# Are early verbal skills a reflection of culture? (RE: giftedness)



## Kincaid (Feb 12, 2004)

This is a spin-off of another thread... talking about identifying gifted children very early.

In the US culture, many identify early verbal ability as a marker of giftedness. As in "we knew our child was gifted because he was interacting in conversation at 9 months and speaking in complex sentences at 15 months."

Because we can't "test" very small children other than thru language, verbal ability is often the single proxy for determining "giftedness" in the American educational system.

It was my impression that verbal skills are very much a reflection of culture. For example, that Asian children rarely make eye contact and are extremely non-verbal in comparison to American kids... and there is an extraordinary amount of dialogue and contextual communication that takes place non-verbally (which Americans don't pick up on at all). I would hazard a guess that Native American culture would likewise feature more listening, less talking, and more non-verbal and contextual communication.

I am also curious about the language patterns of African American kids. I can't decode the words of my AA friends children at all, it is almost like a mystery language to me. It would give a white bystander the impression that their kids are just babbling and have poor verbal skills, yet the AA moms know EXACTLY what their kids are saying. However, what is seen as "undecipherable" dialogue to white folks doesn't seem to count in evaluating verbal ability.

So in a playgroup with white kids, asian kids, and african-american kids... how reliable are "early verbal skills" as an indicator of higher intelligence?

Anyone besides me think this is VERY biased toward white middle class kids? How can this be a reliable indicator of "giftedness" if on the other hand we know it to be culturally based?


----------



## GranoLLLy-girl (Mar 1, 2005)

Interesting idea. Would like to comment on just one thing--don't forget that Einstein didn't speak a word until he was three. There is a book written on the topic of genius children who don't fit the stereotypes that you are describing, although the title escapes me.


----------



## hhurd (Oct 7, 2002)

Fascinating idea. Our mania for "gifted" children is a current interest of mine, so the definition of gifted is intriguing too. Wish I had more time...


----------



## SunRayeMomi (Aug 27, 2005)

Quote:

Interesting idea. Would like to comment on just one thing--don't forget that Einstein didn't speak a word until he was three. There is a book written on the topic of genius children who don't fit the stereotypes that you are describing, although the title escapes me.
Any time I hear this same discussion, I think this exact thing. There are many other factors, I think, and I do believe it's wrong to consider a child "gifted" based on verbal skills. In other words, except in highly-advanced children (and you can tell one a child is), it doesn't make sense to consider a child "gifted" or "genius" until it has been made undeniable later in the child's life.

For example, my daughter was very advanced verbally and socially at a young age. I would never have called her "gifted" though. Now that she is four, I can tell she is still "advanced" in most areas, but I have never had her IQ tested or tested in any way for that matter, and to me she is just advanced. But I would hesitate to call her "gifted", since I still don't accept any definition of that word other than it's inherant implications.









So basically, yes I think you are right on to say that there are different ways to judge whether a child is gifted other than verbal skills.


----------



## Diane B (Mar 15, 2004)

Does anyone know the name of the book about the many kinds of intelligence (I think the author identifies six or so...) - spatial, emotional, musical, etc. - language is just one area. I find it helpful to think about the many dimensions of my daughter's development, not just count how many words she can say by what age.

I think this mania that "early is better" also shows up in physical development, i.e. how early your child sits up, crawls, walks, runs, etc. In Guatemala, where my daughter is from, chldren are carried around well into toddlerhood, so their motor skills are quite "delayed" compared to the U.S. Funny, though - every Guatemalan adult I met seemed to walk just fine...


----------



## Kincaid (Feb 12, 2004)

Diane,
Very interesting about the gross motor skills, as that is the other big guage for early determination of "giftedness" in the US.


----------



## hhurd (Oct 7, 2002)

Emotional Intelligence : Why It Can Matter More Than IQ by Daniel Goleman? Is that it?

I've been meaning to read it.


----------



## melissa17s (Aug 3, 2004)

The book is by Howard Gardner and one of his books on the subject is Frames of Mind: A Theory on Multiple Intelligence. I saw him speak a couple of years ago- brillant.


----------



## Ravin (Mar 19, 2002)

I think that is absolutely the case.

Children acquire language no matter how they're raised, as long as they're around it and hear it. In many cultures (such as African cultures, whose childrearing practices I've been studying for a paper), there is a focus in early childhood on simply keeping a child safe and fed. Babies spend many hours on their mothers's backs, are bf on demand, but aren't much talked to. The mother is doing other talking, but not to the baby. And as they grow older, most of their talking with adults involves simple requests or commands, not conversation. Yet they still learn to talk and converse just fine. And a very verbal child isn't going to be viewed as "gifted", even if expected to go to school when the time comes. Being obedient and helpful are often desirable social qualities in a child, rather than talk.


----------



## oldcrunchymom (Jun 26, 2002)

Truly gifted kids deal with rather heady issues of asynchronicity. Few of them are advanced in ALL areas of life. Still, I would say that a 15 month old talking in complex, adult-like sentences, with an understanding of what they're saying, is a strong sign of possible giftedness. My son was neither socially nor verbally advanced (in fact, he was somewhat delayed in those areas, and average in gross motor milestones), but he could identify and write some letters (X and O) beginning at 12 months. He's almost 10 now and can act 3 years old, 9 years old, and 22 years old all within the space of an hour. Asynchronous.

I don't put a lot of stock in anecdotal evidence, but FWIW, on the gifted boards I read, there seems to be little correlation between level of giftedness and gross motor milestones. It's a subject discussed quite often.

P.S. - We are not middle class, alas.


----------



## Raven67 (Apr 20, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kincaid*
Diane,
Very interesting about the gross motor skills, as that is the other big guage for early determination of "giftedness" in the US.

Actually, gross motor skills have no correlation to later intelligence. Verbal skills are highly correlated with later intelligence (as measured by IQ and academic achievement tests) High vocabulary and fluency at age 2 is strongly correlated with giftedness. While there are exceptions, this is the rule, or correlation. There ARE some late talkers who go on to be average, or above average in intelligence (Einstein is the example that is always mentioned), but as a rule, speech and language problems are often associated with other developmental and cognitive delays. A "late talker" is much more likely to be average, or slow, than gifted.

I am a child psychologist who specializes in evaluation for giftedness and developmental delay. Basically, if your child is an early, fluent speaker, s/he is probably very bright, so that's a lot of fun. If they are a late talker, or have speech problems, the outcome is harder to predict, but in all liklihood, they are not "gifted," as giftedness is rare, and the phenomenon of "late, gifted talker" is very rare.

Just for the record, I think all kids are "gifted" in some way. Our conceptions of giftedness and intelligence in this culture are highly biased toward verbal/linguistic ability, that's true.


----------



## shell024 (May 21, 2005)

A lot of times it seems like parents are in too much of a habit of "rushing" nowadays, and it rubs off on the kids. Like "maybe if they would just hurry up and be independent, I could get some things done"







:







When people comment on how much ds is "talking" already, holding his head up, very alert and listens, etc etc etc... like he is "gifted", it kind of bugs me. I mean, Both DP and I are pretty talkative/physical people, and I make it a point to be as healthy as possible, am always talking to/playing with ds. Plus he didn't have a traumatic birth, hasn't been poked/prodded throughout his early infancy, and the whole AP lifestyle seems to have a "trusting" effect on him to do all these things and know that I am right there with him. Of course, I can't speak for children in general, but these are just my thoughts on "development". I feel it has a lot to do with a lot of factors (genetics, environment, emotional, physical, spiritual, cultural, etc).


----------



## Kincaid (Feb 12, 2004)

Raven67,
On the contrary, there are countless U.S. studies/papers which have correlated giftedness with early gross motor skills. Now I think it is baloney, but there is a body of professionals out there who hold this to be a strong indicator. I'll post some links to give anyone curious a feel for this...

Quote:

I am a child psychologist who specializes in evaluation for giftedness and developmental delay. Basically, if your child is an early, fluent speaker, s/he is probably very bright, so that's a lot of fun. If they are a late talker, or have speech problems, the outcome is harder to predict, but in all liklihood, they are not "gifted," as giftedness is rare, and the phenomenon of "late, gifted talker" is very rare.
So this is the crux of my post. I am curious how you would translate this evaluation mechanism to a group of Japanese toddlers - where children are culturally taught to avoid eye contact with adults and where the cultural norms for children speaking are so different. Does that mean an indicator of giftedness in one country would not apply in another country? What does that imply to the validity as a diagnostic measure, shouldn't a valid diagnostic tool not be culturally biased?


----------



## mommytolittlelilly (Jul 7, 2004)

Here's yet another very interesting thread, keeping me away from doing work.









I don't know if early verbal skills are an indication of "giftedness," but I guess I always assumed there was a correlation between these skills and intelligence. That assumption definitely could be derived from my own cultural bias, and also to how I was raised (I'm also white and middle class). I also had a *lot* of pressure placed on me as a child by my parents to over-achieve, so I know this has shaped my personality and expectations for myself, and for my child! I always said before I was pregnant, that intelligence and happiness are the two most important things to me for my child-to-be. For me, I think it's really important to acknowledge these issues that I have, so that I don't consciously or unconsciously place un-due pressure on my little girl.

On a tangent here, but I think it's an interesting contradiction of our (U.S.) society that we do place so much emphasis on early verbal and reading skills as a marker for "giftedness," when as a whole, intelligence is often ridiculed and spurned. See the success of Dubya vs. Al Gore, for instance.


----------



## Raven67 (Apr 20, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kincaid*
Raven67,
On the contrary, there are countless U.S. studies/papers which have correlated giftedness with early gross motor skills. Now I think it is baloney, but there is a body of professionals out there who hold this to be a strong indicator. I'll post some links to give anyone curious a feel for this?


Not trying to be snarky at all...maybe there is some movement/group who disagrees with this. When I was in school, and when I taught developmental psych, the general understanding was that early walking, etc....was NOT correlated with later intelligence. I can't imagine the mechanism by which it would be, either. Intuitively, one could see that early language development would put kids ahead, and they would then score well on tests of intelligence at age six or ten....But, motor development?? I'd really like to see more about this. My old textbook here from 1998 says othewise.


----------



## loraxc (Aug 14, 2003)

Quote:

I say have small classrooms where children can all reach their potential and stop labelling.
You know, stopping to think, one of the main reasons I have become interested in reading about "giftedness" and the experiences of highly intelligent children is that I do plan to send my daughter, whom I believe to be unusually bright, to a regular old public school not known for its excellence. If I knew for sure that she was going to get a great education tailored to her needs and abilities, I would be spending a lot less time reading/thinking about this. It's not that I am desperate to stick some label on my child--it's that I see the possibility for this label to help her, especially in her school years. I don't think many people realize that plenty of gifted children, especially the extremely gifted, actually do rather poorly in school, for a variety of social and emotional reasons.

(Yes, yes, we could homeschool, and it has been suggested to us by multiple people, including my child's pediatrician. It's not going to happen unless I feel we have absolutely no other choice. I instinctively know that homeschooling is not right for me as a parent.)

As to the original topic--I don't actually think that verbal ability is considered the be-all end-all sign of giftedness. I post on the gifted support thread here and belong to another GT email list, and while some of the children are highly verbal, it's certainly not the rule. I frequently see excellent memory, long attention spans, mathematical talent, spatial skills, and mechanical aptitude mentioned.

Kincaid, what do you think are valid criteria for "giftedness," then? Do you think there is no such thing as giftedness?

ETA: On the motor skills thing--my reading, which is broad not really "serious," seems to be mixed on this. Some say that early motor skills can be an indicator and some do not. Anecdotally, I'd say that some GT kids do seem to be way ahead on even all the early infant motor milestones, but a sizeable percentage is not only not advanced but behind.


----------



## Kincaid (Feb 12, 2004)

Raven67, I know you are not trying to be snarky - we agree that it is whooey. The rationale is that hitting developmental milestones at an accelerated pace is indicative of higher brain functioning. This is the direction many have headed in the US in attempting a "very early diagnosis" of giftedness. It has become so mainstream in what I have seen of late that it is even on the checklist in Wikipedia on-line dictionary, under markers of giftedness "Is precocious in raising head, sitting up, walking, etc."

From Small poppies: Highly gifted children in the early years, Author(s): Gross, M.
Source: Roeper Review, The Roeper School 1999 Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 207-214

Quote:

Even moderately gifted children tend to crawl, walk and run earlier than their age-peers (Terman, 1926; Witty, 1940) but highly gifted children may display even greater precocity. Silverman (1989b) describes a girl of 7 months who stood alone, climbed into chairs unassisted and navigated stairs by herself. Gross (1993) describes Rick, of IQ 162, who sat up by himself at 4-1/2 months, ran at 11 months and rode a two-wheeled bicycle unaided at age 3. The mean age at which Gross's subjects of IQ 160+ sat up unsupported was 6.1 months, as opposed to 7-8 months in the general population. The mean age at which they walked while supported was 10.1 months - 1-1/2 months earlier than the population mean - and the mean age at which they were walking independently was 12.1 months - fully 3 months earlier than is usual. Not only did these children become physically mobile at remarkably early ages, but the stages of skill development were traversed with exceptional speed."
Here is from the Minnesota Checklist for the Gifted, their first item on the checklist is did your child walk earlier than most...http://www.mcgt.net/Articles/checklist.htm

And please look at this... you will hate these tables as much as I do... used very widely in England. They break it down to even when children raise their head, hold a crayon, walk, etc... http://members.tripod.com/~gleigh/gftskills.htm

I feel like these are a result of Americans trying to "identify" their child as gifted even younger and younger. And how else can you "evaluate" a 6 month old than how early he has raised his head and sat up. Ugh!


----------



## Raven67 (Apr 20, 2002)

Kincaid
So this is the crux of my post. I am curious how you would translate this evaluation mechanism to a group of Japanese toddlers - where children are culturally taught to avoid eye contact with adults and where the cultural norms for children speaking are so different. Does that mean an indicator of giftedness in one country would not apply in another country? What does that imply to the validity as a diagnostic measure said:


> Gosh, there is so much to explore in this thread, and I don't have all the answers...I'm sure none of us do. I can tell you that "Asian" (don't know about Japanese, particularly, sorry) school children have mean IQ scores of 115, compared to the mean IQ scores of Caucasion American children of 100....So, you certainly can't say that "IQ scores are biased AGAINST Asian children" Asian kids tend to do well on these kinds of tests. One could argue that Asian kids are smarter than caucasion kids, in general. However, that's only if you buy into all the assumptions behind the tests and our cultural notions of intelligence. Of course, there are all kinds of problems with all of these assumptions: What, really is "race," when there are no true biological distinctions between races? What, really, are the tests measuring, and is it fair to call that "intelligence?" There is a whole lot to think about, and just so complicated. I do think we are all "gifted" and intelligent in some ways, but I also think some people have extraordinary abilities in certain areas, and we can't ignore that.


----------



## Raven67 (Apr 20, 2002)

Kincaid, thanks for posting that....I'm going to look into it...and, try to figure out why these other sources are discounting that. Maybe the correlations don't hold true within "average" populations. I don't know....


----------



## loraxc (Aug 14, 2003)

Kincaid, I'm a little confused. You are opposed to using verbal ability as a guide for IDing giftedness, because you think there may be a cultural bias there. I can accept that. Then wouldn't gross motor skills be a less culturally biased means of identification? But you find that objectionable too.

I get the idea that what you are really taking issue with is identifying young children (say, under 5-8?) as "gifted." It sounds like you see this as a symptom of the American obsession with competition and achievement, and that you think parents who believe their young children to be gifted are just falling into this trap. Am I wrong?


----------



## Kincaid (Feb 12, 2004)

Loraxc,
I definately think giftedness "exists". Remember, I grew up in the Duke University gifted tracking program (where we were pulled out from across the US to take the ACT and college courses). There are absolutely some kids who have amazing mental ability.

What I view as puzzling are "identifiers" of giftedness to evaluate and label kids when they are only old enough to toddle and talk. Some are even younger than age two. I really wonder what the sense of urgency could be to indentify a child that young. So they can get more "enrichment"? I am just very puzzled and think these attempts to identify so early lead to people using very flimsy, culturally biased "indicators" - like word count.

Anyway, I'd prefer to stay away from the topic of the other post and focus on this question of cultural bias


----------



## oldcrunchymom (Jun 26, 2002)

Kincaid, what would you propose as universal, cultural-influence-free indicators of giftedness (or "amazing mental ability," if you prefer)? Just curious. (Not being snarky here.)

Lots of things are culturally biased. Some cultures consider green and blue the same color and use the same word for each. So if a white, middle class, North American child knows the words for blue and green at say, age 12 months, is that culturally biased as well? (Seems so to me.) Does it mean the child isn't gifted because he's using a culturally biased set of color identifiers? Are we teaching our kids to be culturally biased by teaching them separate words for blue and green? How about a 12 month old Himba child who knows a bunch of things about cows that an American child would never even learn, but can't tell orange from pink? Is he more or less gifted?

I would say that it doesn't matter that what the kid knows is "culturally biased." That's irrelevant. What's relevant is the fact that _he has stored the information and can express it with meaning significantly earlier than his same-age peers_. THAT is what makes him gifted.

The reason we see "culturally biased" information as identifiers on lists is because that information is relevant to our culture. Perhaps broad exposure to letters, numbers, colors, etc, is limited to white middle class U.S. culture. I don't know. Maybe in the black culture you are familiar with and have referred to in one of your posts, something else would be a better indicator. (Any ideas?) Maybe each subculture should have its own list. But the indicator lists I have seen do work well (i.e. accurately identify gifted children) for some segment of the population, so they are not completely useless as you seem to be insinuating.

Again, it's not simply the acquisition of the information on the lists that is important to the parent reading them--the indicator lists are important because a frazzled parent to a gifted child can look at the list and say at last "Aha, I'm not crazy and neither is my child; other children out there know these things and there is a reason they know them. My child is not alone and neither am I."


----------



## flyingspaghettimama (Dec 18, 2001)

I imagine some of you have seen this article, but I thought it was interesting, because it discusses exactly what is being discussed - i.e. socio-cultural relevance, society's treatment of the gifted, different types of intelligences, and the myth of accurate gifted testing in the first place (which typically rewards a very certain type of gift)...

The Prodigy Puzzle
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/20/ma...ef1145&ei=5070

(free registration required)


----------



## mommyofshmoo (Oct 25, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mommytolittlelilly*

On a tangent here, but I think it's an interesting contradiction of our (U.S.) society that we do place so much emphasis on early verbal and reading skills as a marker for "giftedness," when as a whole, intelligence is often ridiculed and spurned. See the success of Dubya vs. Al Gore, for instance.

I think about this all the time. No wonder US schools suck. Americans are highly distrustful of the desire to learn and don't like people who are smart, educated, etc.

Hence a truly "smart" preson learns to act stupid, and hence succeed. Think Jessica Simpson.


----------



## Dal (Feb 26, 2005)

Not sure how helpful this will be... but just in case... I saw a show not too long ago in which researchers were evaluating different children in relation to how they are parented. The gd-ish type parents weren't apt to force their children to do things. So... when a researcher comes and starts to tell the child what to do, even in a game, the child is less likely to respond. Well, that is my take on it. The researchers concluded that a gd-ish approach to parenting was damaging for the children! Peugh. Sorry that I can't give any details about the name of the show. I can't remember it. Though not explicitly, they identified intelligence with "follows orders" at the earliest age possible.

A lot of what children do and when is based on our expectations, prodding, what they are exposed to (e.g., how is a child to hold a crayon or scribble at 7 months if not given one until well after s/he is 1?) and so on. I think that some or even a lot of what identifies children as gifted can be a result of this type of thing. I also think that children who are coerced to excel in school (or pushed or rewarded for doing it -- perhaps these all amount to the same) to a greater degree than most are far more likely to be considered at least mildly or moderately gifted. In a family that doesn't place this type of strain, the child may focus on what is comfortable or enjoyable for her or him than on what is apt to impress teachers, and is less likely to feel pressured to do whatever needs to be done to get an A or to get a spot in an enrichment class.

I'd like to link a person's overall happiness as an adult with their intelligence, as well as their empathy for others. Maybe I'd just rather we talk about people who live well and those who live in stressful, unpleasant ways. Anyway, there is probably a reason for giftedness talk, though certainly not to the extent that it is talked about.

