I can offer a little bit of insight into what growing up gifted (and female) starting in the late 50s was like.
I also was reading by age 2. My mother, who worked for the Department of Agriculture, used to have me read awful bureaucratic form letters out loud to her co-workers when I was a pre-schooler, just to prove I could do it.
I completed kindergarten with my age group–it later turned out that my teacher, who was a high school classmate of my mother’s, thought I should have skipped ahead but was afraid her own daughter would be jealous.
I spent six weeks in first grade, during which time the teacher had me take over reading classes whenever she had to leave the classroom. Then–after a lot of superintendent-level debate–I was moved to second grade.
This was a small, small town. Some of my second grade classmates were so offended by the fact that I was being rewarded somehow for being intelligent that they treated me as a social outcast clear through high school. I was ridiculed on the playground, excluded from conversations–all the bullying tactics that kids are so expert at.
When I was 17, I was introduced to a young man who had graduated from the town’s high school a few years before. When he heard my name, he said, “Oh, you’re the kid who skipped a grade.”
My parents really didn’t have a clue. My teachers didn’t know what to do to challenge me–some admitted that I knew the subject matter better than they did.
I grew up miserably shy, subject to bouts of severe depression, and academically lazy. I’ve lost some of the shyness over the years, but I still struggle against the depression and the lazy. I can’t say I’ve ever lived up to my potential, although I haven’t given up yet.
So please, keep doing your best to help your remarkable daughter accomplish her dreams and find her place in this world. The world won’t be kind to her, I’m afraid, but it sounds like she’s got enough spirit to prevail.
“I grew up miserably shy, subject to bouts of severe depression, and academically lazy. I’ve lost some of the shyness over the years, but I still struggle against the depression and the lazy. I can’t say I’ve ever lived up to my potential, although I haven’t given up yet.”
Those are the all too familiar signs of not giving gifted children the challenges they need. I wish you could have had them, but I am amazed at your generosity of spirit just the same.
Thanks for the lift!
Grandmother taught me to read on the New York Times, because she was losing her sight to glaucoma, knew no-one else would read it to her.
lazy: Check. worse than you. School let me read what I wanted, as long as I could pass the tests. Got myself tossed from UW end of freshman year so I wouldn’t have to work.
shy; Not so bad, buried myself in the NYC chess scene at 11. Flipped it to extremely extroverted at 14, when I got political.
Depressed: not really. I guess smart boys got left alone rather than picked on. Instead of taking it out on myself, i took it out on Nixon.
That sounds so familiar. I’m male, so I wasn’t bullied as badly as you were, but I was still “weird”.
I had no idea how much the lack of challenges cost me until I got to grad school. In class w/ several students from China, Europe, Canada … places that TREASURE knowledge, I was swamped, and the lack of serious study skills just wiped me out.
I went thru school in the ’70s, and my district was just starting “gifted” programs w/ I was a sophmore. The program consisted of special lectures from visiting experts and college professors, and by senior year our classes were about freshman college level.
Your daughter is luck sandblaster. I hope she continues to treasure her mind … society will make it hard.
My small, poor, rural school tried to just wing it, and make up a gifted program for me… what a disaster. By the 3rd grade, I was refusing to go to school, and would spend my days on the living room floor cross-referencing. Dictionaries, encyclopedias, my sister’s ‘big’ books, any textbooks that I found. There weren’t a lot of books lying around the house, but I read them all – in circles – one thing would lead to a tangent to be explored which would lead to a different area which would, hours or days later, eventually come back to where I’d started.
I was finally, after many objections based on ‘social development’, ‘skipped’ from the 4th to the 6th grade – but it was too late. I was pissed off and belligerent. I finished as much of the years work as I could get my hands on, then killed the rest of my time stuck in class reading whatever I could find in bulk, I still get freaked when I think of Stephen King. A lot of days I didn’t even bother to show up. It caused so much stress in the family, that I started sleeping most of the day to just avoid everything, and staying up all night reading. I wore my parents down, and they gave up.