What about the fact (or at least apparent fact) that girls tend to start talking earlier than boys? I've read that more girls are above average, but when one gets into the genius category more boys fit into it than girls. I have no idea if this is bunk or not... Just wondering.

This whole discussion makes me feel so uncomfortable, yet at the same time I find it interesting. It's hard to pinpoint why.


----------



## SunRayeMomi (Aug 27, 2005)

Quote:

How about a 12 month old Himba child who knows a bunch of things about cows that an American child would never even learn, but can't tell orange from pink? Is he more or less gifted?
I think things such as this are in fact the whole point. A boy who grows up on a farm has a requirement for learning different skills than a boy who does not grow up on a farm. These skills are probably highly valued in his community and he may be considered a gifted person if he is more successful with the skills than the average. But he most likely learned them of requirement, not of genuine interest.

Likewise, a boy that is brought up more "priveledged" with more opportunities for education will learn different things than the boy on the farm. This boy may be taught that abstract intelligence is more important than that of requirement. Who is more gifted? How do you measure? What are the common factors that they share that are compared when determining who is more intelligent? Is it the time frame that they successfully develop competency with a skill? Is it their vocabulary or their poise? Correct me if I am wrong, but is it not general practice to determine IQ according to the scores of _peers_? Meaning, these two boys can't be compared, because their life experiences don't offer enough similarities? I really don't know... I've never been tested. If this was true though, than I wouldn't like to be tested now. I consider myself rather bright, but I am not in college as many of my peers are, so would it be fair to test me on a scale that compares me to peers?

There are biases, that's for sure. A bias that I have is that I subconsciously consider good grammar and placing an importance on spelling to be a sign of intelligence. I _know_ that it is NOT always the most telling factor, but neverless I have picked this bias up somehow and unfortunately do use it to judge....







Feel free to pick apart this post to find errors


----------



## Leilalu (May 29, 2004)

http://www.cortland.edu/psych/mi/eight.html

This si just one sight of many on the subject if you do a google search.









As I stated in another thread, I don't feel language skills are nessecarily a sign of giftedness unless your child is gifted in ther area of language







I think the public system misses alot of "giftedness" because they do no test in the right areas for each child.


----------



## NoHiddenFees (Mar 15, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flyingspaghettimama*
The Prodigy Puzzle
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/20/ma...ef1145&ei=5070

I found this piece to be problematic for a number of reasons. [Not to mention the condescending tone; the cracks about how the Davidson Institute picked personable representatives distinctly left the feel they chose to hide the "freaks" back home.] These are my three strongest objections to the content:

1. It assumes parents of gifted kids have the means, knowledge and desire to expose their children to the out of school activities listed. Given the underrepresentation of poor and minority students identified for GT programs (setting aside the question of their efficacy... yes these programs would benefit from better design), I think it's safe to say that these underrepresented children would not be the ones benefitting from these competitions and activities. Saturday Academy in Portland is not cheap, nor are OMSI or Zoo classes. Science and engineering contests require funds for materials. Ditto for art and music. The author is extolling a sytem in which it is primarily the white, middle and upper class gifted children are most likely to benefit.

2. It assumes the primary reason for clustered and accelerated education is academic. While I'm certainly in favour of everyone being allowed to work at their own ability level, highly gifted children can benefit just from knowing there are others out there like them. Additionally, there are issues (including perfectionism and asynchronous development) that commonly arise with gifted kids that are every bit as important to deal with as acceleration.

3. It assumes that parents believe it is the duty or destiny of their gifted children to benefit humankind in some significant way. Most of us just want our children to grow up to be good people, well adjusted socially (to the greatest extent possible) and happy. Just like every other parent. Giftedness is not as simple and stereotypical an issue as just doing well in school and so getting taunted by peers. Giftedness and acedemic "success" are not the same thing (but yes, there is a, perhaps substantial, subset of highly gifted kids who buy into the system get good grades... most with little or no effort).

That said, powerful anti-intellectual currents do exist in the United States. While the current President has taken this to extremes with his rejection of academic though across disciplines (most notably science), the tendency goes right back to the roots of the country in (some of ) the founders' rejection of the intellectualism of Europe.

Back to the OP.

Should I then not dare to consider my daughter to be gifted because she is the product of a white, middle class, generic North American culture? Does iniquity mean that no one should benefit? Or everyone? Should I have kept books away from her so she wouldn't learn to read before school age? Should I use simpler words when talking to her so she doesn't benefit from an enriched vocabulary in the household? Of course not. The suggestion that there are other people who are not identified early for cultural, socio-economic or other reasons shouldn't be a basis to take down those who can be. We should be attacking the system (both identification and weak GT programs), not the kids. As for older kids, let me be clear again... IMHO, the ideal school system would be one that lets all kids work to their ability in all subjects. The idea that all 6yo's should be just learning to read and add is ridiculous.


----------



## flyingspaghettimama (Dec 18, 2001)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SunRayeMomi*

Likewise, a boy that is brought up more "priveledged" with more opportunities for education ...

There are biases, that's for sure. A bias that I have is that I subconsciously consider good grammar and placing an importance on spelling to be a sign of intelligence. I _know_ that it is NOT always the most telling factor, but neverless I have picked this bias up somehow and unfortunately do use it to judge....







Feel free to pick apart this post to find errors









Well, you spelled privileged wrong, for starters.









I'm totally picking on you. Don't hate on me. I couldn't resist! I'm an older sibling! Maybe you did it on purpose!


----------



## mamawanabe (Nov 12, 2002)

The NYTimes article had problems (audience is mostly uppity and affluent so perspective of newspaper follows suit).

However, I guess I do agree that that we have defined acheivement rather narrowly in this country - acadeic success, university degrees, traditional professions (a definition that owes much to our ideals of metrocricy) that we have a hard time imagining that child giftedness as anything except what will transfer into academic achivement, degrees (the earlier and the more the better) and professional success.

I remember a smart kid profiled by my local TV station years ago. Asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he replied "a doctor and a lawyer." He (and mostly likely his parents and school) couldn't imagine what to do with his giftedness except to rack up BOTH of the most prestegious (salary-wise) professional degrees our society offers.

I also worry about the whole sooner is better thing. It is part of our American mentality to believe that beginning to talk at 18 moths is somehow better than beginning to talk at 24 months. Of course we know that early talking doesn't correlate with future academic/professional success, and yet we secretly hope for early tealkers. Nevermind that we know that giftedness doesn't correlate with adult happiness (the end goal here, right), and yet we hope for gifted children.

If we are responding to our children as we should, stimulating and challenging and supporting them based on their needs and desires, than "when" isn't an issue. Gifted or not isn't an issue. Joy and happiness at our growing children and their burgeoning abilities and talents and drives should be more than enough to guide us in helping them thrive.

I guess it does become an issue when they hit school (if you don't homeschool).

And I agree like peers are a good thing (so gifted kids, if we could ever accurately identfy them, they don't feel weird or different or bored). But now I am remembering "The Louisinana School" -where truely gifted kids from my district went. I knew a lot of those kids in college, and they were pretty messed up. Maybe it was just the school (and/or maybe these kind of programs are better now), but those kids had been told they were "special," and they absolutely couldn't cope with college work perhaps because of fear of disapointing their potential or perhaps because they believed they were too good for the work (college work is often boring and unchallenging). Many dropped out.

All of it is very interesting because it goes to the heart of what we value (some of it irrationally). I, for one, value academia and have a hard time registering success unless it is certified by univeristy degrees. And yet I have never been particualrly happy in acadmia - it has always seemed hollow and meanlingless and egomosterous to me.

This stuff is so deep inside us.


----------



## Mirzam (Sep 9, 2002)

My eldest DD was a very, very precocious talker, actually she was very early for all her milestones as a baby and toddler and I honestly thought I had a genius on my hands. Wrong! She is now a very average student and has been since she started school.


----------



## Daffodil (Aug 30, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mamawanabe*
Of course we know that early talking doesn't correlate with future academic/professional success, and yet we secretly hope for early tealkers. Nevermind that we know that giftedness doesn't correlate with adult happiness (the end goal here, right), and yet we hope for gifted children.

There are a lot of qualities people generally admire and hope for in their kids that don't necessarily lead to adult success or happiness - kindness, sense of humor, creativity. So I don't think it's so silly for people to think it might be a good thing for their children to be intellectually gifted, even if it doesn't guarantee happiness.

Quote:

If we are responding to our children as we should, stimulating and challenging and supporting them based on their needs and desires, than "when" isn't an issue. Gifted or not isn't an issue.
I think this is absolutely true. But I also think that, when you're trying to figure out what your children's needs and desires are, and how to respond to them, it can be hard not to be influenced by what you see most other people around you doing, what you read about when kids are developmentally ready to do this or that, how and what you remember being taught when you were a kid. Seeing your kid as gifted can make it easier to ignore all that and realize that what everyone else is doing with their kids might not make sense for yours.


----------



## teachma (Dec 20, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *shell024*
A lot of times it seems like parents are in too much of a habit of "rushing" nowadays, and it rubs off on the kids. Like "maybe if they would just hurry up and be independent, I could get some things done"







:







When people comment on how much ds is "talking" already, holding his head up, very alert and listens, etc etc etc... like he is "gifted", it kind of bugs me.

So, it's possible that I rushed my kid into using the words "condensation" and "esophagus" in his casual conversation before the age of 18 months old?


----------



## teachma (Dec 20, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kincaid*
Some are even younger than age two. I really wonder what the sense of urgency could be to indentify a child that young. So they can get more "enrichment"?

For me, it was an effort to understand some of the more complex and less wonderful qualities that often accompany giftedness. Here was my ds as a baby: He didn't sleep. He was super intense. The slightest noise or change in lighting (ie sun going behind the clouds) captivated him and through him off track completely. If there was a conversation amongst adults, his eyes and ears were glued- and no one could get a word in without his remarks (before he was a year and a half). Regardless of the topic, he had relevant ideas. He could spend hours sorting buttons, first by shape, then by size, then by color. Many of the traits that often come along with giftedness seem to overlap with ADHD, Aspergers Syndrome, and others. Identifying him as gifted kind of gave me reason for all of these behaviors. Now, some people find labels of ay sort to be deplorable, but I happen to take comfort in them, at least where my own kids and students are concerned. Understanding that a set of attributes belong to a particular condition helps me figure out how best to deal with those qualities in my children.


----------



## teachma (Dec 20, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *uccomama*
My eldest DD was a very, very precocious talker, actually she was very early for all her milestones as a baby and toddler and I honestly thought I had a genius on my hands. Wrong! She is now a very average student and has been since she started school.

Success in school does not equate to giftedness, and the converse is true as well. Gifted children often are not the ones with the highest grades, or the ones who most love school. Think about your dd. Are you sure she isn't a genius? Don't base your judgment on school performance alone.


----------



## Mirzam (Sep 9, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *teachma*
Success in school does not equate to giftedness, and the converse is true as well. Gifted children often are not the ones with the highest grades, or the ones who most love school. Think about your dd. Are you sure she isn't a genius? Don't base your judgment on school performance alone.

Yes, I am sure she isn't a genius! She is just an average kid still finding her way in this world. But we love her anyway!


----------



## lilyka (Nov 20, 2001)

This is a casual observation but I have several friends whose chidlren were extremely verbally gifted at an early age. Others were positively speechless. and they did not seem as smart as the others. We all assumed the ones who could recite thier numbers, alphabet and cared about colors were super gifted. Perhaps they just enjoyed the praise and attention thier verbal skills got them. they are no doubt smart but by the age of 5 or 6 everything had evened out and they age at which children spoke seems to have had no bareing on how smart they were. One of the most verbal kids actually does the poorest accademically now (although of all the children she is the only one in ps so being educated differently may be why she is in a different place than the other kids). The verbal ones just excelled in this one area. One child was extremely gifted but it wasn't her verbal skills that gave her away. She knows scary amounts of stuff that no one told her about. She also has some sriouse weak areas that they are having to seek outside help with (OT - she has huge gross motor skill problems. her brain is so busy with what it is doing, things that are automatic, like sitting up and staying up, are not so much automatic for her)

And I don't know about culturally. All of the kids I have personal experiance were white. Economically we were all over the place but they all came from 2 parent families with more or less stay at home moms. and most were first children some second.


----------



## velochic (May 13, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *teachma*
Success in school does not equate to giftedness, and the converse is true as well. Gifted children often are not the ones with the highest grades, or the ones who most love school.

I very much agree with this!! My dh has a genius IQ, went to M.I.T. and is now a university professor of computer science and math and he often flunked the classes he thought were boring in high school. He is undoubtedly the smartest person I've ever met. He sought knowledge in his gifted area, and ignored the rest.

Anyway, I think in general that giftedness comes in all sorts of guises - anything from being gifted with words, to being gifted with numbers, to being gifted with people, to being gifted with flower arranging or growing a garden. I think the world would be a better place if we let our kids find their own gifts and then help them grow in them... rather than trying everything we can to get our kids labeled. IMHO, if a kid is intellectually gifted, the evironment (cultural or otherwise) matters little because a truly gifted child will always find their ways to learn and expand their minds no matter what.


----------



## LeftField (Aug 2, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kincaid*
So in a playgroup with white kids, asian kids, and african-american kids... how reliable are "early verbal skills" as an indicator of higher intelligence?

Anyone besides me think this is VERY biased toward white middle class kids? How can this be a reliable indicator of "giftedness" if on the other hand we know it to be culturally based?

Do we know for a fact that white middle-class American children are speaking significantly earlier and with more complexity than other groups or are we just speculating here? I'm white, American and middle-class. I did all the "right" things: talked to my child like he was an adult, explained lots of things to him, etc. He didn't talk until he was 22 months old. It's just how his brained was wired. I'd have to see hard evidence that there's a significant difference in verbal development between the groups we are talking about before I consider a cultural angle to this.

Also, as CB said before, it's important to note how much of a deviation it is from the norm. Catching up and evening out and all that occurs within reason. But if we're looking at significant deviation from the norm, then yeah, it's hard to dismiss that.

Other random stuff, as it relates to things in this thread:
--checklists
Those lists can be very useful, I think, as an after-thought. I mean, if the parent already has a good "big picture" view of what's going with the child, the checklist might confirm a few things OR if the parent has little contact with other children, the checklist might give an idea of what to expect. But I think that, like lots of things, the checklists can be misused by parents who are looking for tiny advancements anywhere they can find them. Like, if you go on an advanced baby list elsewhere, you sometimes find people talking about how their baby sat up unassisted at 5 months or rolled over a bit early and they now think their baby is advanced. It lacks a big picture feel, because it's then just a random collection of slightly advanced milestones. Giftedness, IMO, is a larger and more abstract thing and the milestones are often an awkward way of showing that. Also, I believe the thought with the checklists and "giftedness" is that the child should meet most of the things "ahead" or most things in a particular area. YK, if your child sits alone at 5 months and draws a circle a few months early, that's not really saying anything.

Uh oh, I had more to say, but dh is done getting ready for bed and I have to go too. I will read more tomorrow on this thread and collect my thoughts a bit better. Before I go, I wanted to say that it's not just Einstein who spoke late. There's a big list of esteemed individuals who spoke very late, most of them musicians and mathematicians. I can post their names if anyone is interested. I was interested, because my son spoke so late, but he had strong spatial and symbolic skills.

Ok, off to bed!


----------



## LeftField (Aug 2, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kincaid*
Loraxc,
I really wonder what the sense of urgency could be to indentify a child that young. So they can get more "enrichment"? I am just very puzzled and think these attempts to identify so early lead to people using very flimsy, culturally biased "indicators" - like word count.


Quote:


Originally Posted by *teachma*
For me, it was an effort to understand some of the more complex and less wonderful qualities that often accompany giftedness. Here was my ds as a baby: He didn't sleep. He was super intense. The slightest noise or change in lighting (ie sun going behind the clouds) captivated him and through him off track completely. If there was a conversation amongst adults, his eyes and ears were glued- and no one could get a word in without his remarks (before he was a year and a half). Regardless of the topic, he had relevant ideas. He could spend hours sorting buttons, first by shape, then by size, then by color. Many of the traits that often come along with giftedness seem to overlap with ADHD, Aspergers Syndrome, and others. Identifying him as gifted kind of gave me reason for all of these behaviors. Now, some people find labels of ay sort to be deplorable, but I happen to take comfort in them, at least where my own kids and students are concerned. Understanding that a set of attributes belong to a particular condition helps me figure out how best to deal with those qualities in my children.

Yes! For us, it was also to understand why he was so different and to determine if he needed help in any way. I also researched hyperlexia, Asperger's, etc. I just wanted to understand what was going on with him, so I could help him in whatever way he needed. We homeschool and are currently doing something that resembles unschooling. We are some of the most relaxed, child-led folks around. We don't push or praise a bunch. We just let the kids do their thing and enjoy life. I would "enrich" any child of mine the same, regardless of IQ. I read to my kids and take them to fun places and hang out with them. The early I.D. of giftedness and the reading I did on it did not come from this competitive place that people seem to repeatedly accuse others of. I just wanted to understand what was going on with my child, because I was a bit concerned. FWIW, the whole "gifted" possibility was a bit upsetting to me, not a coveted prize or anything. I still get freaked out from time to time.

Now, I'm really going to bed!


----------



## LeftField (Aug 2, 2002)

Ok, I lied. I'm still going to bed, but I had a thought while flossing and I didn't want to forget it.









Wrt checklists and word counts, I think there's a difference between looking for something and having something jump out at you.

I think there's a difference between
--counting 100 words and noting that the avg child of this age only says 80 or noting that your child knows colors 4 months in advance
AND
--being completely unable to ignore the fact that your child is completely unusual in many ways compared to age-mates.

Maybe that's my personal bias. But in one case, someone is actively adding up random milestones so that they can say their child is "ahead". In the other, the child's basic differences are so obvious that it would be very hard to ignore. Maybe it's intent. But I think that group A makes a bad rep for group B. I think that group B is very misunderstood.

Ok, i have to now. Dh is standing next to me looking really tired. Tomorrow, right?


----------



## NoHiddenFees (Mar 15, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *lilyka*
This is a casual observation but I have several friends whose chidlren were extremely verbally gifted at an early age. Others were positively speechless. and they did not seem as smart as the others. We all assumed the ones who could recite thier numbers, alphabet and cared about colors were super gifted. Perhaps they just enjoyed the praise and attention thier verbal skills got them. they are no doubt smart but by the age of 5 or 6 everything had evened out and they age at which children spoke seems to have had no bareing on how smart they were.

Truly gifted kids don't "even out". The types of skills you are describing sound more like indicators of precociousness rather than early giftedness. Reciting the alphabet and counting by rote don't denote any understanding of the underlying systems of symbolic language and numbers. I've met plenty of 18mo kids who know a few colours. It's been said elsewhere, but the indicators and lists of characteristics are not foolproof. There is a really good article by Linda Silverman, unfortunately no longer available free of charge, which lists some characteristics of giftedness in younger kids. I don't remember any of the figures exactly, but is was presented in the following format:

Multiple Imaginary friends
Gifted sample: 80% Control: 20%

It clearly illustrated that not only were these characteristics not the exclusive province of the gifted when they were young, but that not all young gifted kids possessed them, or possessed them at an early age.

Quote:

Originally Posted by *Kincaid*
I really wonder what the sense of urgency could be to indentify a child that young. So they can get more "enrichment"? I am just very puzzled and think these attempts to identify so early lead to people using very flimsy, culturally biased "indicators" - like word count.
Depends what age you're talking about. For say an 18mo, word count would be a less reliable early indicator than usage. Does the child use their advanced vocabulary in an appropriate context? Are they starting to apply rules of elementary grammar (e.g. adding "ed" endings and pluralizing words)? I have yet to meet someone who is convinced their child is gifted on the sole basis of knowing a few more words than the age peers.

As for my "urgency to identify"... My eldest is definitely gifted. It's not a label I sought; it's part of who she is. I don't seek to enrich her experiences _because_ she is gifted, but she certainly demands, craves, and seeks experiences far outside the norm for children her age and drags me along with her. However, because of her needs, she's certainly exposed to many things other kids her age are not. I have read a LOT about giftedness so I can be in a better position to help my daughter navigate through issues that come up during her childhood. We're homeschooling, so there's no status relative to her peers to worry about (one of the reasons we're homeschooling... gifted kids or not). We won't use a grading system and we'll do our damnedest to ensure that she doesn't equate self worth with token indicators or ease of accomplishment. But I digress.