In junior high I discovered places to score used books on my own, and when I discovered Hesse and Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky – the whole world opened up, but my tolerance for school… gone – oh, my god I just didn’t want to waste time like that. I showed up just often enough to get by, and drove a county school board worker to an early retirement in Hawaii. By 13 there were drugs, prescribed and illicit – often done all at once. Ug.
blah, blah, blah – all about me – without even thanking you Sandblaster, for a diary that was very much appreciated. OK, it did dredge up a memory of that 1st grade teacher/witch that gave me chills, but hey…. š
Bless you for doing whatever it takes to nurture and support your child. As a ‘pretty smart’ kid who put my parents through hell, I simply can not imagine what you must be facing with an over-the-top genius on your hands.
I was considered gifted when I was young. When I was in grammar school, my parents did try, and put me in some summer programs. In second grade I was reading at college level. I also had a gift for languages.
By the time I got to junior high, my parents were preoccupied with their impending divorce and didn’t pay any attention to what I was doing in school. I did have a handful of teachers who tried to challenge me – but this largely consisted of letting me work alone on something at my level. Some of the teachers had me tutoring other kids in the class, and I actually found that fun. I started taking high school classes. But most of the time I kept my nose in a book, finishing my work in the first couple of minutes of my classes so I could read for the rest of the time.
In high school, I was bored out of my mind in a mediocre public school. I begged my parents to send me to private school; they refused. Senior year the school let me out of early every day so I could take classes at the local college. But I got C’s in English, of all things, because I couldn’t be bothered to do the work, and I could speak French better than the French teacher.
I got into Smith College and found out quickly how ill-prepared I was. I had no academic disclipline – had never needed it – and struggled my first year to meet expectations. I did okay by the end of my four years there, but it makes me angry to think what more I could have done if anyone had actually bothered to challege me.
As an adult, I’ve suffered with depression. I have a tendency to undermine my own success and I struggle with why I feel so unmotivated to achieve. I’m smart, I know WHAT to do. I just can’t bring myself to do it. I’ve discovered through therapy that I’m repeating childhood patterns of self-sabotage that were a defense against appearing weird and to shield myself from a jealous mother. Knowing this doesn’t help much (I feel very strongly that I’m responsible for me, not my mother). This struggle manifests as intense anger at myself and frequent, agonizing periods of low self esteem.
I’m sorry this got so long! But when I read your comment, I suddenly felt like maybe it’s not just me, maybe I’m not a complete failure after all. If there are others out there who are experiencing the same things I have, then at least I know I’m not alone. I guess I just needed to share.
I’m curious – what are you doing now to try to overcome your experience?
as do some of the other posters’. I was in grad school before I encountered a math or physics concept that wasn’t immediately obvious. I panicked as for the first time I had to figure out how to learn something. I’ve never really recovered from the lack of intellectual discipline and study skills, and I have some of the emotional effects you describe as well, although I haven’t done therapy or otherwise delved into them. I’m doing reasonably well but not nearly as well as I could be doing had my childhood environment been better for me. I guess I’d say I operate on 4, rather than 6, cylinders.
“I’m curious – what are you doing now to try to overcome your experience?”
Not enough, I’m afraid–I’m forever beating myself up for not reading enough intellectually challenging material and especially for not writing a novel, a play, a treatise, or something! I wrote all the time when I was in grade school and junior high.
I’ve also been through my share of therapy and antidepressants, but those have only seemed to help at crisis times and not with the day-to-day.
I guess the thing to do is to just keep trying. Even low-level depression is such a motivation killer.
I know that my most pressing need is to teach myself to stick to a schedule instead of just wandering through the day. (Oh, golly, let’s see what’s on TV. Gee, I think I’ll go shopping. Gosh, where did the day go?)
I wish you and everyone else who has responded the best of luck. Once we all harness our talents we can kick serious ass!
It’s amazing how similar this and other experiences related in this subthread are. Reassuring.
I remember in 6th grade English class, my teacher had know clue how to challenge me and finally, after I read and wrote about everything on the “special” reading list she created for me, she had me read Don Quixote in spanish just to keep me busy.
Fortunately, my private middle school let me work ahead, but by the end of seventh grade, I had exhausted their resources and they arranged for me to jump up to ninth grade at another school. Skipping grades and changing schools at the same time was challenging, sure enough, and I always attributed my shyness to that period of my life.
I went to the University of Pennsylvania at age 16 and flamed out. No interest in school, no interest in learning (except on my own) and not enough maturity to handle the environment. This led to drugs and ultimately leaving after 4 years as a sophomore with a 2.1 G.P.A.
After a few years off of school I got myself together, went to my local state university campus and got my degree. I went on to graduate from law school with honors. Nevertheless, I’ve never gotten over the motivation problems experienced by you and others here, even in law school and law practice. Maybe it’s boredom, I don’t know. I do get bored very easily. Nevertheless, it’s a struggle that I endure only because my family depends on me. Otherwise, I’d probably go do manual labor. At least I think about what I want then while I’m working.
Anyway, good luck to you Sandblaster. I have no doubt that raising your little girl is difficult. She’s in a league far above me and I know I was a handful.
Yeah, I started school in the 70’s, too, no special program in my district. They started out letting me split my time between 1st and 2nd grade classrooms, I milked it and tried to stay at the 2nd grade class all day. By the next year when I had the same teacher for 2nd grade, they realized that was pointless, so they moved me up to third. After that skip, they simply forgot about me. I was bored and lazy, never cracked a textbook except to cram 10 minutes before a test.
By high school, I guess they had finally developed some kind of gifted program…um… that they forgot to put me in until 11th grade when I asked my mom why some friends got to go to this classroom and I didn’t. They had actually lost all my records by then and I had to take qualifying tests again. Finally got put in, but on my first day the counselor greeted me with a book for coming to terms with my procrastination problems, oh thanks, how stimulating. Already was too set in my lazy learning ways.
My parents didn’t follow through. After their initial fight pushing for a new program and being hesitant to skip me ahead, when the only immediate solution was to skip me ahead they accepted it and stopped advocating for me further. They could have looked at private schools or extracurricular enrichment, but they would say they couldn’t have afforded it. I’m not sure that was completely true, they just had different priorities. And these are college educated parents.
I managed to avoid the social damage because the grade I moved into was my sister’s grade. While that probably harmed our relationship (we’ve ignored each other ever since), her friends gave me a pass so I never really got picked on.
A blog full of nerds! I too was gifted, but a bit of a late bloomer – it didn’t really start to show up until about age 9. That was when my parents pulled my out of my regular public school and stuck me in the public “alternative” school where we could each work at our own pace. By middle school I was way ahead & the teachers resented me for that. I managed to stay motivated for the first to years of high school – but then got very depressed and emotionally fucked-up – started doing the usual [i.e.drugs], but still somehow managed a 4.0. My High School Calculus teacher hated me because when we’d take exams I would usually write down one step & the answer, cause I did it all in my head.
In college, the laziness, emotional turmoil & drugs kind of took over, but again I still managed to get high honors & Phi Beta Kappa. I finally flamed out in grad school & withdrew from academia altogether. I’m much happier playing & recording music… [but still have some emotional and substance issues].
Your daughter sounds really cool Sandblaster. Best of luck providing her with the intellectual challenges and emotional strength she’ll need to get through this cruel world.
I got skipped ahead to first grade out of kintergarten because I could already read at sixth grade level. It was still boring, but socially I was still pretty young. I remember sitting in class and refusing to go past writing down the first word of an assignment in copying sentences because I already knew the material. In second or third grade I took an english workbook with me to my parents’ janitorial job to get caught up on homework, which I was always behind in. I finished several chapters in one evening; my teacher took points off and marked the pages with big red diagonals and warnings not to skip ahead anymore. That was pretty much the last time in my K-12 career that I took my homework seriously. My fifth grade teacher hated me, and was angry that I didn’t socialize much during recess and lunch, and forbid me from reading at school. I started staying home with stomacheaches or getting sent home for mild fevers whenever possible. A sixth grade teacher who got fed up with me used an entire vocabulary test for a public criticism, giving the class the word we were supposed to write down and then using it in a sentence like “Natasha [will] crash on the rocks of life.”
My social skills were horrible as a kid. I loved big words, which drew praise from adults and got me tagged as a know-it-all at school. My fundamentalist mother also impressed on me the importance of sharing religion with my classmates, and had always been a popular child in school, giving her no idea what was going on. My parents also wouldn’t let me invite kids over to my house, or ask to be invited anywhere (someone else had to initiate the invitation), and wouldn’t let me socialize after school outside of our small church circle. Most of the church kids thought I was a freak. It was a recipe for unmitigated disaster that didn’t start getting better until jr. high when I found other sci-fi fans to hang out with.