Back to the OP; vocabulary acquisition does have some demonstrated cultural influence. I remember reading that Korean (?) children tend to learn more verbs than nouns at a young age and because of the complexities of their written langauge, Japanese children are less likely to pick it up prior to starting their formal educations. Asian languages lend themselves to understanding numbers better and at a younger age. They need know only 11 words to count to 100, compared to -- I think -- 28 in English, and place value is implicit in the name of the number itself, unlike in English. I'm sure there are many more examples, some language independent. I'd be interested to learn more.


----------



## mommytolittlelilly (Jul 7, 2004)

NoHiddenFees said:


> There is a really good article by Linda Silverman, unfortunately no longer available free of charge, which lists some characteristics of giftedness in younger kids. I don't remember any of the figures exactly, but is was presented in the following format:
> 
> Multiple Imaginary friends
> Gifted sample: 80% Control: 20%
> ...


----------



## loraxc (Aug 14, 2003)

Quote:

IMHO, if a kid is intellectually gifted, the evironment (cultural or otherwise) matters little because a truly gifted child will always find their ways to learn and expand their minds no matter what.
Not to pick on you, but I find it interesting that you make this statement and then talk about how your husband flunked classes because they were too easy for him. Admittedly, you tell us he then went on to great success, but what if he had failed one too many classes and never gotten into MIT? What if he had dropped out of high school?

Are you really sure that all gifted children will find a way to flourish no matter what? I tell you what--I'm not.


----------



## NoHiddenFees (Mar 15, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mommytolittlelilly*

Quote:


Originally Posted by *NoHiddenFees*
There is a really good article by Linda Silverman, unfortunately no longer available free of charge, which lists some characteristics of giftedness in younger kids. I don't remember any of the figures exactly, but is was presented in the following format:

Multiple Imaginary friends
Gifted sample: 80% Control: 20%

It clearly illustrated that not only were these characteristics not the exclusive province of the gifted when they were young, but that not all young gifted kids possessed them, or possessed them at an early age.


I had multiple imaginary friends as a child! I take this to mean there's a good chance I was "gifted." I take some comfort in that, even though it's kind of embarrassing to admit.

My bad. I chose poor hypothetical numbers (I don't have access to the original article anymore). Let's use 80% and 35% instead. This would mean that 80% of the gifted kids whose parents were part of the study had multiple imaginary friends, while this was true of 35% of the control group. A single characteristic would almost never be a good indicator. My point was that few/none of these characteristics individually are good indicators of giftedness because of their prevalance in the general population. However, if you have a child who is driven to learn, has multiple imaginary friends, does 100 piece jigsaw puzzles at 2.5, etc.; i.e. a combination of these indicators, the indicators are more reliable. OTOH, an absence of early indicators wouldn't mean a child wasn't gifted.

Quote:

I do think "gifted" kids have different needs, BUT I'd also be in the camp to question the rush for identification as such. Speaking from my own experience (even though I really don't know if I'd fall under the gifted umbrella), I think there's a fine line between a child wanting to impress parents/caregivers and a child leading the way, so to speak.
This is a myth for truly gifted kids. With the exception of athletics, the parent is rarely the driving force. At the same time, a pushy parent cannot make a child gifted. Most gifted kids have what is commonly termed a rage to learn. If you are actively involved in the child's life, it's difficult to mistake it for anything else, but that doesn't stop people from outside the family occasionally making assumptions and rude remarks... "Oh, you must work with him a lot." It is a battle (not literally... I use subterfuge) to get my daughter's head out of a book or away from her chess program to get down to the store to pick up stuff for dinner. She has firm control over the "schooling" we do, my concern is to try to limit the amount of time we spend each day doing it.

Quote:

I think it's quite possible for a child to fool parents into thinking that they want to continue with, say, Chemistry studies, when they actually find it really dull (even while doing well in those studies). Parents/caregivers are in the best position to be able to tell if this is the case, but I'm just saying that you might not always be able to tell, and perhaps subconsciously, you might not want to be able to tell.
At a young age, DD1 started demanding to be taught her letters. She would point at letters and yell until I'd acquiesce. I had mixed feelings, to say the least. We'd planned on a Waldorfy approach in the younger years. This wasn't part of her plans though. Child led goes both ways, and my second guessing whether it was "OK" to meet her demand certainly wasn't serving her. I fail to see why it's OK for a parent to follow their child's lead when they have no interest in letters or reading or math at a young age because it meets their needs, but not OK when the child is clearly demanding it. The implicit assumption in the idea that someone "might not want to be able to tell" is that somehow using the label, or wondering why your child is so different from her peers is something the parent necessarily sees as positive. There are a host of not so positive characteristics common to gifted children that many parents would rather not deal with.


----------



## mommytolittlelilly (Jul 7, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *NoHiddenFees*
At a young age, DD1 started demanding to be taught her letters. She would point at letters and yell until I'd acquiesce. I had mixed feelings, to say the least. We'd planned on a Waldorfy approach in the younger years. This wasn't part of her plans though. Child led goes both ways, and my second guessing whether it was "OK" to meet her demand certainly wasn't serving her. I fail to see why it's OK for a parent to follow their child's lead when they have no interest in letters or reading or math at a young age because it meets their needs, but not OK when the child is clearly demanding it. The implicit assumption in the idea that someone "might not want to be able to tell" is that somehow using the label, or wondering why your child is so different from her peers is something the parent necessarily sees as positive. There are a host of not so positive characteristics common to gifted children that many parents would rather not deal with.

Perhaps some parents don't feel that it's a positive to have a gifted kid, but I don't think that's the case with all. In my babysitting days in the 80s, everyone actually seemed to be very proud to be the parent of a gifted kid. I have no idea, but maybe none of these kids were really gifted? It did seem kind of amusing to me at the time, I must admit.

Also, I just want to point out that I don't think there's necessarily a right or a wrong way to approach learning with a child who shows interest in something. My daughter has expressed interest in learning to read for awhile now, and she might even be actually reading. (Don't know how that's possible, but there have been a number of things that lead me to believe this is the case.) Anyway, it just doesn't feel right to me to be trying to teach her to read right now, so I'm not doing it at this point. Perhaps I'm overly-concerned with the potential for burn-out.


----------



## flyingspaghettimama (Dec 18, 2001)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mommytolittlelilly*
Perhaps some parents don't feel that it's a positive to have a gifted kid, but I don't think that's the case with all. In my babysitting days in the 80s, everyone actually seemed to be very proud to be the parent of a gifted kid. I have no idea, but maybe none of these kids were really gifted? It did seem kind of amusing to me at the time, I must admit.

This is certainly the case where I live. I do see many parents pressing their children into being labelled gifted and talented in my community - there are separate, accelerated public programs for those children. The teachers rave about how much more well-behaved these children are, and how easy they are (red flag!). They are gifted within an academic framework, which is highly valued in this (middle-class, white) community. The classes are acceleration only, no gifted classes for the creative or weirdly obsessed (as the article points out - is frequently missing from the academically gifted equation yet is a vital, contributing force to really cool stuff). AND you have to be equally gifted in math and verbal abilities to be "gifted" here - hmm.

Of course, you would then need to believe that giftedness is not just innate but can also be nurtured or socially influenced as the OP pointed out - and boy, is it ever here. Yesterday, I rode in the elevator with a dad who was trying to teach his toddler how to spell her name. When she just looked at him blankly and said "noooo...I don't want to." He kept at it. Finally he laughed and said to me, "ha ha, she must be nervous in front of an audience."

I'm not saying that this nurturance or social value of say, verbal skills, is bad, it just is. In some parts of the country, intelligence is devalued in comparison to other qualities (I grew up there). But within the white middle class, it certainly is not devalued at all - it's a goal, which is not bad. But the competition over labelling children in my community (not representative necessarily of anyone on MDC or in other communities) can get really out of control, which is what I think the article was touching on.

I did think the article was problematic as well - yet raised some points that are not often debated within some gifted parenting communities. And I personally think that perhaps they should be, as I do see a certain type of groupthink about a) what constitutes giftedness b) how it is measured and its accuracy c) why it's important and to whom and d) what should be done about giftedness in all presentations. It is a very subjective piece, as most of the magazine articles tend to be so. I think perhaps she bit off too big a bite to chew - she brought up so many issues but didn't explore them very adequately...


----------



## mommytolittlelilly (Jul 7, 2004)

Kind of off-topic, in reference to the NYT article. I love Sen. Carl Levin's question to the kids from Michigan- "What's in your soul?" I think that's a good question for us all.


----------



## SunRayeMomi (Aug 27, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flyingspaghettimama*
Well, you spelled privileged wrong, for starters.









I'm totally picking on you. Don't hate on me. I couldn't resist! I'm an older sibling! Maybe you did it on purpose!


phew. As long as that's all!


----------



## eilonwy (Apr 3, 2003)

I'm seeing a lot of things in this thread which are confusing me... is school performance being used as a marker for/evidence of giftedness? In my experience, the more highly gifted a child is, the worse their overall school performance (particularly in junior high and high school). I would never assume that a child wasn't gifted because they were getting poor/average grades in junior high school, although I'm probably biased.

Is there a cultural component to the way that giftedness is defined/assessed/accepted? In most cases, I'd have to say absolutely. There's a cultural component to *everything*. I think that the biggest problem facing gifted minority students, however, is a poor understanding (on the part of teachers) of how giftedness can manifest itself outside of typical academic excellence. Rather than the answer being "eliminate the labels," I think that more education of educators is necessary-- teaching them that a lot of children "act up" in class out of boredom, that many gifted children are highly distractable when being presented with material that they are already familiar with or which was understood on the first pass, etc, etc and so forth. If teachers knew what they were actually seeing and were willing to accept that perhaps Ritalin is not the solution to all their problems, I think that more minority students would be identified as potentially/actually gifted through the public school system.

Why identify a very young child as potentially/probably/actually gifted? Well, why identify a very young child as potentially/probably/actually autistic? Why is the first considered so unacceptable, while the second has government agencies dedicated to the cause? Just as a child with a whole collection of behaviors and developmental delays may have other issues which need to be addressed, ideally as early as possible, so it is with gifted (and particularly with profoundly gifted) children.

I'd like to reemphasize something that other posters have pointed out in this thread: one single marker, be it early speech or early motor skills or whatever, is rarely a useful indicator. When you ask a parent why they believe that their very young child is gifted, they are unlikely to give you a single answer like, "Well, she was talking in full sentences just like a little adult at 15 months." Even parents who are obviously mistaken about their child's giftedness (and they are not as common as you might think) will cite many different reasons that they believe what they do. Some reasons are cited more often by parents of children who are eventually "proven" to be gifted/highly gifted/profoundly gifted later on, and others are more often/uniquely cited amongst parents of children who are proven to be average/superior, but not gifted. It's never one thing, though. I can't think of anyone who would say, "my kid did X at age Y, therefore he's gifted."


----------



## melissa17s (Aug 3, 2004)

eilonwy, I think you are on to something. I had a "prodigy" student when I was student teaching. He could hardly spell and struggle to verbalize his ideas. He could draw and paint to a degree that many trained professionals aspire to with ease and minimal direction from professionals/teachers.

There are a couple of problems in schools when it comes to gifted children. First, some gifted children struggle to learn outside of their one highly developed style of learning, so when put into situations that require they broaden their skills they resist. My drawing student was homeschooled, but came onto the campus for artclasses and an art history class. He was dedicated to his art classes and would spend most of the day in the different studios working even though he only had to be there in the morning. He slacked off majorly in art history. He thought he could do it because it was art, but was not the right brained activity he was hoping for... he needed to be able use the left side, too, which was weak in comparison. Sometimes it is not lack of challenge for the gifted child, but too much focus on what they can do and not enough on the stuff that is hard for them.

Second is that most teachers have strong verbal tendancies (something like 75% or more), but only 20% or so of students learn well from verbal instruction. It is hard for a teacher to teach to different learning styles if they are not well versed in them. It gets even harder when there are so many different individual needs of different children in the classroom. Many different strategies are necessary to meet group needs.

It should not be ignored if a student has a strength in a type of learning, and gifted programs may be appropriate, but out of the different types of intelligence that are not as strong should not be ignored. If your dc are desiring to learn reading at an early age, fine, but make sure their activities are balance with nonreading activity because kids are not always able to judge too much of a good thing. For the pp that did not do Waldorf because their daughter wanted read... why not try introducing aspects instead of adopting the whole philosophy. Imaginary play, play with other children, painting, outdoor play... these will teach her skills beyond reading that could help develop even more of her whole person.


----------



## Kincaid (Feb 12, 2004)

IMHO there is a huge difference in the emotional context of a parent who is looking at identifying their son as autistic at age two... versus a parent homeshcooling their two year old with purchased curriculum (including titles such as Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons) who then reports back on the giftedness of their child who AMAZINGLY learns to read early. While on one hand the parent assures others theirs is a no pressure home, at other times you see their exacting research into curriculum and what materials works "best". I have friends who use things like "Teach Your Child to Read" on their 2 year olds, and then a year later tell folks their child's zeal for learning just naturally led them to read on their own (LOL). Is it an odd concidence that my friends who have "gifted" 3 year olds happened to start the BOB books, the early reading curriculum, the Singapore math workbooks? (I don't intend for this to be inflammatory - this is exactly what my parents did to me, and I was easily diagnosed "gifted" as well).

Not being snarky, I find this very different than the motivation of a parent who fears a diagnosis of autism for her child.


----------



## eilonwy (Apr 3, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kincaid*
IMHO there is a huge difference in the emotional context of a parent who is looking at identifying their son as autistic at age two... versus a parent homeshcooling their two year old with purchased curriculum (including titles such as Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons) who then reports back on the giftedness of their child who AMAZINGLY learns to read early.

I know lots of parents of gifted children who suspected/believed that their child was gifted long before they learned (or, heaven forbid, were taught) to read/do math/etc. This goes back to the problem of using a single "marker" to determine giftedness.

In reality: I don't believe that there is a difference in emotional context between the parent of a truly gifted child (particularly a profoundly gifted child, but this applies to more moderately gifted children as well) who is looking for answers and support vs. the parent of an autistic child, (or a child with mild/moderate/profound mental retardation, or severe physical delays, etc). Both parents may be confused, surprised, and dismayed by the reactions of other people (friends, family, perfect strangers) to the child they may have initially believed was quite "normal." Both parents may go through the same stages, at first denying the differences between their child and others, later acknowledging them grudingly in private, researching their child's particular set of "symptoms," and eventually coming to the conclusion that they have a pretty good idea of what's going on with their child. They may seek outside assistance, scouring their communities for a formal diagnosis so that they can get the intervention that their child needs, or they may decide that the best way to deal with their child's differences is simply not to expect them to behave the way that normal children do in school and to keep them home.

Quote:

While on one hand the parent assures others theirs is a no pressure home, at other times you see their exacting research into curriculum and what materials works "best". I have friends who use things like "Teach Your Child to Read" on their 2 year olds, and then a year later tell folks their child's zeal for learning just naturally led them to read on their own (LOL). Is it an odd concidence that my friends who have "gifted" 3 year olds happened to start the BOB books, the early reading curriculum, the Singapore math workbooks? (I don't intend for this to be inflammatory - this is exactly what my parents did to me, and I was easily diagnosed "gifted" as well).
I've never encountered a parent who said, "He was normal/average at two but now he's gifted." I'm sure that they exist, the scenario you propose sounds very plausible to me, but I've never met these people. On the surface of it, you could be describing me; I'm actively working with my son to teach him to read and do basic mathmatics at the age of three. The fact is, however, that a) I would be doing these things now even if I did not believe that he was gifted, although likely at a slower pace and with fewer "frills" (meaning in-depth discussions about the differences between, say, water mammals and rodents, or whatever's on his little mind, and I probably wouldn't have started the grammar or biology work at all if BeanBean hadn't dragged me into it kicking and screaming); b) You will never hear me say, "My three year old is learning to read, that means that he's gifted." Never. I'm teaching him to read and he's learning quickly because he's totally capable of the work. I have many other reasons for believing that he's gifted, and 99% of them came up before he was two years old.









It's not about getting him to perform-- I don't think I've even got a picture of him actually reading anywhere, nor has he done so for anyone but me, his grandmother, his sister, father and cousins. I don't talk about it in real life ("Hey, everyone, look at my little boy, watch him read! Peanuts at the gate!"), this is just something that we do. There are many, many other things going on that people who are simply reading posts about our kindergarten work would miss entirely, things which led me to believe that he was likely to be gifted looooong before we started doing formal work together.









I don't even know what to say about my daughter... she's strange.







I do occasionally refer to her in the terms which are applied to gifted children, because she's already dealing with some issues which are very common amongst them at early ages (i.e. sensory issues, overwhelming rage to learn, painfully quick progress with anything to which she is introduced, etc) and I do feel the need for support. She's not reading, and while she's demonstrated some writing ability and done some very strange number tricks, I wouldn't say that she's "doing math," either. Nor am I formally working with her, though I do try to answer her questions with a minium of dawdling (this is difficult for me, as I believe very strongly in allowing children to develop according to their own paces, and BooBah's pace is so different that it strikes me as, occasionally, downright unwholesome







). Am I trying to make her into a "genius?" Certainly not! The trouble is, I don't want to make her into something that she isn't, either, and that's perfectly average.







So what am I to do? Just ignore it when she does these very strange, off-the-beaten-path things? Do I encourage her, or simply follow her lead? Would it be best to try to redirect her to something more "normal," when she's got her hands in my book and is threatening to rip out pages if I don't point out letters and words to her? What if she won't be redirected?

Lots of people think of gifted children as early readers and kids who do well in school; most people don't think of gifted children as the ones who climb to sit on top of the television at ten months, or manage to open "child-proof" bottles of medication at seven months, or who are thrilled, delighted, and tickled pink to discover at 11 months that they can turn off the computer in no fewer than four different ways. Just as they don't think about the child who is asking questions about where you go when you die at the age of two, or the three year olds who ask, "How do you answer a math question if you don't know one of the numbers?" or the ones who decide at the age of 5, upon realizing where meat comes from, that they will never eat meat again. There are many, many issues involved and the overwhelming majority of them are not related to academic (nor school!) performance at all. Many come up most often in infancy, toddlerhood, and the early childhood years when children may have the fine motor, gross motor, or intellectual skills to accomplish unbelievable things, while their emotional and/or social abilities run along a very different track.


----------



## melissa17s (Aug 3, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kincaid*
IMHO there is a huge difference in the emotional context of a parent who is looking at identifying their son as autistic at age two... versus a parent homeshcooling their two year old with purchased curriculum (including titles such as Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons) who then reports back on the giftedness of their child who AMAZINGLY learns to read early. While on one hand the parent assures others theirs is a no pressure home, at other times you see their exacting research into curriculum and what materials works "best". I have friends who use things like "Teach Your Child to Read" on their 2 year olds, and then a year later tell folks their child's zeal for learning just naturally led them to read on their own (LOL). Is it an odd concidence that my friends who have "gifted" 3 year olds happened to start the BOB books, the early reading curriculum, the Singapore math workbooks? (I don't intend for this to be inflammatory - this is exactly what my parents did to me, and I was easily diagnosed "gifted" as well).

Not being snarky, I find this very different than the motivation of a parent who fears a diagnosis of autism for her child.

My dh grew up in Singapore, where kids were expected to be reading before they entered kindergarten or else they got tracked with the slow learners. He also had to come to school knowing addition and subtraction as they were learning multipication in kindie. By the age of 12 or 13 he got tracked in to the slow learners program because he was failing Chinese (English was his 1st language), but he had straight As otherwise. Relative to most American children, a child in S'pore might be considered a genius, but many are missing fundmental social skills and do not get the opportunity enjoy childhood or life because the competition to perform academically was so overwhelming. They actually have government programs to teach S'poreans to socialize. It is called Social Development Unit. Last time we were there, I noticed at many of the malls and shopping centers, they had "gymboree" type places where preschool children could go get instruction on reading, math and computers, while the mom or dad went to the spa next door and did their shopping. Glad my children do not live there with that kind of pressure to perform. At least I know they have had a beautiful, playful childhood.


----------



## loraxc (Aug 14, 2003)

Quote:

I have friends who use things like "Teach Your Child to Read" on their 2 year olds, and then a year later tell folks their child's zeal for learning just naturally led them to read on their own (LOL). Is it an odd concidence that my friends who have "gifted" 3 year olds happened to start the BOB books, the early reading curriculum, the Singapore math workbooks?
If your child expressed a strong interest in bugs, would you buy him a book about bugs? If your child seemed to love painting, would you buy her some paints and paper? If your child wanted to find out everything there was to know about dinosaurs, would you nurture that? I think all of us would.

And what if your child shows an early interest in letters, words, and numbers? Should one's desire to expand upon that child's interests suddenly shut down, for fear of social stigma or imagined mysterious psychological harm? Is that a brave or honest or thoughtful way to behave?

If my child is interested in things we might term "beyond her years," and I encourage/allow/put up with that interest, am I suddenly going to transmogrify into that rightfully maligned creature, the Pushy Status-Conscious Obnoxious Braggy Parent? Well, I did worry about this. The conventional wisdom leans in this direction, and I know that there are indeed parents like this. But it's a lot to assume that every parent of a reading 3-year-old is THAT parent.

My daughter was fascinated with alphabet books at 14 months and asked to have them read over and over and over, pointing at the letters. So (gasp!) we bought her a foam letter alphabet set, which she was completely enthralled by. She learned the letters and numbers (yes, we told her what they were--double gasp!) in a week, developed favorites (8, M, and N), and carried them around the house with her.

At almost 2, she is now very interested in words, and frequently asks me "What does that say?" So I tell her. She also likes to count. As in, this morning I woke up and heard her counting in the crib, in tones of great glee. Another thing she likes to do is to learn the names of things, particularly birds, plants, and animals.

Look...like most of us, I am looking for things to do with my daughter to keep her happy and occupied. She couldn't care less about train sets or TV or dolls. However, she will sit still for 45 minutes burying letter tiles in a bowl of rice and digging them out again, declaring "I found G!" (or whatever) in great excitement. She will sit and flip through her father's technical field guides and murmur the species names to herself. She will say, "Mama, I want to count!" and together we will count to 100. Of course, she also likes to run around in the yard and sing and paint and go for hikes, and we do those things too. But she's not big on toys or some of the other toddler stuff. I need and want to keep her busy and occupied and vibrant.

Now, I haven't formally tried to teach her to read or done any math with her. But I may try it, eventually. Not because I want a superchild, but because she has shown interest in this sort of thing and it would be something to do that she might enjoy. Maybe I will buy one of those curricula eventually, but if I do, I will introduce and see if she likes it and takes to it. If she doesn't, we won't do it. I mean...have you ever really tried to teach a two-year-old something he or she doesn't want to learn? Unless you're pretty mean and demanding, you aren't going to get far unless your child wants to do it.

So, maybe the kids you know who are gifted are the ones with the BOB books and the Singapore math. But which came first--the chicken or the egg? Can you consider the possibility that those parents were actually following their children's lead? Isn't that what being AP is supposed to be all about?


----------



## chann96 (May 13, 2004)

I was considered a "gifted" child. I was always first in my class and went to a residential math and science academy for high school. I just had a few thoughts from reading through this thread.

1. I didn't read until kindergarten, but picked it up very quickly. The question of what is a "good" indicator of giftedness was the premise of this thread. I don't think verbal ability is a good indicator. My daughter has a severe expressive speech delay, but obviously learns things very quickly. I don't know or care if she's gifted, but I know that her vebal skills are not at all indicative of her cognitive skills. My experience would suggest to me that two other skills are MUCH more indicative of "giftedness." The first skill is problem solving. Gifted folks can often look at a problem and find a solution very quickly. I think this can lead to the other indicators typically considered because kids easily figure out how to deal with math problems or how those silly shapes form words. Learning those skills is a type of problem solving. The second, related, skill is conceptual thinking. As an example from later in my life, I never understood physics in high school or college. It was always taught as a series of experiments and equations to memorize and I couldn't wrap my brain around it. As a grad student I took physical chemistry that really explained the underlying ideas behind physics to me. Suddenly everything in physics made sense to me. I often found myself having to really go deeper into a subject to learn the underlying premise before the basic, concrete points made any sense to me.

2. Are specialized programs for gifted children appropriate? I definitely say "yes." My major reason has been mentioned here already ; it gives kids a chance to interact with other "gifted" children. In my "regular" school I often found myself bored. I would try to pick the hardest topic available for papers or projects because I was otherwise bored. I rarely had friends who were on the intellectual par with me and it was a piece of my life that was missing. When I went to my residential school it opened up a whole new world to me. First, it was ok to be smart, even really smart. Second, I was average at my new school and it was cool to learn that was acceptable. Third, most (except physics unfortunately) classes and teachers recognized the different thought processes of the students and tried to teach in a variety of manners. Fourth, because I was accepted socially in that environment it gave me more confidence to explore other areas of learning. I still never took an art class, but in my other classes I became much more creative and risky in doing projects than ever before. Fifth, although it was a math and science academy most, if not all, of the students commented frequently about how great the liberal arts and arts were at the school. In English we never had a grammar lesson, it was all literature examination. It taught me so much about thinking that I never would have gotten in a regular English class. My American Studies class never had a text book. We would spend a few days discussing a topic or event, then act it. It gave me a greater thought process about why those events had happened when I had to personify someone involved in it. It was something that never would have happened in a regular school. Finally, our school had grades, but no gpa's and no class rankings. It was so completely freeing and created a non-competitive zone. I don't think children need to be at a completely separate school as youngsters, but I do think a separate day or half day at a gifted program provides some very needed cognitive skills and validating social situation.

Sorry, this got really long, but I'm so into educational thought right now that it just all comes pouring out.


----------



## fuller2 (Nov 7, 2004)

Despite all the apparent recent awareness of gifted children, the fact remains that special education receives FAR more funding than programs for the gifted, or even programs that might benefit the middle-range kids with particular abilities in certain areas. Learning-disabled kids get far more attention than gifted ones in most schools, including many colleges, and 'mainstreaming' even quite developmentally disabled kids is pretty common. I think we have a long, long way to go before any kind of gifted program is as common and as well-funded as the very large number of special ed programs. A few pushy parents do not make a fundamental curriculum change. Gifted kids are probably the LEAST-likely students to get extra one-on-one attention in our current system.

I was also a gifted kid, and the one summer in elementary school where they provided a gifted program was probably the best educational experience in almost my entire rural Wisconsin public school career. Having even those coupld of weeks to not constantly feel I had to hide my abilities to avoid even more social ostracism than I already experienced, to actually feel challenged in an academic setting, and to be with other kids who also 'got it,'--that was fantastic. My parents always did a ton of what would now be considered 'unschooling,' I think, so I had lots of good stuff at home, but they could not help me with academics; I would have greatly benefited from something extra at school. My teachers, from grade school on, often found ways to give me extra stuff to do, but extra worksheets or being sent to the library to read didn't do much but enforce my isolation.

We live in a profoundly anti-intellectual and anti-achievement culture (in any way which does not involve making a lot of money). When I think about what I could have done if I had been in gifted programs all through school--it's very depressing. I consider the majority of my regular public school experience to have been just time-killing until I was allowed to go to college. And as far as social life goes--I was far happier socially in the handful of times I was able to interact with other kids 'like me' than I was during the other 99% of the time. (I got along much better with other other kids when I started going to drinking parties at age 15, however; beer brings everyone to the same level.) I would have been delighted, frankly, to meet and continue on with a few 'gifted' kids all through school rather than have to continue on isolated, lonely, constantly feeling like I had to repress myself, always pretending I didn't understand things I did...Granted, I was in a rural area which most definitely did not appreciate anyone who deviated from a very narrow social norm. And I did have friends all through school--I was never a reject, got good grades, was involved in music, theater, lots of things. But I will never forget that loneliness. I still have it a lot of the time, but after starting college I was able to finally find both compatible people and to be stimulated enough that it wasn't as bad (and often lost it altogether).

It's just so hard to talk about this without sounding like a totally conceited jerk. (That's part of the social stigma against acknowledging intelligence.) But since so many of you have gifted kids, I just wanted to chime in with my experience of NOT being stimulated in school and not being able to find peers I could really be myself with until I was in my 20s. I would really think twice about putting my very gifted kid in an ordinary public school unless they had great music/art etc. programs, or other options that actually stimulated and made use of these gifts rather than ignoring or even denegrating them. Public schools are designed to turn out factory workers--they are not designed to stimulate and develop very intelligent individuals. And public school social life is not kind to very bright kids.


----------



## NoHiddenFees (Mar 15, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kincaid*
IMHO there is a huge difference in the emotional context of a parent who is looking at identifying their son as autistic at age two... versus a parent homeshcooling their two year old with purchased curriculum (including titles such as Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons) who then reports back on the giftedness of their child who AMAZINGLY learns to read early.

This is an unfair comparison. Because pushy, achievement oriented parents (of not necessarily gifted kids) exist, therefore all parents of gifted children are pushy? What do you say specifically to the parent of a truly gifted child who is trying to come to terms with just what is up with their kid?

Perhaps it would help if we differentiated by degree. Most gifted kids are moderately gifted. Most are fairly well adjusted relative to their age peers, and many are high achievers in school (the happy healthies of Terman, et. al.). Some gifted programs are made up almost exclusively of such children. It would probably be pretty difficult to differentiate these kids at a young age from the general category of "bright."

Then there's the HG, EG and PG kids. Not all give early signs of their giftedness, but many (if not most) do. Many don't perform "to potential" in school. Many aren't even recognized as having high potential, being labeled as troublemakers, AD/HD (without recognition of their giftedness), etc. I haven't seen hard data, but there are reports that these kids are more likely to drop out of school than their peers. The more gifted the child, the greater they differ from their age peers (of course there are exceptions, but this is the trend). These are the kids parent's need help to understand. In my case, I'm a moderately gifted momma trying to wrap my head around a child much brighter than I; it's frightening, exhilirating and challenging.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kincaid*
While on one hand the parent assures others theirs is a no pressure home, at other times you see their exacting research into curriculum and what materials works "best". I have friends who use things like "Teach Your Child to Read" on their 2 year olds, and then a year later tell folks their child's zeal for learning just naturally led them to read on their own (LOL). Is it an odd concidence that my friends who have "gifted" 3 year olds happened to start the BOB books, the early reading curriculum, the Singapore math workbooks? (I don't intend for this to be inflammatory - this is exactly what my parents did to me, and I was easily diagnosed "gifted" as well).

You are talking about _some_ parents and _some_ children, but seem to be applying these statements to parents who believe their young child to be gifted. Perhaps these parents don't actually understand what giftedness is and they are conflating it with achievement? Many (most?) people do. I was under the impression that one of the trends in mainstream parenting today is pushing classes and the like on younger and younger children to give them a leg up over their peers. Best daycare, best preschool, etc. These parents may or may not believe they are making their child "gifted", but if they do they are misinformed.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kincaid*
Not being snarky, I find this very different than the motivation of a parent who fears a diagnosis of autism for her child.

It is snarky, and insulting to the parents of gifted kids with over-sensitivities and over-excitibilities, on the autism spectrum, ADD, etc.


----------



## NoHiddenFees (Mar 15, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *chann96*
1. I didn't read until kindergarten, but picked it up very quickly. The question of what is a "good" indicator of giftedness was the premise of this thread. I don't think verbal ability is a good indicator. My daughter has a severe expressive speech delay, but obviously learns things very quickly.

It is not a necessary condition of giftedness, but rather one of many possible _early_ indicators of giftedness. Its absence does not mean a child can't be gifted.


----------



## Kincaid (Feb 12, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *NoHiddenFees*
This is an unfair comparison. Because pushy, achievement oriented parents (of not necessarily gifted kids) exist, therefore all parents of gifted children are pushy? .....

I did NOT say this, and certainly don't believe it.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *NoHiddenFees*
It is snarky, and insulting to the parents of gifted kids with over-sensitivities and over-excitibilities, on the autism spectrum, ADD, etc.

I am sorry you take it that way. That was certainly not how it was intended. I was "profoundly" gifted (enrolled in Duke University after excelling on the ACT at age 8) - some developmentalists however think kids do better without such placement. I am sure you are familiar with the body of research suggesting kids are better off being kids and not "tracked" as gifted at a young age, the value of holding off till the child is older for enrichment, the importance of play over enrichment in the formative years.
On the other hand, I've not ever come across research that suggests that parents hold off therapy for a child with Autism, cerebral palsy, or developmental delay. (now this would be an interesting spin-off thread... and I could be swayed either way... why is it unequivocally good to get intervention for kids with delays but not advancements?)

Please don't take my questioning these assumptions so personally. You may not agree with me, but I am not snary or insulting.


----------



## loraxc (Aug 14, 2003)

Quote:

I was "profoundly" gifted (enrolled in Duke University after excelling on the ACT at age 8) - some developmentalists however think kids do better without such placement. I am sure you are familiar with the body of research suggesting kids are better off being kids and not "tracked" as gifted at a young age
I don't know about NoHiddenFees, but I've been reading widely, if unsystematically, about gifted kids lately--and no, I am not familiar with this body of research. In fact, the vast majority of the information I have read stresses the opposite: the importance of recognizing giftedness, particularly extreme/profound giftedness, at an early age. I can specifically remember reading information that said something like, "The old beliefs that it is not necessary to recognize or do anything about giftedness till kids are in third grade have been discredited."


----------



## Kincaid (Feb 12, 2004)

I am surprised you haven't run across dialogue here on MDC about how children are better served by waiting on instruction on skills like learning and letter recognition, and the focus is instead on "play." Seems like this is widely discussed here on MDC.
I mentioned this before, many like the book "Einstein Never Used Flashcards" and I believe it has gotten good reviews here on MDC from different educational camps. While this book doesn't focus on this topic, it references a number of institutes and studies which focus on the importance of play and letting kids be kids (versus tracking and enrichment).

Baby just dumped cheerios...


----------



## Kincaid (Feb 12, 2004)

aaaagh, cheerio mess.

Loraxc, here's some info on the age-old debate regarding gifted tracking.

Quote:

Is it a good idea to separate out gifted children, especially at a young age?
This is one of the oldest, most bitter debates in education. The most influential critique of "tracking," as it's usually called, was written by Jeannie Oakes, a professor of urban schooling at the University of California at Los Angeles, in her book, "Keeping Track." Oakes attributes this failure to racial politics and fear of change: "Frankly, whiter and wealthier families felt threatened that this would jeopardize their kids' opportunities."
In the 80's, gifted kids were "tracked" (Hopkins, Harvard, and Duke all had very well known identification programs). Then in the 90's the trend was to move away from tracking in the school systems.


----------



## eilonwy (Apr 3, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kincaid*
I am surprised you haven't run across dialogue here on MDC about how children are better served by waiting on instruction on skills like learning and letter recognition, and the focus is instead on "play." Seems like this is widely discussed here on MDC.
I mentioned this before, many like the book "Einstein Never Used Flashcards" and I believe it has gotten good reviews here on MDC from different educational camps. While this book doesn't focus on this topic, it references a number of institutes and studies which focus on the importance of play and letting kids be kids (versus tracking and enrichment).

Okay; I haven't read that book, so I can't really comment on it. I have seen a lot of things being discussed at MDC about how children are "incapable" of learning certain tasks before certain ages, how so-and-so's philosohpy stresses play rather than academic work for children under age X, etc, etc, and so forth. These are often followed by statements like, "Don't worry, your child will be ready someday and they'll let you know." Apparently, they can only let you know after age X.









Here's my problem with that: it's not impossible for a child to, for example, show a strong desire to learn to read before they are 12/8/4 years old. It's not impossible for those children to need help to learn to read, despite their strong desire to learn. Many of the philosophies discussed here emphasize chronological age as the sole indicator of cognitive development, implying that if a child learns to do task B before age X, they are a) not doing it correctly, b) not understanding what they're doing, c) being pushed by their parents, and/or d) going to be scarred for life. Reading a little bit about the Waldorf philosophy was enough to convince me that I could never send my child to a Waldorf school, because (despite the comments of some parents) they are completely against children reading before (I believe) age 7, and schools that adhere strictly to the Waldorf philosophy actively discourage children from learning things which are "out of reach."

I've also heard a lot about the Montessori approach and while I think that overall it's a good one, I have heard *terrible* things about Montessori education (not the philosophy, but the education system) from highly gifted children and their parents. My best friend in high school started a Montessori program at age 4; when she finished doing all of the available activities for that week (early on the second or third day) she attempted to climb a shelf to get to the books that she saw there. She was stopped and repeatedly disciplined for this. Eventually they called her mother, who promptly removed her from the school; her daughter had been reading well for a year by then, and being told by a "professional" that it was unhealthy for a young child to learn to read, to say nothing of the fact that it was impossible for her to already be reading, was more than enough to convince her that she'd made a bad decision in sending her daughter to this school.

Then there's John Holt, widely quoted as saying that it's pefectly natural for children, especially boys, not to learn to read (or show any interest in it) until they're... was it 12, or 16? I've heard both.







Instead of taking this statement to mean that you should follow your child's lead, many here at MDC seem to think that it means if your child is reading before the "magical age" of 8, you're pushing them, especially if you're talking about a boy. Just relax and let it all go, don't focus so much on your child's achievements you're going to make him neurotic,





















. As if it's impossible that all you're doing in real life is spending time with your child and helping him to follow his own interests to their natural climax/conclusion/whatever. Surely you jest! You _say_ that you're not pushing him, but I've read John Holt and he says that it's not normal for children, especially boys, to read so early.

I've also seen this one: "Einstein didn't talk until he was 3/4/5 years old, and his parents and teachers thought that he was slow." Someone (Charles Baudelaire?) offered a link to some research about Einstein that demonstrated that this statement wasn't true (although I can't remember which age was involved, I think it was 5) but I wasn't able to visit that site. Anyway, this statement is often quoted as proof positive that you can't tell if a child is gifted before they are 3/4/5/15/20 years old, or as a way of saying that every child should be treated as though they were gifted, or being an average infant/toddler doesn't mean that you're never going to accomplish anything, or being saddled with the heavy label of "giftedness" early on will only make you a miserable, underachieving, antisocial adult. None of these ideas can be logically inferred from the statement, "Einstien didn't talk until he was 3/4/5 years old," but people have linked them together.

There's plenty of research (not all of it reputable) to suggest that children should be encouraged to follow their own interests. Nearly all of it has been designed to discourage pushing children beyond what they are naturally capable of, and to encourage parents to relax and let their child's abilities unfold naturally. None of it contradicts anything that you will hear from the parents of truly gifted children; in fact, some of the most vocal opponents of pushing I've ever met are themselves parents of highly/profoundly gifted children. My question is, why is it so difficult to believe that a child might naturally be drawn to learning academic things, rather than, say, nature walks or crashing cars into walls? Why is it impossible for so many parents to accept that despite the fact that they've never seen a child under the age of 2 sit still for more than 10 minutes (while they were awake and healthy), other parents have children that age and even younger who will sit and turn the pages of a book for hours on end?

The fact is, it doesn't make a difference-- I don't care when Einstein talked, or how he was treated by other kids and adults on the playground (though I do confess to being somewhat curious as to the whys and wherefors... but I digress). What I care about is my own children: how can I a) honor their spirits, b) honor their abilities, c) help them to be the best kids that they can be [note: best does not mean smartest, fastest, tallest, prettiest, most famous, or anything along those lines], d) help them to become the best adults that they can be. Personally, I don't think that it's any more helpful to deny a child with giftedness access to the things which they need to thrive than it is to deny a child with SID occupational therapy. In fact, I believe that it can be just as detrimental in the long run. It's also just as unfair to the child. I know it sounds "elitist," but it is just as unfair, in my mind, to make a child with an IQ of 150 sit in a regular classroom as it is to make a child with an IQ of 50 do the same thing.


----------



## tiffer23 (Nov 7, 2005)

I know when I was working in a childcare center, we had two little hispanic sisters who would jabber to each other all day long, but no one else could understand them. When I started working there, I figured out that they were talking in Spanish! Luckily, I knew enough to communicate with them and it was awesome! They were the smartest little things, they just didn't speak much English. If I'd never worked there, it could have been another year or so before they'd have figured that out.