I wasn’t very old when my favorite alternate reality fantasy (as opposed to purely fictional daydreams about being an alien, or in a fairytale or something) was getting sent away to a boarding school for other kids like me and not having to live at home anymore.
Ditto to the other posters’ experience of having developed such poor study habits that by the time school got interesting, I couldn’t get my nose out of a book long enough to keep up. I went from gifted programs in elementary and jr. high to getting railroaded into remedial math in high school. It took almost 10 years for me to get around to seriously trying college, and that’s proving to be an interesting experience. My organizing and study skills are still absolutely atrocious, but college science classes have so much less BS make-work that it’s easier to keep with it. Math is still challenging though, it really requires that devoted and steady attention to get the basics integrated well enough to move on to the next level.
I read an article in this month’s Discover magazine about the social/learning environment at MIT & was beside myself with envy. I don’t know if I ever could have been good enough to get into a place like that, but I’ll sure the hell never know now.
Not that I’m bitter, dammit š
Sandblaster – Your daughter is very, very lucky. Hopefully airing these regrets serves a more useful purpose than catharsis for those of us who got our wings clipped early, and you can better help her avoid the same pitfalls.
I can’t emphasize enough the importance of developing consistent study habits and a sense of self-discipline in terms of scheduling time. It’s the first thing to go by the wayside when a kid’s knowledge level progresses faster than the learning objectives, and it’s also the first brick wall I ran into out in the wide world, a trunk from which many useful skills branch and much appreciated by those who don’t have them.
This is so like my own story. Especially the boys will be brutal, since the “worst thing” is to be bested by a girl. I swear I have a bit of PTSD from that.
Wow. Congratulations to you and your daughter. I’m smart, but nowhere near that smart, and I’m not near parenting age yet (early 20s), so I don’t have kids of my own.
What I do have is some experience as a friend of someone almost as gifted as your daughter. One of my friends throughout my entire time at university started the same year I did, at the age of 12. He was a little immature at the time, and very eager, but he matured fast, partially due to support from home, partially due to the group of supportive, intelligent friends he made at school. He’s now 17 or so, has graduated with a double bachelor’s in Computer Science and Physics, and is going on to do advanced graduate work in plasma physics at Princeton University. He even got commended in the Nova Scotia provincial legislature. As far as I can tell, he hasn’t had any problems from skipping middle school and high school – he seems substantially happier and more well-adjusted than I was at his age, I know that much!
The upshot of all this is that you shouldn’t be afraid to let her make friends – or try to socialize with – people older than she is. Vet them yourself to make sure they understand that, even though she’s intelligent, she still is a kid, and has a lot of development and learning ahead of her. But if she does manage to find some good friends that, due to being older, are interested in the same things she is, that might help a lot.
I love to hear happy endings.
Your insight on older friends is a good one- and well backed up by research. She does have older friends, most of them adults. One essential rtelationship she has is with a lady who teaches her dressage/ horse psychology along the lines of Pierelli. She has grown tremendously by working with, and having to be aware of, horse body language.
And BTW, she loved the Pratchett books, even if he read them all in one day!
I’m sure that if one day you choose to become a parent, you will be a fabulous one.
And what’s a little emotional immaturity in a population of Computer Sciences and Physics students? Who’ll notice.
I had a similiar experience: guy started college with me when he was 13. Maths course, so while he was emotionally immature, and had some problems relating socially, so did lots of us. It was really no big deal. He did fine – a little rocky one year, but that was to do with stuff at home I think. As they get older, they just become really smart, not unusual.
Age peers do not equal true peers. It is amazing that when PG kids find and can interact with their true peers, issues of “social immaturity” disappear.
I agree the Davidson Institute for Talent Develpoment has been a wonderful resource for us, both in person and with their online library.
Nice to meet you! I’m trying my best to spread the word- figured this was the blog equiv. of letters to the editor.
From bright but not exceptional parents, I think they had 4 of them. It must have been a one in 10 million event.