----------



## flyingspaghettimama (Dec 18, 2001)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *eilonwy*

I've also heard a lot about the Montessori approach and while I think that overall it's a good one, I have heard *terrible* things about Montessori education (not the philosophy, but the education system) from highly gifted children and their parents. My best friend in high school started a Montessori program at age 4; when she finished doing all of the available activities for that week (early on the second or third day) she attempted to climb a shelf to get to the books that she saw there. She was stopped and repeatedly disciplined for this. Eventually they called her mother, who promptly removed her from the school; her daughter had been reading well for a year by then, and being told by a "professional" that it was unhealthy for a young child to learn to read, to say nothing of the fact that it was impossible for her to already be reading, was more than enough to convince her that she'd made a bad decision in sending her daughter to this school.

Well, that was a very odd montessori your friend attended, then. They will expose letter sounds and simple sounding-out words to 2.5 year olds (IF they're interested) in most AMI and AMS approved schools. My daughter read at three, in part due to the fun games at Montessori. Most children read fluently by age 6 in Montessori, with the majority starting around age four. If they're interested in doing division at the same ages, they'd get lessons in that. If they're interested in painting or learning to cook or writing their own stories, they'd get lessons in those worthwhile activities.

Your friend's school was a very bizarre one and not representative, as most people critique Montessori for being "too academic," which I also don't agree with - a normal Montessori school will follow the child, wherever they are on their unique path.


----------



## eilonwy (Apr 3, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flyingspaghettimama*
Well, that was a very odd montessori your friend attended, then. They will expose letter sounds and simple sounding-out words to 2.5 year olds (IF they're interested) in most AMI and AMS approved schools. My daughter read at three, in part due to the fun games at Montessori. Most children read fluently by age 6 in Montessori, with the majority starting around age four. If they're interested in doing division at the same ages, they'd get lessons in that. If they're interested in painting or learning to cook or writing their own stories, they'd get lessons in those worthwhile activities.

Your friend's school was a very bizarre one and not representative, as most people critique Montessori for being "too academic," which I also don't agree with - a normal Montessori school will follow the child, wherever they are on their unique path.

I can't say that my friend's experience was representative, but I can say that a) I've heard many other similar stories and b) most of them are more than 10 years old.







Perhaps things have changed, although from what I read of Maria Montessori's book, she had very strong opinions about what children were cognitively ready to learn and when they should learn those things.


----------



## ChristaN (Feb 14, 2003)

I don't have much time and I don't even know if I should get involved in this arguement/discussion as it just makes me sad. However, I am never good at keeping my mouth shut, so...

I made no effort to identify nor label my dd as gifted when she was a baby or toddler, but she still was. She had a lot of issues none the less, and if I had been able to place a "label" on the cluster of symptoms she was exhibiting and it made sense and would have helped me to help her, I wouldn't have had a problem with doing so. I just knew that she was high needs and I did my best to help her deal with her intense emotions, meltdowns and terrible frustration at her baby body that left her screaming all the time and rarely sleeping. I was too exhausted to do much else than meet her needs and not worry about labeling her.

I didn't even think about her being "gifted" until she started struggling terribly in first grade with a miserable teacher who thought that massive repetition was the way to teach virtually everything. Dd came home saying things like, "I wish I had never been born."

She needed something different; she still does. I do resent the fact that my dd gets nothing at all in special services b/c she will get the test scores that the school needs whether they do everything or nothing for her. They tend to opt for nothing. Her teacher is wonderful this year, but there is only so much that she can do in a regular classroom while dealing with the other special needs children (all of whom are mandated to have individual additional help b/c their special needs fall on the other end of the spectrum).

For what it is worth, yes, she did say her first word by 6 months and was very verbal at a young age. My younger dd was, too. DD#2 actually spoke sooner -- she started at 5 months and was saying 5 words at 6 months (I was recently looking back at baby books for info for an assessment we are having done on dd#1 to figure out how to deal with her emotional intensity. I really didn't go around counting up the words and memorizing the number!). none the less, I don't feel the need to label "gifted" for dd#2 b/c she isn't wired in the way that dd#1 is even if she is every bit as smart.

Learning about giftedness, for me, is way of understanding why dd experiencing life the way that she does. It helps me know how to best parent her and, hopefully, will give me a way to explain it to dd such that she is more at peace with herself. I want dd to grow up to be a happy, well adjusted person. She and I need to have some understanding of why and how she is different as well as an ability to help her best deal with those differences (she has always known that the differences are there!) in order for her to not suffer from them.

Sorry, that may all be incoherent, but I wanted to chime in that all parents who identify their children as gifted are not doing so for academic reasons. My reasoning is to help us deal with dd's emotional and social differences.


----------



## NoHiddenFees (Mar 15, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kincaid*
I did NOT say this, and certainly don't believe it.

You may not have meant this, but it was certainly implied by what you wrote. Here's the quote where the autistic comparison was made (emphasis mine):

Quote:


Originally Posted by *eilonwy*
Why identify a very young child as potentially/probably/actually gifted? Well, why identify a very young child as potentially/probably/actually autistic? Why is the first considered so unacceptable, while the second has government agencies dedicated to the cause? *Just as a child with a whole collection of behaviors and developmental delays may have other issues which need to be addressed, ideally as early as possible, so it is with gifted (and particularly with profoundly gifted) children.*

And here is what you wrote two posts later:

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kincaid*
IMHO there is a huge difference in the emotional context of a parent who is looking at identifying their son as autistic at age two... versus a parent homeshcooling their two year old with purchased curriculum (including titles such as Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons) who then reports back on the giftedness of their child who AMAZINGLY learns to read early. While on one hand the parent assures others theirs is a no pressure home, at other times you see their exacting research into curriculum and what materials works "best".

It seems to be a pattern that whenever valid concerns are brought up wrt giftedness in this thread and the previous, they are ignored and the stereotype of the pushy parent is re-introduced.

Quote:

I am sure you are familiar with the body of research suggesting kids are better off being kids and not "tracked" as gifted at a young age, the value of holding off till the child is older for enrichment, the importance of play over enrichment in the formative years.
Are you using "tracked" solely in an academic/school context? My eldest has zero interest in children her own age (except for a couple gifted friends we've found by happenstance), she prefers much older playmates. I'm not an advocate sending gifted kids to school terribly early (though I am an advocate of acceleration, including radical acceleration) or pushing them beyond their interest. However, at the same time, we have to respect their interests. We didn't teach DD1 to read... she did it herself. I didn't ask her to work through some K math books I was evaluating, she found them and did 2 years worth in 2 weeks. She'd probably mastered the material already; I'm not suggesting she learned 2 years worth in 2 weeks... but she LOVED it. A number of her friends went to school in September and she's decided to do "school" at home. Not my choice... hers. I've followed as other mom's have agonized over the choice whether or not to introduce formal reading (or other) instruction to children who were literally begging for it. Would you counsel them to ignore their children's demands?

I'm very familiar with research about the importance of solitary imaginative play. This is one reason we chose not to overschedule her with playgroups and the like. While there is not much quantitative research on young gifted preschool aged children in the preschool classroom, there is much anecdotal evidence to suggest that it is incredibly important to recognize their abilities and nurture their giftedness within the context of an academic preschool. See Hoagies' Young Gifted page. It's not just early readers starting K who have to learn the alphabet with their age peers. Gifted preschoolers can and do learn to dumb themselves down or give up any hope of ever learning anything in a classroom, or start acting up and are labeled a problem. etc.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kincaid*
Please don't take my questioning these assumptions so personally. You may not agree with me, but I am not snary or insulting.









If I misunderstood, I apologise. But I'm not taking it personally... as I said (in either this thread or the other recent gifted thread), we've been lucky so far and haven't had to deal with many issues other than attempting to satiate DD1's incredible thirst for knowledge.


----------



## lucysmom (Oct 17, 2004)

(what I said was not helpful ...)


----------



## Kincaid (Feb 12, 2004)

NoHiddenFees, you are taking a thread that was intended as a discussion of theory to a very personal level and using what I feel are zings. I choose not to interact this way.

When I hold up the "assumptions" the powers that be are making about giftedness, I am doing so with the intention to consider the implicit racism, classism, etc involved (and yes, this does include pressures from SAHM homeschooling parents of 18 month olds but this is not meant in a negative "pushy parent" way. I am asking folks to consider if the ways we identify giftedness are culturally based).

• Black children constitute 17 percent of the total school enrollment, but 33 percent of those labeled "mentally retarded."
• Black children are nearly three times more likely than whites to be labeled "mentally retarded," and nearly twice as likely to be labeled "emotionally disturbed."
• Latinos and Asian Americans are in general under-identified as learning disabled compared to whites in most states and in most categories, raising the possibility of inadequate attention to their special needs.
• In wealthier districts, contrary to the expected trend, black children, especially black boys, are more likely to be labeled mentally retarded.
(these are from the PBs.org site from the series "Beyond Brown" in the segment "Are you gifted?")

The staggering numbers of minority children identified as "retarded" is the converse of this question I posted. Latino and Asian American kids are infrequently identified as learning disabled. White and middle class kids are disproportionately identified as gifted.
Most of us look at the numbers above and clearly see racism and classism with respect to discrimination. We can critically talk about what is wrong with the system with respect to people of color. *But it's a lot harder to see, and let go of, white/middle class privilege.* My intention of this thread was to discuss how if a structure is flawed and biased at the bottom, perhaps it is flawed and biased at the top as well. Not about pushy parents at all. I don't want to be derailed onto that, I want to talk about the thread title - how is giftedness culturally constructed?

edited to spell PBS.org right


----------



## boomingranny (Dec 11, 2003)

I agree with the premise that giftedness has a strong cultural influence, primarily the dominant culture.


----------



## ChristaN (Feb 14, 2003)

Kincaid, Your last post clarified what you are trying to get at significantly for me. Thank you. I agree that culture and life experiences (especially those of the dominant culture) can influence whether a child is identified as gifted. What I was getting at, and have been saddened seeing discussed on MDC lately, was more relevant to the topic of the existence of giftedness rather than the identification of a child as gifted.

There seems to be some hostility inherent in these discussions which puts parents of gifted children on the defense -- feeling as if we are trying to make our children into something that they are not or are misreading what are children are. I took that (misreading accusation) from the title of this thread as well as many of the discussions herein. (e.g. - "are early verbal skills a sign of giftedness...") To me, it seemed to be a way of putting a parent of a young child who dared to use that label -- gifted -- in her place. In other words, I read the title and the ensuing discussions as: 'just b/c your baby speaks well doesn't mean that s/he is gifted and you are misreading this in an arrogant manner. Your child is no better than any other.'

I do get defensive when I hear that (and apologize if that was not what you meant to communicate) b/c I don't think that my dd is better. At least not any more than any mom thinks that her child is the best. I think that she tends toward troubled and I worry about her. Finding the right way to parents such a child is my only motivation in labeling her with anything. Much as someone said earlier, a mother of a child with autism or any other special need would seek the label if it would get her child the services s/he needs.

But... since I seem to be totally off topic for what you aimed to discuss here, I shall bow out!


----------



## loraxc (Aug 14, 2003)

Quote:

We can critically talk about what is wrong with the system with respect to people of color. But it's a lot harder to see, and let go of, white/middle class privilege.
So, what is your solution then? What should those of us who believe our children to be gifted do? If our children or their teachers approach us with concerns that the work is too slow for them, shall we say, "I'm sorry, but I object to the racially charged definition of giftedness. My child will be miserably bored and restless to prove a political point"? If my daughter acts up in kindergarten because she's bored out of her mind spending a week learning the letter A, shall I tell her to suck it up, because the world is full of inequity? If she fails out of high school because her classes are too easy and she can't be bothered, will I then have done my part for the cause?

This is personal to me, yes. We plan to send DD to public school. The school we are zoned for (guess what?--we are NOT upper-middle class) is low-income, poorly funded, and has a terrible reputation. However, our district has gifted magnet schools, starting with grade 1. Also, because our zoned school has been designated a "failing" school by the state, we have "school choice"--we can send DD to any public elementary with space.

We are faced with a dilemma: do we send our daughter to her abysmally rated (read: underfunded, in the poor, African-American part of town) local school, to another highly-rated elementary (read: in the wealthy, white part of town) or to the gifted magnet, where at least in theory the other kids will be there because of ability, not how much money their parents make? What would you do? This is not a rhetorical question. We are, as parents, personally very concerned about the inequities of our educational system, as well as about racism. Come over sometime and we can have a whole conversation about race in my Southern town, why we bought our house where we did, etc, etc...

Also: I don't think that citing the controversy over tracking (which is not synonymous with the process of IDing gifted kids) or what I frankly think is loopy, fringe Waldorf theory about when kids should be allowed to learn to read (Not till their baby teeth fall out, right? Can I see the scientific evidence about that, please?) really equates to providing evidence about the "the body of research suggesting kids are better off being kids and not "tracked" as gifted at a young age."


----------



## Kincaid (Feb 12, 2004)

ChristaN,
THANK YOU for your post (hugs). I am sorry if you took what I was saying that way... as I mentioned at a couple points it was not what I meant. I see where you are coming from for sure.

Discussions of privilege are hard because people feel defensive and that sucks. When I ask if the definition of giftedness in the US is culturally based and over-identifies white kids and under-identifies kids of color, I am not questioning if individual members of MDC are faking giftedness or pushing their kids. I am just not going to interact in side conversations where folks are defending their kid's giftedness because that is not the point.

I do understand folks feel defensive. Think of it this way. When I posted the above info on the over-identification of black kids as "retarded" and "emotionally distrubed", we can all say Hmmmm.... we know something is up with the construct that defines special needs and how it is somehow inherently racist. We can say that and everyone nods and we have a feel-good moment that we recognize racism and classism. No one jumps in and avows how their kids are indeed special needs, giving us the breakdown of how when their child first missed milestones and how they sick of people doubting the existence of learning disabilities. That doesn't happen does it? But when we question something that does in fact involve privilege, people get upset.

If we can examine one end of the learning spectrum for bias and discrimination (30% of black kids labeled as retarded).... then let's put aside our defensiveness and look at the gifted end of the learning spectrum. It's all the same system, folks. The same tests used as identifiers. The structure that we 'tsk tsk' as racist we then spaz out when the parts of the structure that touch our lives are questioned.
No one is doubting that your child (whoever you are) is gifted. It's not about the individual. It's about the system and what we understand to be faulty on one end, then we refuse to really question on the other end.

You can have a profoundly gifted child, and question the system that defines giftedness in this culture! Hopefully your child will do the same, and make progress in redefining the constructs that label kids of color so easily as "retarded" and "emotionally disturbed" and children who are white and well educated and well behaved (by society's standards) as gifted. It's not a personal attack, folks - otherwise I would be attacking my own "gifted" hiney!


----------



## Charles Baudelaire (Apr 14, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *GranoLLLy-girl*
Interesting idea. Would like to comment on just one thing--don't forget that Einstein didn't speak a word until he was three. There is a book written on the topic of genius children who don't fit the stereotypes that you are describing, although the title escapes me.

This is actually a long-held myth, but myth it is:

"...although [Einstein's] family had initial apprehensions that he might be backward because of the unusually long time before he began to talk, *Einstein was speaking in whole sentences by some point between age two and three years*."
http://www.audiblox2000.com/dyslexia...yslexia005.htm

And another quote:

_"..A few months after his second birthday his maternal grandmother was writing to a relative that Albert...was already creating amusing ideas. Her letter is one of a number of items of evidence obtained at the time of Einstein's early childhood *that firmly contradict the much repeated claim that his language development was retarded*. Another is an anecdote that can be precisely dated to the time when he was aged two years and eight months. This describes him reacting to being told on the occasion of the birth of his baby sister that he now had a new playmate, by asking where were the wheels on this new toy. The child's confusion is unexceptional, but the language development of a two-year-old capable of articulating such a question cannot have been impeded.

_


----------



## Charles Baudelaire (Apr 14, 2003)

Howard Gardner. The problem is, Gardner's research and his all-embracing definition of what constitutes "intelligence," which has succeeded in doing nothing but muddying the understanding of the word (and making Gardner lots and lots of money) is that it's been roundly and soundly discredited by many researchers in the field of giftedness -- of which Gardner is not one, actually, although I believe he is a psychiatrist.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Diane B*
Does anyone know the name of the book about the many kinds of intelligence (I think the author identifies six or so...) - spatial, emotional, musical, etc. - language is just one area. I find it helpful to think about the many dimensions of my daughter's development, not just count how many words she can say by what age.

I think this mania that "early is better" also shows up in physical development, i.e. how early your child sits up, crawls, walks, runs, etc. In Guatemala, where my daughter is from, chldren are carried around well into toddlerhood, so their motor skills are quite "delayed" compared to the U.S. Funny, though - every Guatemalan adult I met seemed to walk just fine...


----------



## Charles Baudelaire (Apr 14, 2003)

But isn't this muddying the waters here? I mean, whether a culture values verbal interaction or not doesn't erase the issue of whether or not early verbal skills are a gifted trait. It simply means they're not valued by the culture and are less likely to be encouraged.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Ravin*
I think that is absolutely the case.

Children acquire language no matter how they're raised, as long as they're around it and hear it. In many cultures (such as African cultures, whose childrearing practices I've been studying for a paper), there is a focus in early childhood on simply keeping a child safe and fed. Babies spend many hours on their mothers's backs, are bf on demand, but aren't much talked to. The mother is doing other talking, but not to the baby. And as they grow older, most of their talking with adults involves simple requests or commands, not conversation. Yet they still learn to talk and converse just fine. And a very verbal child isn't going to be viewed as "gifted", even if expected to go to school when the time comes. Being obedient and helpful are often desirable social qualities in a child, rather than talk.


----------



## Charles Baudelaire (Apr 14, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Raven67*
Just for the record, I think all kids are "gifted" in some way. Our conceptions of giftedness and intelligence in this culture are highly biased toward verbal/linguistic ability, that's true.

Do you also agree that all kids are "retarded" in some way?


----------



## Charles Baudelaire (Apr 14, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kincaid*

What I view as puzzling are "identifiers" of giftedness to evaluate and label kids when they are only old enough to toddle and talk. Some are even younger than age two. I really wonder what the sense of urgency could be to indentify a child that young. So they can get more "enrichment"?

I can't speak for everyone, but there are many reasons any parent would seek to "evaluate and label" a developmentally different child. Here are some I can think of:

1. To understand their child better,
2. To understand their child's difference better,
3. To teach their child necessary coping skills,
4. To connect with others whose children are also different in order to learn how others have handled their unique situations.

Those are only a few. Regarding giftedness, a child who suffers from overexcitabilities, a common trait of gifted children, may find it intolerable to wear clothing with labels or socks with detectable seams. A parent who doesn't understand either giftedness or overexcitabilities may view this behavior (incorrectly) as "being spoiled" or "being picky" and tell them to "just get used to it," or to simply shut up and deal. OTOH, a parent who did understand that, to an OE child, a label can be just as comfortable for him or her as a piece of barbed wire down your back would be, would be far more likely to understand and sympathize and realize that their child was not being spoiled or misbehaving any more than an epileptic child seizes because he or she "just wants attention."


----------



## Charles Baudelaire (Apr 14, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Dal*
I also think that children who are coerced to excel in school (or pushed or rewarded for doing it -- perhaps these all amount to the same) to a greater degree than most are far more likely to be considered at least mildly or moderately gifted.

I would certainly say this is true, particularly since the behaviors that these children engage in are very likely to be associated with "giftedness" by teachers (almost none of whom are actually _trained_ in identifying gifted children, BTW...). The behaviors that get rewarded are things like crossing Ts and dotting Is, sitting quietly, and doing the work, et cetera. The _actual_ gifted child -- the one who's beyond moderately or mildly gifted and actually needs acceleration or intervention -- is probably the one who's done in two minutes (having made careless mistakes because of boredom) and then sits reading _Stranger in a Strange Land_ in her or his second-grade class or the one who is running around like a kook, bored out of his or her skull and being rowdy.


----------



## Charles Baudelaire (Apr 14, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *uccomama*
My eldest DD was a very, very precocious talker, actually she was very early for all her milestones as a baby and toddler and I honestly thought I had a genius on my hands. Wrong! She is now a very average student and has been since she started school.

Uh...sorry if this is presumptious, but your post struck a chord with me. You know, I'm sure, that one of the greatest challenges facing gifted girls is socialization, right? That when they hit school on the whole, their overt demonstrations of their "giftedness" tends to disappear (but not the giftedness itself), right? That girls, far, far more than boys, generally want to fit in and be like their friends, right?

In other words, your daughter may be camouflaging.

To borrow Stephanie Tolan's metaphor, think of a cheetah. A cheetah is capable of achieving speeds of 70 miles per hour. It's the fastest land animal there is. However, if you cage that cheetah and prevent it from running at all, much less achieving speeds of 70 mph, does it stop being a cheetah?

Honestly, I am really hoping that you reconsider your evaluation of your daughter.


----------



## teachma (Dec 20, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Charles Baudelaire*
Uh...sorry if this is presumptious, but your post struck a chord with me. You know, I'm sure, that one of the greatest challenges facing gifted girls is socialization, right? That when they hit school on the whole, their overt demonstrations of their "giftedness" tends to disappear (but not the giftedness itself), right? That girls, far, far more than boys, generally want to fit in and be like their friends, right?

In other words, your daughter may be camouflaging.

To borrow Stephanie Tolan's metaphor, think of a cheetah. A cheetah is capable of achieving speeds of 70 miles per hour. It's the fastest land animal there is. However, if you cage that cheetah and prevent it from running at all, much less achieving speeds of 70 mph, does it stop being a cheetah?

Honestly, I am really hoping that you reconsider your evaluation of your daughter.

Very well said! I questioned this poster too, and I asked if she was sure her daughter wasn't gifted. She seemed sure...


----------



## Charles Baudelaire (Apr 14, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *velochic*
I very much agree with this!! My dh has a genius IQ, went to M.I.T. and is now a university professor of computer science and math and he often flunked the classes he thought were boring in high school. He is undoubtedly the smartest person I've ever met. He sought knowledge in his gifted area, and ignored the rest.


My xdh was very much like yours. He really was (and probably still is!) a Mozart of computers, one of the first people to develop a computer virus (he's sorry for it now -- he developed a deliberately benign virus just for fun that didn't destroy data, basically to see if he could...had no idea what it would mutate into...








), but in college, he was getting grades that were absolutely abysmal, all except in -- you guessed it -- computer science.


----------



## Charles Baudelaire (Apr 14, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *fuller2*
Despite all the apparent recent awareness of gifted children, the fact remains that special education receives FAR more funding than programs for the gifted, or even programs that might benefit the middle-range kids with particular abilities in certain areas. Learning-disabled kids get far more attention than gifted ones in most schools, including many colleges, and 'mainstreaming' even quite developmentally disabled kids is pretty common. ...
We live in a profoundly anti-intellectual and anti-achievement culture (in any way which does not involve making a lot of money).

Okay, I'm going to raise an issue which is bound to anger some, but here goes...

I found the NYT Magazine article interesting because of its focus on the "usefulness" of acceleration or programs such as CTY and Davidsons in light of the fact that many PG-identified children (like the "Termites") don't achieve the "eminence" in their professional lives that one might expect.

The underlying assumption there is that in order for gifted programs to be worthy, to be useful, the kids have to _produce_. Otherwise, what good is enrichment?

Needless to say, we never apply that logic to special ed. programs. No one ever says, "Although Kid X received special services throughout his schooling for his Down Syndrome, he's never managed to hold a job."

That would be obscene, wouldn't it? That would be a terrible thing to say, right?

Then why is it okay if we say this about gifted kids? How come it isn't enough simply to meet their needs, whatever those needs happen to be, and allow them to do with their abilities whatever they see fit, whether it's being the president of Stanford University or being homeless?

Sorry about the off-topic rant.


----------



## Kincaid (Feb 12, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Charles Baudelaire*
The underlying assumption there is that in order for gifted programs to be worthy, to be useful, the kids have to _produce_. Otherwise, what good is enrichment? Needless to say, we never apply that logic to special ed. programs. No one ever says, "Although Kid X received special services throughout his schooling for his Down Syndrome, he's never managed to hold a job."

While this is tangential to the thread topic, I want to just say I absolutely agree with you. Absolutely. This I think fits into our culture's idea of "giftedness" - people who are advanced and "make something of themselves" and "excel." I fear this is enmeshed too dangerously in how we construct giftedness.

(Although special ed does come under fire to produce, which was why the funding cuts to head start were justified over the years. And Bush's new system for evaluating head start is so problematic, with head start teachers feeling pressured to teach to the assessments, but I digress).


----------



## Mirzam (Sep 9, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Charles Baudelaire*
Uh...sorry if this is presumptious, but your post struck a chord with me. You know, I'm sure, that one of the greatest challenges facing gifted girls is socialization, right? That when they hit school on the whole, their overt demonstrations of their "giftedness" tends to disappear (but not the giftedness itself), right? That girls, far, far more than boys, generally want to fit in and be like their friends, right?

In other words, your daughter may be camouflaging.

To borrow Stephanie Tolan's metaphor, think of a cheetah. A cheetah is capable of achieving speeds of 70 miles per hour. It's the fastest land animal there is. However, if you cage that cheetah and prevent it from running at all, much less achieving speeds of 70 mph, does it stop being a cheetah?

Honestly, I am really hoping that you reconsider your evaluation of your daughter.

I have lived with this child for 15 1/2 years and can assure you she is not camouflaging. She is bright, social, popular, but she is not gifted academically. Quite franking she has yet to discover her talents, not through any lack of opportunity as she is encouraged to try whatever she feels drawn to. All I wish for her is that she does find her "thing" and can persue it with a passion.

But you are right she does want to fit in, she does enjoy her popularity. She attends an alternative high school, we moved her from a large conventional school this past fall, against her wishes incidently. She loves it, she has found plently of new friends, kids she would never have associated with in her previous school because they wouldn't have been part of the "popular group", and she is doing much better academically because of small class size, longer period blocks which allows her to spend at least two hours on one subject at a time. But even though she is now getting As in some subjects (arts related mostly) and Bs in others (sciences) instead of Fs almost across the board, I cannot in anyway call her gifted.

ETA: she was not a high needs/spirted baby or toddler nor did she exhibit any SID tendencies. These traits I understand are common in gifted children.


----------



## loraxc (Aug 14, 2003)

Quote:

I found the NYT Magazine article interesting because of its focus on the "usefulness" of acceleration or programs such as CTY and Davidsons in light of the fact that many PG-identified children (like the "Termites") don't achieve the "eminence" in their professional lives that one might expect.

The underlying assumption there is that in order for gifted programs to be worthy, to be useful, the kids have to produce. Otherwise, what good is enrichment?...How come it isn't enough simply to meet their needs, whatever those needs happen to be, and allow them to do with their abilities whatever they see fit, whether it's being the president of Stanford University or being homeless?
ITA with this as well. I have a friend in real life who has been tested as very profoundly gifted and was an obvious gifted child/prodigy. She does have a degree from a prestigious university, but she hasn't "done" much with it. That said, she is a happy person with a thriving family and a rich interior life. She was "tracked" a sgifted, recognized, what have you, and she achieved very well in school, but she is not driven towards traditional success. But I would as soon call her a "failure to achieve" as I would eat my own sock.


----------



## Charles Baudelaire (Apr 14, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kincaid*
aaaagh, cheerio mess.

Loraxc, here's some info on the age-old debate regarding gifted tracking.

Quote:

Is it a good idea to separate out gifted children, especially at a young age?
This is one of the oldest, most bitter debates in education. The most influential critique of "tracking," as it's usually called, was written by Jeannie Oakes, a professor of urban schooling at the University of California at Los Angeles, in her book, "Keeping Track." Oakes attributes this failure to racial politics and fear of change: "Frankly, whiter and wealthier families felt threatened that this would jeopardize their kids' opportunities."


Allow me to point out the obvious, though, Kincaid, which is that this particular professor is a professor of "urban schooling." This does not suggest to me that she knows particularly much about giftedness or about psychology or about child development in general. Now, if you were quoting Miraca Gross, Nicholas Colangelo, Karen Rogers, Deborah Ruf, Susan Assouline, et cetera, then I'd be far more inclined to believe this assertion. As it is, I look at it with the same regard I would give to a dentist telling me what's wrong with my car.


----------



## Charles Baudelaire (Apr 14, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *eilonwy*
Someone (Charles Baudelaire?) offered a link to some research about Einstein that demonstrated that this statement wasn't true (although I can't remember which age was involved, I think it was 5) but I wasn't able to visit that site.

See above!

Quote:


What I care about is my own children: how can I a) honor their spirits, b) honor their abilities, c) help them to be the best kids that they can be [note: best does not mean smartest, fastest, tallest, prettiest, most famous, or anything along those lines], d) help them to become the best adults that they can be. Personally, I don't think that it's any more helpful to deny a child with giftedness access to the things which they need to thrive than it is to deny a child with SID occupational therapy. In fact, I believe that it can be just as detrimental in the long run. It's also just as unfair to the child. I know it sounds "elitist," but it is just as unfair, in my mind, to make a child with an IQ of 150 sit in a regular classroom as it is to make a child with an IQ of 50 do the same thing.


----------



## ChristaN (Feb 14, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kincaid*
If we can examine one end of the learning spectrum for bias and discrimination (30% of black kids labeled as retarded).... then let's put aside our defensiveness and look at the gifted end of the learning spectrum. It's all the same system, folks. The same tests used as identifiers.
...
You can have a profoundly gifted child, and question the system that defines giftedness in this culture!

Absolutely. I do think that our method of determining who qualifies for gifted programming is awful (at least in our district). I'm only talking about my children's district here:

There are very limited services up until 4th grade -- from 2nd-3rd, the teacher has to decide who the top 2 kids in the class are and they get pulled out for a 6 week once/week enrichment. It is totally subjective and based upon the teacher's opinion of who those "top 2" are with no testing whatsoever. I have a problem with this for two major reasons as follows:
1) if you have a high ability class, many of the gifted kids will not get the enrichment b/c there are higher ability kids in the class. If there were 5 kids in need of special assistance on the other end of the spectrum, all of them would get services, not just the two who are in the greatest need. Likewise, if you have a low ability class, kids who are not in need of GT services will get pulled out b/c they have no truly gifted kids to pick as the top 2. It is a ridiculous manner of determining who gets services;
2) it is completely subjective and based upon the teacher being able to properly identify the gifted children with no testing.

My other concern is that, after 3rd grade, the determination of who is ided as gifted comes completely from CSAP scores (NCLB/standardized testing). This is an achievement test, not an ability test. Some gifted children do not do well on achievement tests for a myriad of reasons and I can see as how minorities or English language learners could be significantly underidentified in this manner.

I guess the program name of "talented and gifted" is probably correct as it seems that the kids who are placed in this program are talented at parroting back what gets them high test scores, but not always truly gifted. I do think that we are missing a large percentage of the truly gifted children in this process of identification.


----------



## eilonwy (Apr 3, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *kincaid*
The staggering numbers of minority children identified as "retarded" is the converse of this question I posted. Latino and Asian American kids are infrequently identified as learning disabled. White and middle class kids are disproportionately identified as gifted.
Most of us look at the numbers above and clearly see racism and classism with respect to discrimination. We can critically talk about what is wrong with the system with respect to people of color. But it's a lot harder to see, and let go of, white/middle class privilege. My intention of this thread was to discuss how if a structure is flawed and biased at the bottom, perhaps it is flawed and biased at the top as well. Not about pushy parents at all. I don't want to be derailed onto that, I want to talk about the thread title - how is giftedness culturally constructed?

Okay, I understand now that your intentions for the thread were ostensibly good but that it all went haywire. I've got a few more questions about this:

1. When you talk about labeling and identification, are you or are you not talking about identification through the public school system? Because quite frankly, it makes a *huge* difference. Parent-identified gifted children are not the same as children identified through school districts. And while parents are exceptionally good at determining whether or not their child is gifted, particularly when the child in question is profoundly gifted, I have seen no evidence to indicate that the converse is true-- that parents are just as good at identifying when their child is *not* gifted. (It's sort of like the fever thing-- a mother can generally tell when her child has a fever, but they can't always tell if the child *doesn't* have a fever, which can be just as important.)

If you're talking exclusively about children identified as gifted through the public school system, I totally agree with you-- minority and impoverished students are totally underidentified. This is an issue near and dear to my heart, because, as I stated earlier, I myself am not white and was raised on welfare. If you're talking about very young children, infants and toddlers who've had no opportunity to attend school, that's a different story. Those children are almost always parent-identified as gifted, and parents who do use the label are generally trying to get appropriate (and, in my opinion, necessary) services for their children. Are more of those identifying parents white and middle class? I don't know; I wouldn't be surprised. The questions to ask about that are a) why? b) Does this crap all go back to the way that non-white parents were treated in school? c) Does this have to do with the fact that people are taught in America to associate things like school performance with giftedness? and d) What can we do to make things better for the next generation?

2. I actually adressed this issue earlier in this thread, and got only one response; everyone else who responded to that post (#51) concentrated on what I said later in the thread, which had to do with the identification of young/very young (read: not yet school aged, or even preschool aged in many cases) children. To quote myself:

Quote:


Originally Posted by *eilonwy*
I think that the biggest problem facing gifted minority students, however, is a poor understanding (on the part of teachers) of how giftedness can manifest itself outside of typical academic excellence. Rather than the answer being "eliminate the labels," I think that more education of educators is necessary-- teaching them that a lot of children "act up" in class out of boredom, that many gifted children are highly distractable when being presented with material that they are already familiar with or which was understood on the first pass, etc, etc and so forth. If teachers knew what they were actually seeing and were willing to accept that perhaps Ritalin is not the solution to all their problems, I think that more minority students would be identified as potentially/actually gifted through the public school system.


Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kincaid*
It's all the same system, folks. The same tests used as identifiers. The structure that we 'tsk tsk' as racist we then spaz out when the parts of the structure that touch our lives are questioned.
No one is doubting that your child (whoever you are) is gifted. It's not about the individual. It's about the system and what we understand to be faulty on one end, then we refuse to really question on the other end.

Once again, this is confusing issues. "The system" has not identified either of my children as gifted, unless you count random people in positions of "authority" saying, "Wow, he's really bright!" as identification. I'm not spazzing out at anything-- I, more than anyone, know for a fact that the mechanisms by which children are identified _within the public school system_ are deeply, deeply flawed, most notably by institutionalized racism but by many other factors as well. You're talking to someone who's first IQ test at the age of 5.5 was abruptly ended when she achieved a score of 129-- one point shy of eligibility for the gifted program-- because she had a tan. I know many, many children of color who have been totally screwed by the system. My eight year old niece is getting royally done in by it right now.







I'm actually considering writing a letter to the newspaper about it; there is no doubt in my mind that my niece qualifies for whatever services are available to gifted children, but that she'll never get them because the principal of her elementary school is a





















who only wants my niece around because "we don't have enough of her kind of kid in this school" (the nieghborhood-- 39% hispanic, 25% black; the school-- 20% hispanic, 14% black). Yes, that's an actual quote.







:

But once again, I would stress the difference between a child who is identified by their parents as gifted (as is the case with the overwhelming majority of parents who so identify their children here at MDC) and one who is identified through the public school system. My niece is most assuredly a gifted child, regardless of the fact that her school absolutely refuses to acknowledge it and that her (apparently very nice) teacher tells her on a daily basis that she doesn't like "the way she's always wiggling in her seat."









Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kincaid*
You can have a profoundly gifted child, and question the system that defines giftedness in this culture! Hopefully your child will do the same, and make progress in redefining the constructs that label kids of color so easily as "retarded" and "emotionally disturbed" and children who are white and well educated and well behaved (by society's standards) as gifted. It's not a personal attack, folks - otherwise I would be attacking my own "gifted" hiney!

But it feels like a personal attack, because of the implication that it is the system's definition that we are using to label our own children. I can't speak for everyone else, but I know that in my case _it's not._ I've encountered many children whom I would personally label as gifted who never were and never will be identified by the typical, American definitions of giftedness. I know many more (myself included) who have been identified through fairly typical assessments (i.e. IQ tests) but who still remained outside of the definitions which many Americans use to encompass "giftedness" (i.e. school achievement, public eminence, etc).

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Charles Baudelaire*
I found the NYT Magazine article interesting because of its focus on the "usefulness" of acceleration or programs such as CTY and Davidsons in light of the fact that many PG-identified children (like the "Termites") don't achieve the "eminence" in their professional lives that one might expect.

The underlying assumption there is that in order for gifted programs to be worthy, to be useful, the kids have to produce. Otherwise, what good is enrichment?

The question I would ask is, what does production actually entail? One of my favorite cartoon characters cracked a joke when complimented on achieving high honor roll at school-- "Actually, at my school it just means you managed to stay out of prison the whole term." For some people, I would argue, simply moving "up" on the societal ladder (or failing to move downwards, which is so freaking easy to do) certainly qualifies as progress and therefore as a worthy product of gifted programs. Take my sweet niece for example (again, poor kid!







): My niece was born when my sister was 15 years old. Right now, her father is serving a prison sentence for violating my sister's PFA order against him; she got it because he's completely insane and had been stalking her, harassing her, and damaging property belonging to her and my mother. By any standards, ChibiChibi will be considered a success if she doesn't herself end up pregnant or parenting before she's 17 years old; she has no involved father, a fairly distant (though present) mother, and all sorts of other crap to deal with in her daily life that the overwhelming majority of middle class America can't even begin to fathom. If participation in a gifted program will keep her mind busy enough for her to concentrate on something other than, say, getting pregnant so that she can have something cute around that will love her unconditionally, I would consider that a worthy cause.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *uccomama*
I have lived with this child for 15 1/2 years and can assure you she is not camouflaging. She is bright, social, popular, but she is not gifted academically. Quite franking she has yet to discover her talents, not through any lack of opportunity as she is encouraged to try whatever she feels drawn to. All I wish for her is that she does find her "thing" and can persue it with a passion.
/
But even though she is now getting As in some subjects (arts related mostly) and Bs in others (sciences) instead of Fs almost across the board, I cannot in anyway call her gifted.

I totally concede the point that you know your daughter better than anyone posting on this thread. I'm only asking you to consider the following: Giftedness and school achievement are not in any way, shape, or form the same things. Not even close. Some of the smartest people I've ever met are... well, like me: considered by most to be absolute and utter failures, having been unable and/or unwilling to do the things which, in the minds of their teachers, would have made them good students. I've taken two IQ tests which put me well into the profoundly gifted range; that didn't change the fact that I failed English class every single year from 6th grade through 12th, nor the fact that I graduated high school by the skin of my teeth, three months after the rest of my classmates with a perfect C average.







Did my crappy grades change my IQ? Not in the slightest. Did my IQ change my crappy grades? Only once-- I had one teacher read through my file because I was making trouble for him in class (I objected to his ruling that we should use the dictionary to write down the definitions of some words he put on the board, because that would take three times as long; looking up words and then writing out those definitions verbatim.







). After reading a little bit about me, and learning my IQ, he eventually (with the help of much coercion on my part) came to the conclusion that the easiest thing to do would be to pass me out of his class.









But all this brings me to another point: How is it that we are defining giftedness in this conversation? To me, the idea of even beginning to equate giftedness (or intelligence at all) with school performance is absolutely ridiculous. It would never occur to me to say that someone who made straight A's must be gifted, nor that a student who made straight F's must not be, but of course we all see these things through the lenses of our own experience.

Personally, I define giftedness as a mechanism of brain function-- if your brain works a certain way (one of several, more likely) then you are in all probability gifted, regardless of what you know, how well you demonstrate that knowledge to others, or how you apply your skills in real life (be they for the benefit of society, oneself, or pure amusement). I could come up with a collection of "symptoms" which other people could look at and use to determine giftedness, but many others have done it so well already. Just take a look at the Davidson Institute's website, and you'll see what I mean.

As to the original issue-- Quite frankly, the evidence suggests strongly that, despite the identification issues (which, as I mentioned earlier, are huge and need to be dealt with in a big way), impoverished and minority gifted children suffer the most when gifted programs (pull-outs, ability grouping, etc) are removed from public schools. White, middle-class and wealthy parents have other options for their gifted children; they can send them to private schools, enroll them in afterschool and summer enrichment programs, find private tutors for areas of ability/interest, etc. They have more resources, so they always have more options. By refusing to acknowledge giftedness at all in the public school system simply because the process of identifying children in need of special services is flawed, you deny any services to any children, including those students who need them the most. How could that possibly be an improvment?!