The older boy went to my prep school around age 9 or 10 finished in 3 years. I met him briefly when he’d skipped a few elementary grades and was doodling with electronics designs that were beyond my reach as a builder of electric eyes, amateur radio etc., and he turned out to excite a university electrical engineering professor with them a few weeks later.
The 60’s were probably the zenith for popular support of intellectualism, science & math, which all these kids were strong in. But really, even then there never was a general public that had a good place for exceptionally bright people. Our public schools were well above average (mom taught school and so was in some position to know) but they were hopeless for these kids.
For anyone who’s truly gifted–and I meet musicians in this category regularly–you have to make your own world and community, and you have to come to some graceful way of dealing successfully with the outside world.
I’ve said elswhere that some of our older Scots friends told us of countrymen whose families were furious at them if they immigrated to the United States instead of Canada or other countries, because of our crude culture, bad educational standards and other problems. This goes back to the 1940’s-60’s.
For those of you interested, here are some incredible resources:
Hoagies is a great place for the basics and some insightful, personal experiences. Two of their best works are Ridiculous things I heard today ,13 Days of Radical Acceleration, and Gifted 101.
Genius Denied is the book writen by Bob and Jan Davidson on education of the profoundly gifted. (My kiddo is mentioned in the book- but not named.)
Bob and Jan Davidson are those folks who invented MathBlaster and other software like Diablo. They sold their companies and started The Davidson Institute for Talent Development, for which we are incredibly grateful. Their public page has an interactive map where you can check out the status of gifted education in your state. This site will also take you to Genius Denied.
(I hope the HTML I cut and pasted works, and thanks for putting this on the front page, Booman. Wow!)
YAY Geology!!!!
Send her over here, and we can get her a spot on the CHIKYU at IODP for some ocean drilling and etc!
That and she can play with my little one, who is three…and wicked smart too…but not as smart as you describe your little…
Cool stuff.
My “advice” which is really not needed at all from the looks of yours and other comments is make sure the humanity, normalcy, and general comfort level is as high as possible. Never be fake. Always take the time to explain. Do the emotion thing. Encourage pride, but not hubris. I think that if she were exposed to the difficulty of teaching what she understands to people (children) who do not understand that thing, she might benefit, too…
Anyway, congrats.
I looked up CHIKYU and bookmarked the site for her. She’ll be thrilled. Can you give me some background on your work there so I can pass it on?
When we lived in Alaska, BP kept a library of core samples. She read about them in the newspaper and bugged me until I found someone who could take us to see them.
One of the funniest things about this population is the disparity between physical/intellectual age. To get the full effect, picture a brown haired girl in pigtails, with all her baby teeth, asking about dating core samples.
And I aggree. YAY geology!
I am a structural geologist. I study the formation and growth of fault populations from the microscopic to the plate tectonic scales, including the formation and modification of fault rocks and the fluids that flow through them.
I currently am employed in a science management position in preparation for the onset of international scientific operations in 2007.
Tell your daughter to look for photomicrographs on the internet…she’ll love them.
That is one smart kid. Good luck.
But when I read the title of your diary, I couldn’t bring myself up to reading it. I have quite the opposite problem. My two sons have autism. They are 6 and 4 years old and can’t even say their names when asked. I have to sew their names, address and telephone number on their clothes in case they get lost for some reason.
After bringing myself to read your diary, I do consider myself quite fortunate in that I have been fortunate to have great teachers and parents around me. When my son turned three, he went to a WaldKindergarten and the teachers and parents viewed Matthew’s “uniqueness” as an opportunity to teach their children not to reject people because they are not like they are. The children greeted him everyday in Kindergarten with a “Guten Morgen” and a hug regardless of whether he reciprocated or not.
I don’t understand why the burden is on people that are not in the “norm” to change. People in the “norm” should learn to reach out and meet them halfway.
Thank you for leaping in despite your concerns. I strongly feel that the uniformity put in place by the school districts hurts most kids- since no one fits into a standard mold.
Peace and strength to you and yours!
You might want to read about Tito and his mother Soma:
http://www.pbs.org/kcet/closertotruth/explore/learn_03.html
I can’t tell you how thrilled I was by your story. To know that such bright spirits are making an appearance in America just when despair is taking hold is a huge thing for me.