----------



## chann96 (May 13, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *NoHiddenFees*
It is not a necessary condition of giftedness, but rather one of many possible _early_ indicators of giftedness. Its absence does not mean a child can't be gifted.


Hey I learned how to quote on here. LOL

That's very true. I wish more parents were aware of that. Doctors too for that matter. I get amazed comments from people all the time because they realize she's pretty smart even though she doesn't have the language skills yet.

My sister's new school district does a very interesting thing for the new kindergarteners. Every child goes through an evaluation process. I happened to be at her house when her younger son got his done and I was amazed at how many areas they covered. They have an excellent gifted program at the school that her older son is involved with. I wish all schools did such a great evaluation of kids before they came into the school. Yet another reason why we're planning to homeschool.


----------



## chann96 (May 13, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Charles Baudelaire*
Regarding giftedness, a child who suffers from overexcitabilities, a common trait of gifted children, may find it intolerable to wear clothing with labels or socks with detectable seams. "


This comment is very interesting to me. I'm not saying you're wrong just that this commonality was not my experience. We had about 600 kids at my "gifted" high school. And I can say that there were definitely a lot of kids who would have had real difficulties at a regular school because their personalities or methods of learning were so far outside the mainstream, but I don't know of anyone who had this type of an overexcitability. It strikes me as saying that all truly gifted kids have something "wrong" with them. To me, that was one of the great things about my high school - it demonstrated so well that we were all normal kids who just happened to be very smart.


----------



## Charles Baudelaire (Apr 14, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *eilonwy*
OThe question I would ask is, what does production actually entail? One of my favorite cartoon characters cracked a joke when complimented on achieving high honor roll at school-- "Actually, at my school it just means you managed to stay out of prison the whole term." For some people, I would argue, simply moving "up" on the societal ladder (or failing to move downwards, which is so freaking easy to do) certainly qualifies as progress and therefore as a worthy product of gifted programs. Take my sweet niece for example (again, poor kid!







): My niece was born when my sister was 15 years old. Right now, her father is serving a prison sentence for violating my sister's PFA order against him; she got it because he's completely insane and had been stalking her, harassing her, and damaging property belonging to her and my mother. By any standards, ChibiChibi will be considered a success if she doesn't herself end up pregnant or parenting before she's 17 years old; she has no involved father, a fairly distant (though present) mother, and all sorts of other crap to deal with in her daily life that the overwhelming majority of middle class America can't even begin to fathom. If participation in a gifted program will keep her mind busy enough for her to concentrate on something other than, say, getting pregnant so that she can have something cute around that will love her unconditionally, I would consider that a worthy cause.

And frankly, to (kinda) answer your question, I would say that production really _should_ be defined relative to the individual and his or her circumstances (if it needs to be defined at all), as your comments (and cartoon quote) indicate. BTW, was that cartoon "Boondocks"? I can't think of many cartoons that dare to be edgy enough to express a sentiment like that except Tom Tomorrow's, and he's more focused on the absurdity that is the Bush White House, but that's another tale altogether...









Quote:

As to the original issue-- Quite frankly, the evidence suggests strongly that, despite the identification issues (which, as I mentioned earlier, are huge and need to be dealt with in a big way), impoverished and minority gifted children suffer the most when gifted programs (pull-outs, ability grouping, etc) are removed from public schools. White, middle-class and wealthy parents have other options for their gifted children; they can send them to private schools, enroll them in afterschool and summer enrichment programs, find private tutors for areas of ability/interest, etc. They have more resources, so they always have more options. By refusing to acknowledge giftedness at all in the public school system simply because the process of identifying children in need of special services is flawed, you deny any services to any children, including those students who need them the most. How could that possibly be an improvment?!
Yes, yes, and yesyesyes (Wow, I feel like Molly Bloom...) to this post. THIS for me in a nutshell is why giftedness is no more of an "elitist" issue than, say, epilepsy. As you know, we homeschool, but we do it on a PS teacher's budget, so needless to say, we're not drowning in bling. However, I count myself fortunate that we're able to do it at all. What if I were a single mom? There'd be ONE option: the elementary school down the street. Philips Andover it ain't. In fact, it's mostly lower-SES, mostly ESL, mostly free lunch, and it's been on the school district's list of death for about three years now. Finding out my particular options, I spoke with the school psychologist asking her "what ifs" -- e.g., "What if you had a kindergartner who could do XYZ?" The response was not good. I was told -- and this is a quote; sorry if you all have read it before -- "We've never had one of those" (meaning a gifted child).

Yeah. Right. Sure. Nope, I'm sure that school has nevernevernever had a kid whose IQ was above 115 in all the years that school has been in the neighborhood. Bullpuckey. Welllll, if you're sitting there thinking that this freakish statistical anomaly has something to do with the wicked combination of low income, second-language issues, and the fact that most of their students are beautiful brown children, then you can go to the head of the class, folks. I'll grant you that many parents of color whose intelligence enables them to succeed financially would probably not _be_ living in my 'hood, but don't tell me that there are _no_ gifted children AT ALL and _never_ have been.

If it weren't for the dubious, sporadic, and underfunded gifted programs in our district, those kids would receive NO services ever in _any_ school. It rankles me no end to hear that some people consider gifted programs elitist.


----------



## saintmom (Aug 19, 2003)

This thread hits on some interesting issues and yet its a little bit sad for me in a way.I started hsing 16 yrs ago because of this very issue.Yes,our distict is mostly brown folks,we are not.Yes,the gifted program was mostly white kids who were pulled out of class once or twice a week to read dumbed down versions of great classics







:.
The ps obviously wasn't going to meet my childrens needs,it was a system entrenched in an unfathomable amount of racism,and I couldn't begin to address it.What I could do was look for opportuities outside of that system which led me to leave it all together.
It's been an interesting journey.My daughter lived with a family in mexico at 15 and learned to speak spanish-fluently.My oldest joined the Navy(no-one in our area had ever scored that high on the asfab according to the recuiter







: ) Another one my children graduates this semester and wants to teach at a montessorri school.
The way gifted qualities are labeled and identified is beyond narrow,it is racist.I've taught with teachers who had no idea what multiple intelligences were or even how to make use of different learning styles.A lot of my students couldn't sit still in their seats.Many of them were labeled ADD rather than gifted.The only thing that would ever work effectively IMO would be SMALL classes for every child and an extremely well planned IEP written over the previous summer with THE PARENTS!

If we invested our money in our children instead of a useless war for oil then that really would create a world where no child was left behind!


----------



## loraxc (Aug 14, 2003)

Quote:

Quite frankly, the evidence suggests strongly that, despite the identification issues (which, as I mentioned earlier, are huge and need to be dealt with in a big way), impoverished and minority gifted children suffer the most when gifted programs (pull-outs, ability grouping, etc) are removed from public schools.
This was part of the point I was tyring to make with my post describing the educational options available to us where we live. Kincaid, I notice you didn't respond to that post, and I wondered why...I don't think it fell in the category of "defending that my child is gifted."

I quite seriously am interested in what others think of the situation in which we find ourselves. Addressing racial and socioeconomic inequality is, in fact, an issue of importance to me and my husband. We are looking those issues straight in the face when we decide where to school our child. Our income places us solidly in the category of lower-middle-class, by US government standards. We cannot afford private school. Our zoned school, as I mentioned earlier, is very poor and thought of as abysmal (I'd like to check it out myself, but this is what I hear). So, in a way, the gifted magnet schools or "school choice" (which, if we made the choices most do, would have us putting her into a wealthy, white school) are the only chances my bright child has. And you're telling me--what, that we should eliminate the at least somewhat race- and income-blind gifted school from our list of possibilities? How does that help my kid again? How does that help the situation?

If you want me to agree that the way the system IDs gifted kids is, in many ways, flawed, I certainly will agree. ChristaN provided a great example of just how stupid this system can be. But again, I ask: what is your solution? What if this was your child? How do you plan to school your child, by the way? If you will public-school, is his/her future district a bastion of integration and fairness?


----------



## eilonwy (Apr 3, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Charles Baudelaire*
And frankly, to (kinda) answer your question, I would say that production really should be defined relative to the individual and his or her circumstances (if it needs to be defined at all), as your comments (and cartoon quote) indicate.

Thank you for this; coming from a teacher, I find it quite reassurring.









Quote:

BTW, was that cartoon "Boondocks"? I can't think of many cartoons that dare to be edgy enough to express a sentiment like that except Tom Tomorrow's, and he's more focused on the absurdity that is the Bush White House, but that's another tale altogether...























: Actually, it was "Daria," five years ago on MTV (from the movie, "Daria: Is it Fall Yet?"). I know that they ran something they called Daria on Noggin a few years ago (is it still running?) but the show was edited so severely, cooked down into thin, sad dribble of what it had been. There were five seasons of Daria, but seeing every single episode that ran on Noggin would lead you to believe that there had been two or three. It's really quite sad! One day, MTV will get their







in gear and put all five of the original, unedited seasons out on DVD... I hope.







:


----------



## eilonwy (Apr 3, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *chann96*
And I can say that there were definitely a lot of kids who would have had real difficulties at a regular school because their personalities or methods of learning were so far outside the mainstream, but I don't know of anyone who had this type of an overexcitability. It strikes me as saying that all truly gifted kids have something "wrong" with them.

I'm not trying to be snarky here, but how would you know? I'll give you an example: I am, to this day, unable to be comfortable if both of my socks don't feel exactly the same on my feet. As a child, this meant simply that I had to be responsible for pairing my own socks, and keeping my sisters out of them. As a teenager, there was absolutely nothing that would lead anyone who wasn't me to know what was going on in my head. In fact, the first time that I actually had to explain this to someone, it was Mike-- he used to pair socks if they were of similar color/pattern/shape, and it drove me completely *insane*. He acted like I was out of my skully when I explained to him that my organization was based on the way the socks felt and not looks at all (I'll often wear socks of different colors if they feel the same way on my feet). One day he came home from work to find me writing numbers on all of my socks so that he would stop making pairs of socks that weren't, for me, identical enough and then he finally understood that this was a HUGE FREAKING DEAL and that I was totally unwilling and unable to let it go. He apologized and has since learned how to pair my socks.









But my point is this: nobody in my high school ever knew.







How would they? They weren't watching me get dressed every morning. By the time I was 14, I had long since learned how to pair my socks so that I was comfortable. I'd also learned to cut certain tags out of my clothing and sew them under, so that there were no sharp edges to tick me off, and all sorts of other "tricks" for dealing with the daily onslaught of sensation that was life outside of my bedroom. How would anyone know? Why would they?







Every now and then, something strange would come up-- someone would see me in the cafeteria, compartmentalizing my food so that no food item touched another on the plate. They'd look at me a little cross-eyed and I'd say, "Okay, I'm a freak, we already knew that..." and change the subject. There could have been many, many kids in your high school with major overexcitability issues, and you would have had no reason to know about any of them.


----------



## NoHiddenFees (Mar 15, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kincaid*
NoHiddenFees, you are taking a thread that was intended as a discussion of theory to a very personal level and using what I feel are zings. I choose not to interact this way.

Tomato, tomahto. Seems to me I've only been responding to what is written by yourself and others.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kincaid*
My intention of this thread was to discuss how if a structure is flawed and biased at the bottom, perhaps it is flawed and biased at the top as well. Not about pushy parents at all. I don't want to be derailed onto that, I want to talk about the thread title - how is giftedness culturally constructed?

Fair enough. I'll keep to that topic, if you will. I think we can manage to talk about one group of people without attacking another.

I'm truly confused now though. I would think you would be in favour of research expanding how we identify giftedness in very young children rather than decrying the "rush" to do so. The unidentified minority and economically disadvantaged gifted children you are talking about would certainly benefit from a gifted label more than one based on their behaviour. Eilonwy's comments about parents being in the best position to identify their children's giftedness notwithstanding, there are many parents who either don't care, don't recognize, are so worn down they feel powerless to advocate for their children or simply don't see beyond the behavioral issues themselves.

Are you in favour of enrichment activities for young gifted children in at risk populations? It's one thing to say that middle class families shouldn't be in a rush to enrich, but many already live in what would be classified as an enriched environment: lots of books and other reading materials; toys; a safe yard; trips to the zoo, etc.; trips in airplanes to see family (I was particularly struck by Jim Trelease talking in _The Read Aloud Handbook_ about how a Head Start class in which the children didn't even realize there were people in planes because they hadn't been exposed to that information), etc. What kinds of provisions and policies to programs like Head Start have for identifying gifted children? I'd wager it would be somewhat easier to get a child already classified as gifted into enriched PS programs when they make the transition to PS.

oops, baby... momma time.


----------



## eilonwy (Apr 3, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *NoHiddenFees*
I'm truly confused now though. I would think you would be in favour of research expanding how we identify giftedness in very young children rather than decrying the "rush" to do so. The unidentified minority and economically disadvantaged gifted children you are talking about would certainly benefit from a gifted label more than one based on their behaviour. Eilonwy's comments about parents being in the best position to identify their children's giftedness notwithstanding, there are many parents who either don't care, don't recognize, are so worn down they feel powerless to advocate for their children or simply don't see beyond the behavioral issues themselves.









This is exactly why something within the public school system needs to change. Many parents are in no position to make an assessment like this, or to advocate for their children at all.

Quote:

Are you in favour of enrichment activities for young gifted children in at risk populations? It's one thing to say that middle class families shouldn't be in a rush to enrich, but many already live in what would be classified as an enriched environment: lots of books and other reading materials; toys; a safe yard; trips to the zoo, etc.; trips in airplanes to see family (I was particularly struck by Jim Trelease talking in _The Read Aloud Handbook_ about how a Head Start class in which the children didn't even realize there were people in planes because they hadn't been exposed to that information), etc. What kinds of provisions and policies to programs like Head Start have for identifying gifted children? I'd wager it would be somewhat easier to get a child already classified as gifted into enriched PS programs when they make the transition to PS.
My niece (ChibiChibi, the 8 year old) spent two years in Head Start. They loved having her there; she could sight read the names of all of her classmates before the end of the first week, knew all her numbers and letters, etc, etc, and so forth. She was also socially adept, a strong leader, and an independant little person in general. What special accomodations were made for her? Well, for the most part they left her alone. When the teachers decided that it was time to have a talk with the children about playing nicely together, they told my niece that she was free to continue playing at the water table because she already played very nicely with everyone. She was never the first child called upon to do X, because the teachers already knew that she *could* do X and that they didn't need to work with her on it. There was no talk of giftedness, enrichment, or advancement, just a lot of relief that she didn't need all the special services that so many kids who attend Head Start need.

By contrast, her best friend in that class had speech therapy three times a week. Other children had ESL counseling (many, many, many children in that particular Head Start center went there to learn English before they went to school, I'd go so far as to say that it was the main purpose that that particular center served). If a child needed more services than that, they were generally evaluated by Early Intervention and placed in an EI preschool class, rather than regular Head Start; this is what happened with Chibi's younger sister, BeastieBeast (who has Asperger's). Through EI preschool, BeastieBeast recieved speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and all sorts of other services. She also got to be the subject of a teacher's thesis (she's a unique little person!). In her case, there was talk of special needs but none of giftedness; in fact, despite the fact that they knew her IQ test would not be precise, they specifically told my mother that she probably would not qualify for services through the public school system because she was likely to test over the minimum threshold (and she certainly did).

Both of them are now in public school, and niether is recieving special services of any kind. Early identification could certainly have happened, but in Chibi's case they were so relieved that she didn't need any help with basic things (like wiping her own behind, counting to ten or speaking English) that they really left her alone. It's quite sad-- a single person looking for gifted children in a Head Start center could probably do a heck of a lot of good for a heck of a lot of children. So maybe that's an answer-- teach people who work in Head Start centers what giftedness looks like in very young children, children who don't necessarily speak English or sit quietly in their seats all the time.


----------



## chann96 (May 13, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *eilonwy*
I'm not trying to be snarky here, but how would you know?

There could have been many, many kids in your high school with major overexcitability issues, and you would have had no reason to know about any of them.









Oh I know you aren't being snarky. I actually thought about this point a lot in writing my post and last night. I know it's still very possible I just wasn't aware, but my school was residential and we were all pretty close. We all knew all kinds of crazy stuff about each other that no one would have ever known at a regular school. There were so many "weird" thing about ourselves that we told each other that I just find it hard to believe we wouldn't have had some idea about a person having this type of sensitivities.


----------



## eilonwy (Apr 3, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *chann96*
Oh I know you aren't being snarky. I actually thought about this point a lot in writing my post and last night. I know it's still very possible I just wasn't aware, but my school was residential and we were all pretty close. We all knew all kinds of crazy stuff about each other that no one would have ever known at a regular school. There were so many "weird" thing about ourselves that we told each other that I just find it hard to believe we wouldn't have had some idea about a person having this type of sensitivities.









By high school, most kids have either a) outgrown the things that make hypersensitivities like this a real issue, b) started taking medication for OCD or c) learned to adapt, and cope with these things on their own, without dragging their parents and everyone around along for the ride. For many, it's a combination of things. I was often overwhelmed by the things that I would see or hear as a child, and very few people understood that. By the time I got to high school, I had realized that other kids weren't seeing what I was seeing, and that's why they weren't so overwhelmed by it all. I could explain things more clearly, and we were all better off for it-- it's not nearly so overwhelming when you're not totally alone in something, you know? Other things simply translated into "quirks" which I'm sure were very, very common amongst your classmates. I only wrote with two kinds of pen throughout high school. When I asked my mother to buy pens and she asked, "what kind?" people would look at both of us like we were crazy because I'd respond very precisely-- brand, ink color, point width, size of package. I can remember a shrink telling me that I was too picky and my mother shaking her head and saying, "Oh no, I understand, I only write with pen XYZ to do cryptograms and pen QRS for grocery lists, and I keep pen ABC around for this, that, or the other thing. She wants those pens for doing logic problems."







The shrink looked at both of us like we'd grown new heads.

Overexcitability and hypersensitivities are much bigger issues for young/very young gifted children than they are for teens and adults, because little kids haven't had a chance to develop coping mechanisms and oftentimes parents (particularly parents who weren't gifted/as gifted as their children) won't know what they're seeing. They will initially mistake their child's behaviors for deliberate attempts to make the whole family miserable, rather than what they are; perfectly age-appropriate attempts to cope with a world which is overwhelming and completely illogical to a young mind. The longer that these issues are not dealt with/avoided, the more likely the child in question is to be saddled with all sorts of inappropriate labels like ADHD, OCD, Bipolar Disorder, etc. It's absolutely tragic to me that so many children are mislabeled this way, when recognition of their giftedness would be so much more helpful, and give the children and their parents some mechanisms for coping with the actual, underlying issues involved.


----------



## ChristaN (Feb 14, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *eilonwy*
Overexcitability and hypersensitivities are much bigger issues for young/very young gifted children than they are for teens and adults, because little kids haven't had a chance to develop coping mechanisms and oftentimes parents (particularly parents who weren't gifted/as gifted as their children) won't know what they're seeing. They will initially mistake their child's behaviors for deliberate attempts to make the whole family miserable, rather than what they are; perfectly age-appropriate attempts to cope with a world which is overwhelming and completely illogical to a young mind.

Exactly and I can see this being one good arguement for early identification of giftedness. As I mentioned, I didn't id dd as gifted before she started school, just different and I didn't have a problem with her differences b/c I empathized. My mother told me that she was "payback" b/c she screamed non-stop as an infant was couldn't sleep unless it was pitch black, absolutely silent and she was nursing. She slept in half hour intervals broken up by screaming fits until she was 18+months old. I was exhausted and my mom kept laughing saying, 'you were just like that!'

My dh, on the other hand, who had never seen a baby like this, and didn't have the ability to see that this was normal for her, kept suggesting that she needed a "brain scan." He still thinks that there is something wrong with her and that she is attempting to drive him crazy for no good reason.

That is relevant to the benefits of early identification and, to me, it makes good sense to identify these children young like that if only to assure the parents that their kids are not rotten little kids. I saw a mom the other day with a toddler like that and she kept hitting/spanking the child to get her to stop being so dramatic and intense







:. However, the means of early identification can still be debated.