Congratulations on being blessed with such a wonderful child – I’m sure you’re up to the challenge.
Definitely don’t forget the horses. I’ve long believed that animals are our best teachers and try to live with as many as possible. A book that addresses the healing abilities of horses might interest you and your daughter: “The Tao of Equus” by Linda Kohanov. Enjoy –
Wow, that is a smart kid.
I’d like to share my perspective as someone who was a “gifted” kid.
I grew up in a small town in the midwest. As long as I can remember, I was way ahead of the game at most subjects, but especially math. Long story short: I went about as fast as I could in the system in which I found myself. I did calculus at 15, but always felt I could have done it much earlier if I had been given the right opportunities. I also took to computers like a fish to water. Luckily, my family was able to buy one for the home, so I had the opportunity to develop those skills on my own, despite the lack of adult guidance in that area.
High school was a cakewalk, but I didn’t mind. I socialized. Played sports.
I went to a top university (though at the usual age), worked in the “center of the universe” internet industry at the right time. I’m now 30 and not far from finishing a phd in computer science.
I think things worked out pretty well. But sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had been allowed to go as fast as I could have. As it was, the experience was exhilarating.
This recent experience in graduate school has been very instructive. The bottom line is that it doesn’t take long to get to the boundaries of knowledge. I find myself at a point in life where the answer to the question “What comes next?” is the hardest question of all.
I’m not sure what I would do if I were in your situation. Not that I know all the details (and the details matter a lot).
There’s so much to say about all this… The nature of education in all aspects is changing rapidly. I find that even universities and graduate schools are underwhelming for those who are truly curious about their world. But where else do you go to attempt to find fellow “seekers”?
I am now almost 30. But one of my very best friends from high school (with whom I am still close) sounds a lot like your daughter.
We went to a very academically challenging high school. Our football team sucked, but our math team went on competition trips to Hawaii.
My friend failed out of this high school, while at the same time working for NASA. He was bored out of his skull in class, and just never bothered to do the work. He was sent to different boarding schools after that.
Puberty was, shall we say, rough for him. Now he is older, and has managed to become a wonderful man. He still struggles with social interaction, but he has found methods that work for him, after a lot of trial and error. He does a lot of physical stuff (running, hiking, climbing, etc.) to burn off the excess energy, and to get time and space away from society where he doesn’t have to translate the workings of his brain down to the rest of us. He is even in a relationship with a wonderful, smart woman.
I don’t envy you or your daughter her adolescence. It will be even harder for her, being a young woman. But with parents like you, I’m sure she’ll survive and thrive.
If you are concerned about your child finding peers, try science fiction fandom. This is a sub-culture devoted to talking about science fiction and fantasy – not the Trekkies you’ve probably heard about. Slight overlap. If you love LeGuin, you’d probably like parts of it yourself. Parts are sexist, most are not. To find a SF convention, type “science fiction convention” and the city you live in or the nearest city, in Google. There are ads in the back of magazines like Asimov’s and F&SF. Look at Locus Online (http://www.locusmag.com/). Look at Wiscon (http://www.sf3.org/wiscon/) my favorite science fiction convention. And most clubs have events through the year.
I was also a gifted child. Fandom saved my sanity at 15. I had NO friends until then; until puberty, I didn’t care. I started reading college textbooks when I was 10 or 11, tok my first college course at 12. No friends there. But in fandom, I had things in common – books, ideas. And respect.
First off, let me say that I can’t begin to fully understand the challenges in raising any child, let alone one who appears – in either direction – to vary from the “norm”. I hope nothing I say here undercuts that respect.
That said, I have to say that I find myself (currently) more in sympathy with teacherken. I don’t agree, per se, that acknowledging that some children are brighter than others is in itself elitism. I do think, however, that we as a society ought consider just how we identify “bright”. The case shown to us in this diary is pretty clear-cut.
I think our society’s anti-intellectualism is a little more textured than we see. On one hand, there is a suspicion of intellectuals, but at the same time, our culture reinforces certain cognitive or intellectual hierarchies, and this is illustrated in such things as pay, prestige, etc.