----------



## fuller2 (Nov 7, 2004)

I should clarify what I meant by 'achievement'--I did NOT mean 'getting straight A's in a totally conventional and safe manner and then graduating to High-Powered Career,' etc. What I meant is exactly what the poster referring to the gifted Head Start kid was talking about--that many gifted kids, because they so rarely get special attention, often end up just moving through the system, safely ignored by teachers because they know they will get good grades, turn in the homework etc. and not cause any trouble. Getting straight A's is really not difficult for a lot of gifted kids, because in truth it takes so little effort in most schools, and yes, involves mostly playing by the rules etc., and even some gifted kids can still do that. (I expect more girls, who tend to make fewer waves, end up like this than boys, but that's just a guess.)

So by 'achievement' I meant being in an environment where your potential is actually tapped, and challenged, and not necessarily in the usual academic boxes (at least, not those used in the public schools). I meant being taught by fantastic teachers who know how to take kids individually where they are able to go, whether it be in math, art, music, philosophy... We waste so much brain power in this country because we let so many of the above-average kids just sit there rotting amongst their A's and B's. And yes, I think working just for good grades can certainly have a detrimental effect on creativity and real intellectual progress--but since grades are all many gifted kids manage to get for being smart, they can squash their talents into the diminished form necessary to get these grades at a typical public school.

What if the gifted kid DOES want to cure cancer, build robots, learn quantum mechanics? Where are they going to get the chance to do that? Not all gifted kids are slackers







... (Certainly almost all the 'slackers' I have knows have easily been among the most intelligent segment of the population...but sometimes I wonder if they might have lived their lives differently if they hadn't been so utterly unchallenged or unnoticed in school.)


----------



## eilonwy (Apr 3, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *fuller2*
What if the gifted kid DOES want to cure cancer, build robots, learn quantum mechanics? Where are they going to get the chance to do that? Not all gifted kids are slackers







... (Certainly almost all the 'slackers' I have knows have easily been among the most intelligent segment of the population...but sometimes I wonder if they might have lived their lives differently if they hadn't been so utterly unchallenged or unnoticed in school.)

That's what so sad about this whole thing to me: most gifted kids start off this way. The overwhelming majority of young gifted children do want to do incredible things, and they feel like they owe society something in exchange for their gifts. They want to help people, cure cancer, be president, save the world! Those of us who grew up to be slackers are most miserable about it most of the time; we feel like we should be doing something useful and we never had a real chance to do that. Why? Because school is evil. Okay, that's not what I mean... what I mean is, your question, would they have lived their lives differently if they hadn't been so utterly unchallenged in school? In my case, the answer is a resounding YES. I know many other people who feel the same way about their lives, and this misery is one of the things that I hope to avoid by keeping my own children out of school. It's not about helping them to achieve typical success, but helping them grow up not feeling like failures.


----------



## LeftField (Aug 2, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *fuller2*
I should clarify what I meant by 'achievement'--I did NOT mean 'getting straight A's in a totally conventional and safe manner and then graduating to High-Powered Career,' etc. What I meant is exactly what the poster referring to the gifted Head Start kid was talking about--that many gifted kids, because they so rarely get special attention, often end up just moving through the system, safely ignored by teachers because they know they will get good grades, turn in the homework etc. and not cause any trouble. Getting straight A's is really not difficult for a lot of gifted kids, because in truth it takes so little effort in most schools, and yes, involves mostly playing by the rules etc., and even some gifted kids can still do that. (I expect more girls, who tend to make fewer waves, end up like this than boys, but that's just a guess.)

There's a problem with this scenario, however, and one I can personally attest to. I'm not highly gifted, but I didn't have to work in school. I got mostly Bs, some As, depending on what kind of mood I was in and if I felt like giving up personal time to study. And I've seen this with friends who were highly gifted and were safely ignored as you describe and came out with Ok grades.
...
The problem is that no work ethic is developed. If you don't have to work in school from K to 12, then you don't know how to work at all and you possibly don't want to start working anyway. University was a really hard lesson in life for me, after I failed two classes straight off the bat for doing the no-studying trick I did in K to 12. I had to take a workshop on how to study and I had to look deep inside myself to find something to create a work ethic with. It was not a pleasant or easy late life lesson. And with other friends of mine in similar situations, I've seen arrogance that comes from the knowledge that you can do K to 12 with no work. That arrogance contributed to at least one person I know (IQ 150s) failing out of college.

Gifted kids need to be challenged just like all other kids. They need to have to work and to be stumped. It's like what a PP described in her gifted school (was it Chan?). She said that being in her gifted school gave her the chance to be *average*! And it gave her the chance to have to work really hard to achieve something. That is so important. And it's why we will homeschool. With hs, my kids will not be ahead or behind, rather at their level. They will have to work hard and they won't develop an inflated sense of self; they need this in life and they deserve it as much as anyone else. Quietly getting along with no work is not good enough.


----------



## LeftField (Aug 2, 2002)

Fuller, I'm rereading your PP. Please stop me if I've misunderstood what you were saying in the recent post.


----------



## mommytolittlelilly (Jul 7, 2004)

I think at a certain point, we need to take some responsibility for ourselves, rather than continually blaming the public school system for whatever's wrong with our lives. Anything in the public sphere in the U.S. is fair game, especially the public school system - I'm really tired of this broken record, and the critique is simplistic.


----------



## Dechen (Apr 3, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *LeftField*
There's a problem with this scenario, however, and one I can personally attest to. I'm not highly gifted, but I didn't have to work in school. I got mostly Bs, some As, depending on what kind of mood I was in and if I felt like giving up personal time to study. And I've seen this with friends who were highly gifted and were safely ignored as you describe and came out with Ok grades.
...
The problem is that no work ethic is developed. If you don't have to work in school from K to 12, then you don't know how to work at all and you possibly don't want to start working anyway. University was a really hard lesson in life for me, after I failed two classes straight off the bat for doing the no-studying trick I did in K to 12. I had to take a workshop on how to study and I had to look deep inside myself to find something to create a work ethic with. It was not a pleasant or easy late life lesson. And with other friends of mine in similar situations, I've seen arrogance that comes from the knowledge that you can do K to 12 with no work. That arrogance contributed to at least one person I know (IQ 150s) failing out of college.

Gifted kids need to be challenged just like all other kids. They need to have to work and to be stumped. It's like what a PP described in her gifted school (was it Chan?). She said that being in her gifted school gave her the chance to be *average*! And it gave her the chance to have to work really hard to achieve something. That is so important. And it's why we will homeschool. With hs, my kids will not be ahead or behind, rather at their level. They will have to work hard and they won't develop an inflated sense of self; they need this in life and they deserve it as much as anyone else. Quietly getting along with no work is not good enough.

Amen! I got to college with zero study skills. Ironically, the one class in high school that would have challenged me I dropped out of, because I didn't want to get a bad grade and I wasn't able to coast. I didn't see it that way - I thought the class was amazingly hard and didn't understand how my friends managed it. (Their secret: pay attention in class and read the book. Duh!)

And so, like too many girls, I decided science was too hard despite the fact that I'd always been drawn to it.

I don't "blame" anyone, but I'd like to see things change for the current generation of sproutlings. From a purely personal standpoint, I feel that education system failed me, just as it fails many children.

I don't care too much about labels, except insofar as they further communication. Labels are information shortcuts. However kids are labeled, or not labeled, I long to see an educational system that ALL children can thrive in, whatever their abilities and interests.


----------



## mommytolittlelilly (Jul 7, 2004)

I'm officially off-topic, but just wanted to say that my personal experience is totally different.

No one ever told me that I couldn't do science or math throughout 12 years of public schooling. In fact, I'd have to say I was only encouraged to excel in whatever interested me in school (which would include science). I was in all the AP classes with plenty of other very intelligent kids, my teachers liked me and encouraged me, and I don't ever remember having to play "dumb" in order to "fit in" with other kids at school. (I still didn't "fit in," but it had nothing to do with being smart.) I'm not saying this never happens, but I seriously think it's a major generalization to say this is what happens to smart and/or gifted girls in school. I did read the assigned books, mainly because reading them was fun and interesting to me. On the whole, I felt that my public school teachers (particularly high school but also middle school) encouraged critical thinking, debate and independent thought. With a few notable exceptions, my professors at a small, private, and highly-acclaimed liberal arts college definitely preferred to have their own ideas parroted back to them in term papers, exams, and class discussions. I also had some of my ideas stolen without being given credit by one of my professors. (Okay, I'm starting to get pissed off thinking about it...!)

I also struggle with this idea that I should be doing more to "save the world," too, but I know that a major obstacle I had and continue to have is so many divergent interests and difficulty in focusing to pursue one or two of them. It took awhile for me to come to terms with the fact that what I've chosen to do with my life is ultimately a result of my own decisions.

Improving the public school system is an issue that's *very* important to me, and certainly, there's room for improvement. I think there are stop-gap measures that can be made, but for real, meaningful improvement to occcur, I think there needs to be a major shift in cultural, social, and political thinking in this country such that people are valued above profits, and community is as important as the individual. I mean, let's face it: there's not a whole lot of room for experimenting and exploring interests, when economic realities for so many young adults are so pertinent.


----------



## eilonwy (Apr 3, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mommytolittlelilly*
I think at a certain point, we need to take some responsibility for ourselves, rather than continually blaming the public school system for whatever's wrong with our lives. Anything in the public sphere in the U.S. is fair game, especially the public school system - I'm really tired of this broken record, and the critique is simplistic.

Really? Please, enlighten me. What is simplistic about my critique? At what point does a child need to take responsibility for themselves? Do you believe, for example, that institutionalized racism is not a major contributing factor to the public school system in general, or just that highly gifted and profoundly gifted children who are not challenged in school and are ignored almost entirely on the basis of their color should just suck it up and deal?

I'm tired of *this* broken record: "Take responsibility for your own life." I'm sorry, but I don't feel that I should have had to be responsible for making sure that I was challenged in elementary school.







I believe that the system failed me, and that it's working very hard to screw other bright children for various reasons, the color of their skin not least. Perhaps I am too quick to lay blame at another's feet, but at what point does a child become the responsible party?

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mommytolittlelilly*
I was in all the AP classes with plenty of other very intelligent kids, my teachers liked me and encouraged me, and I don't ever remember having to play "dumb" in order to "fit in" with other kids at school. (I still didn't "fit in," but it had nothing to do with being smart.) I'm not saying this never happens, but I seriously think it's a major generalization to say this is what happens to smart and/or gifted girls in school.

I'm not trying to be offensive or snarky with my comments, and I really hope that you don't take them this way.

This is the difference, 90% of the time, between a moderately gifted individual and a profoundly gifted one. Moderately gifted kids (in general, those with IQs between 130 and 150) are very likely to succeed in school. They're the students that every teacher wants to have, they work when they need to work and fit in comfortably with their peers. These are the kids that the school system will designate as "the cream of the crop." Children with higher IQs (150+, and especially 170+) do not behave the same way that moderately gifted ones do. *Those* are the girls who feel like they have to dumb it down to get a boyfriend, who sit in the back of the classroom playing card games or reading novels but always seem to know the answer when the teacher calls on them, who flunk out of college because they never learned to study. You have to remember, 180 is just as far from 150 as 150 is from 120. I know that there are people with very high IQs (profoundly gifted, 160+) who do well in school and achieve eminence later in life (though most of them have very special school situations which accomodate their special needs), who do all of the things that make them "successful" in the traditional American sense of the word, but quite frankly I've never met one. I personally know five people with IQ's over 160, three of them over 180, and not one of them has managed to so much as graduate from college, to say nothing of achieving eminence.


----------



## eilonwy (Apr 3, 2003)

Kincaid? Where'd you go?


----------



## mommytolittlelilly (Jul 7, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *eilonwy*
Really? Please, enlighten me. What is simplistic about my critique? At what point does a child need to take responsibility for themselves? Do you believe, for example, that institutionalized racism is not a major contributing factor to the public school system in general, or just that highly gifted and profoundly gifted children who are not challenged in school and are ignored almost entirely on the basis of their color should just suck it up and deal?

I'm tired of *this* broken record: "Take responsibility for your own life." I'm sorry, but I don't feel that I should have had to be responsible for making sure that I was challenged in elementary school.







I believe that the system failed me, and that it's working very hard to screw other bright children for various reasons, the color of their skin not least. Perhaps I am too quick to lay blame at another's feet, but at what point does a child become the responsible party?

I'm not trying to be offensive or snarky with my comments, and I really hope that you don't take them this way.

This is the difference, 90% of the time, between a moderately gifted individual and a profoundly gifted one. Moderately gifted kids (in general, those with IQs between 130 and 150) are very likely to succeed in school. They're the students that every teacher wants to have, they work when they need to work and fit in comfortably with their peers. These are the kids that the school system will designate as "the cream of the crop." Children with higher IQs (150+, and especially 170+) do not behave the same way that moderately gifted ones do. *Those* are the girls who feel like they have to dumb it down to get a boyfriend, who sit in the back of the classroom playing card games or reading novels but always seem to know the answer when the teacher calls on them, who flunk out of college because they never learned to study. You have to remember, 180 is just as far from 150 as 150 is from 120. I know that there are people with very high IQs (profoundly gifted, 160+) who do well in school and achieve eminence later in life (though most of them have very special school situations which accomodate their special needs), who do all of the things that make them "successful" in the traditional American sense of the word, but quite frankly I've never met one. I personally know five people with IQ's over 160, three of them over 180, and not one of them has managed to so much as graduate from college, to say nothing of achieving eminence.










I think you're really twisting my words around, and reading a lot into my post(s). When I made the comment about responsibility for our choices, it was in the context of being a smart, middle-class white girl growing up to be a smart, middle-class white woman. I have no intention of speaking from any other point of view other than my own experience or observations. The fact is, I was specifically referring to the idea that girls are not encouraged, smart girls have to act stupid, in a public school setting - because, I hear that *a lot* here.

Do I think institutionalized racism exists? YES, of course it exists - it exists in every major institution in this country. My major issue in terms of education in this regard is standardized testing - I absolutely think there's racial and class bias here. The fact is, there's a huge business interest in selling these tests to school districts, and I think a lot of parents are deceived into thinking these tests have anything to do with merit, intellect, or a student's potential. NCLB takes this to a new level, and contributes to the perception of failure by schools and teachers, when everyone is expected to be evalauated on the basis of test scores.

There's a real agenda behind this to chip away at the limited resourses of public schools, to take away public funding, and in the process, to further divide us along racial and class lines. I don't know ANYONE in real life who's planning on using the public schools - everyone I've talked to is either doing some version of private school or home school. My concern is for the rest of the kids who don't have any other choice - and that's a reality, like it or not - the public schools will increasingly be comprised of low-income kids, more likely than not kids of color, which means less diversity and opportunity for us to understand and respect each other. After about the 5th grade, my classes were probably about 80% African American, 20% white - I think this really provided an opportunity for me to become more aware of racial dynamics/issues than many other white people I've encountered since then. This is a major reason why I try to discuss the POSITIVE aspects of public school, from MY experience. Since I do talk about the positives, that doesn't mean that I think nothing's wrong with our PSS.


----------



## eilonwy (Apr 3, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mommytolittlelilly*
I think you're really twisting my words around, and reading a lot into my post(s). When I made the comment about responsibility for our choices, it was in the context of being a smart, middle-class white girl growing up to be a smart, middle-class white woman. I have no intention of speaking from any other point of view other than my own experience or observations. The fact is, I was specifically referring to the idea that girls are not encouraged, smart girls have to act stupid, in a public school setting - because, I hear that *a lot* here.

I don't think I was twisting anything, I was simply responding to what you posted...









Quote:

There's a real agenda behind this to chip away at the limited resourses of public schools, to take away public funding, and in the process, to further divide us along racial and class lines. I don't know ANYONE in real life who's planning on using the public schools - everyone I've talked to is either doing some version of private school or home school. My concern is for the rest of the kids who don't have any other choice - and that's a reality, like it or not - the public schools will increasingly be comprised of low-income kids, more likely than not kids of color, which means less diversity and opportunity for us to understand and respect each other.
I don't think anyone here is talking about taking away more from the limited resources of public schools; we're simply talking about every child recieving what the public schools are, theoretically, supposed to provide: A free and appropriate education. Gifted kids are just as entitled to a FAPE as delayed ones, and this issues is at least as big for students of color as it is for white students.

The question of school reform (what needs to happen and how it ought to be done) is entirely different-- we're simply wondering how to obtain a FAPE for our own children. I'm very concerned for the kids who don't have any other choice, and so are many other posters here. Like I said, for me this question isn't a random philosophical discussion, it has actual bearing on real life. People I care very deeply for are affected by these realities every day.


----------



## mommytolittlelilly (Jul 7, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *eilonwy*
I don't think I was twisting anything, I was simply responding to what you posted...









I don't think anyone here is talking about taking away more from the limited resources of public schools; we're simply talking about every child recieving what the public schools are, theoretically, supposed to provide: A free and appropriate education. Gifted kids are just as entitled to a FAPE as delayed ones, and this issues is at least as big for students of color as it is for white students.

The question of school reform (what needs to happen and how it ought to be done) is entirely different-- we're simply wondering how to obtain a FAPE for our own children. I'm very concerned for the kids who don't have any other choice, and so are many other posters here. Like I said, for me this question isn't a random philosophical discussion, it has actual bearing on real life. People I care very deeply for are affected by these realities every day.

Actually, I never said anything about POC or about elementary school kids from my previous post. Those are your words - and you're trying to put them in my mouth. I tried to clarify what I was talking about again, because it probably wasn't clear - but for some reason you continue to claim I'm saying things that I'm not.

With all due respect, it's really not a "random philosopical discussion" for me. It's true that I don't have family members being pigeon-holed, unchallenged, etc. However, we are planning on using the PSS, and we live in a diverse community, so it's very important and I think I have a right to express some opinion about it without being dismissed. If nothing else, I think disharmony in the classroom is a result when not everyones' needs are being met. I think that's going to affect everyone involved, at least on some level. For me, it's all the more reason to try and be part of the solution rather than trashing the whole system. Like I said, I'd like to see much less in the way of standardized testing, and an atmosphere where exploration and creative learning is encouraged. I just think it's hard to expect the sun, moon and stars when there's so much racial and economic polarization in every other aspect of our existence in the US. So much more needs to be done so that parents have a living wage, health care, affordable housing, so that kids start with a more level playing field. There are all kinds of kids who are hungry, who don't have winter coats, who have to be subjected to instability as a result of moving from place to place with a parent loses a job, who are subjected to crumbling, environmentally unsafe schools with lead paint chips and asbestos flying everywhere - it's not right, something needs to be done about it, and it goes beyond the public eduational system we have. Even with all the obstacles, I think it needs to be said that there are a great many teachers trying to do the best they can with the resources they have to provide a FAPE to every child.

Oh, thought I'd run this by you: I was in an independent research class during the last semester of my senior year, along with maybe about 5 other students. We were supposed to pick a topic, begin researching it, write an outline, and over the course of the semester, we were to write a 60-100 page paper. Then, after said paper was submitted, we were supposed to prepare and deliver an oral presentation on our topic to the rest of the class. I don't recall the exact racial breakdown of our small class, other than one African American girl who was an acquaintance and we worked at the library together, and one other African American girl who had the best presentation amongst us. I'd venture to say that we were all more than sufficiently "challenged" by preparing what was in essence a thesis at 17-18 years old!


----------



## mamawanabe (Nov 12, 2002)

Wasn't there a court ruling in some state that said that schools do not have to provide a great education to students, just a basic one. The ruling dealt with poor and rich schools - underprivledged schools (those with a low tax base because of low property taxes) wanted more tax money to get their education up to par with the richer/better schools, and the court ruled that the state doesn't have to provide steller education - just the basic one (i.e. rich districts didn't have to share their money)

Doesn't bode well for either special ed or gifted or underprivledged kids . . .

We are willing to spend money on special ed kids not so they walk out with the best education that they could get,but to get them near basic level education-wise. That is the rational and why (despite what we would like), the special-ed kid gifted kid anology doesn't work. Gifted kids don't need help to get a basic education.

Now, I think schools SHOULD provide every kid with the best education that kid can get. But that would require living in a society where citizens didn't begrudge paying taxes.


----------