The point I’m trying to make is that we all have certain talents. Some are more apparent or pronounced in some people rather than others. Then there are talents – “intelligences”, if you will – that I think we should value, but that don’t show up according to the usual metrics by which we evaluate intellectual ability. The kid that is “normal” by most standards might have the knack for something that a brilliant child does not and while we’re rightly wanting something for those who are “gifted” (a term I really don’t like), we should always keep this in mind.
There, but for the grace of God, go any of us.
After having said all that, Sandblaster, I wish the best for your and your child. She really does sound remarkable!
forgive me tacking on to your reply – this is for teacherken too.
For me, and my daughter, it has never been about making her ‘special’ or elevating her in any way – it has been about survival – for her. I remember a school report (when she was 7) that said ” she would have the friends she so desires, if she would learn to conform”. She had no idea how to relate to others in her class although watching her try, and watching her be constantly rejected, broke my heart. It just doesn’t work if one tries to be what one isn’t: other kids sensed she was fake if she tried to fit in, and just labelled her as ‘wierd’. To give a couple of examples: a much loved cat of opurs died, and she wanted to talk about the cat’s potential spiritual progression in class; around the same time (age 9) her classmates were talking non-stop about the latest boy-band, and she wanted to know the history of the unions in GCHQ (government communications headquarters). She was desperately lonely, and has been over-anxious from the day she was born. Her fathers desertion combined with difficulties at school led to a severe anxiety/depressive disorder that kept her out of any sort of education for 3 years (from 11). She asked me to home educate her from about 7 yo, but as her father left when she was 4, and gave me no support (financial or otherwise), it simply wasnt possible.
She is 19 now, and at last has friends but has not achieved anything academically. I believe she will get where she needs to be when she is ready – but in the meantime, it is hard for both of us. Anyone who speaks to her for a few minutes comments on how articulate and interesting she is – how ‘bright’ she is – and then goes on to expect degrees/huge achievements. Also, having had such difficulties with schooling, she has zero study skills and application.
sorry – didn’t mean to go on so š
Society does value intelligence in certain ways as you suggest, but until the rise of the computer industry, intelligent non-conformers might as well have been born with enormous ‘kick-me’ signs. School is like Lord of the Flies, except sometimes the adults join in the abuse.
Few people have the emotional stability as a child to come unscathed out of being treated like a noxious alien lifeform in school. It takes up a lot of brain cycles that could be devoted to learning new skills and destroys self-confidence in ways that can last long past the time that the victim has forgotten the names of their tormentors.
In the working world, this means less of an inclination to ask for better pay, and a difficult time with the glad-handing skills that propel you to the top. Look at the last two presidential elections, for pete’s sake. Being smart is only ok with people if you act and talk exactly like everybody else.
I see you point, especially as one who was once identified as a “gifted” child and who got his fair share of mockery in school. I wouldn’t say it was as bad as being treated as a “noxious life form”, but it certainly upset me a great deal from time to time.
But as I grew older, I began to appreciate and understand that which I previously hadn’t, despite my so-called “gift”. There’s my father, who barely graduated high school and to this day doesn’t read much and certainly isn’t a great writer or anything like that. But just because his talents weren’t academic ones doesn’t mean I couldn’t learn anything from him or that he was less worthy.
A friend of mine, who was way more gifted than me, once took part in an after-school tutoring program, at the behest of her mother. To make a long story short, she remarked that she had learned far more from these students (who weren’t and would probably never be academic stars) than she had taught them.
These anecdotes don’t really prove anything, nor do they necessarily address the issue brought up in this diary. I only mean them, and my original comment, as something for us to think about.
I was in a gifted program in the early sixties. It was academically very challenging and provided me with tremendous skills that proved useful throughout my education (even in grad school). I hated every moment of it, would have bailed out at any time if my mother would have let me, and I’m still sorry that I was ever part of it.
The problem was that everyone was devoutly interested in our academic development and completely uninterested in our emotional and social development. Most of us going into these classes were already lacking in the social and emotional skills to deal with being different. Four years later, we were all pretty much social miscreants.
It was many years before I was able to accept being smart and value being different. Even in college, I remember being crushed when I walked into a class and someone said “Oh no, it’s Andi, there goes the curve”, even though it was said in a very friendly, teasing way. And my social skills are still dreadful.
I’m not suggesting, of course, that you are doing anything like this to your daughter. I just figure it can’t hurt to remind everyone raising a gifted child not to lose sight of the child part of the phrase.
Well, we’re leaving now to spend the weekend with her friend from out of state. She’s been giddy with joy all morning, and I’m close to it myself. She gets her friend- and I get parents who have BTDT.
Thanks for all your thoughts and interest. I’ll write an update when I get back!
Cheers!
Kate
heard this a lot, but many kids who are “discipline problems” in school are simply bored out of their minds, not challenged. Often teachers don’t recognize that these students are gifted and need a more appropriate learning environment.
Incredible diary Sandblaster!
I think most of the “behaviorial problems” are caused by our children being bored out of their minds at school. My 10 year old daughter went through a bullying episode (where she was the victim) all because she was smart.
She then tried to “dumb herself down” by not handing in homework and only getting books from the public library… this bullying caused so much damage.
Anyways…
I have both ends. My daughter is … incredible. My son is… incredible, too.
One thing I have learned is that that ALL children are special and ALL children are gifted. š
In my life, I feel more like the student. Take care, Janet
This says, much more succinctly, what I was trying to say earlier:
One thing I have learned is that that ALL children are special and ALL children are gifted. š
I am a mom and I also happen to have an engineering degree from a prestigious science-oriented university. My friends and I discuss this topic frequently, as we enter into our parenting years.
She sounds very advanced. Whenever possible, I would focus on broadening her skills rather than accelerating her skills. For example, maybe have her study in a foreign language, or have her work on logic puzzles, or learn about other number bases – concepts that are outside of her school’s curriculum. Teach her about the chemistry of cooking and baking (Alton Brown, Harold McGee both have good books on this). There is plenty to learn in geology – acres of books to read and a lifetime of fieldtrips even before you need the mathematics. Planetary science is just geology on other planets – there are several websites with photos and captions from the Mars missions that will keep her busy for a while. Have her read, read, read. Contact research scientists in the fields that interest her and ask them for advice. Let her stay with her peers academically as much as you can. Try to put her in a situation where she’ll be able to attend university not younger than 15 or 16 – because otherwise she’ll never get the unique life experience of living with a group of her peers, and the networking and lifelong friendships that provides.
The dressage is a great broadening, and she can hang out with adults who want to help her. I’m not a Parelli fan – too much marketing for my taste – but I bet she’d love reading the books by Mark Rashid (Considering The Horse, A Good Horse is Never a Bad Color, etc), which come from a similar base. Another book I adored as a child that is terrific for someone interested in animals and animal training is “Lads Before the Wind,” by Karen Pryor. Dressage is a great way to use your intellect while also trying to get your body to obey. I hope she’ll get to learn to trail ride and jump too – dressage doesn’t have many kids and she could make some wonderful friends around horses. I did.
Equine color genetics is another area where there is a huge amount to know and active opportunities for amateurs to move the field forward, by researching old stud books and looking at photos. A friend of mine started working on this on her own, and has ended up contributing some important data about what colors are available in what breeds and gene pools. There are two books by D. Phillip Sponenberg that your daughter might enjoy that cover the field in depth – just make sure that she knows to stay humble about what she learns there, because they are usually obsolete as soon as they are printed.
A friend of mine likens being gifted to being tall. Some things are easier, some are harder, all for reasons outside your own control. But just as being tall doesn’t automatically make you a good person, being gifted doesn’t automatically make you a good and worthy person, and learning to fit in socially and get along with others is a key skill that is as important to one’s life success as being able to understand mathematics.
I am concerned that you dismissed the teacher’s concerns about her socialization. Why did she push the other child? It matters. Her theorems will not help her or anyone else if she cannot communicate them to others. I know many superbright people who dropped out of school, and of life, because they couldn’t find a comfortable niche. That she does not have friends, even superficial friends, I’m sure bothers her. Horsey friends are good. If that isn’t sufficient other sports may also catch her interest. Some of my friends went to various academic “camps” where they met other super-gifted kids, but your daughter is a bit young for that.
Good luck with her. I enjoyed your diary and I hope you’ll write more.