How do we define and support other kinds of gifted?

Parents Forum
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<p>You’re trying to find a correlation between success in terms of fame and mental ability? That’s absurd. How many people even know who Riemann is and what he did, or who Euler was and how he revolutionized mathematics? Why were Feynman and Einstein superstars to the entire world when all they did was get lucky by standing on the shoulders of others who may have been more intelligent than they were?</p>

<p>As I see it, the question this thread is meant to ask is, why is there no equivalence to differential equations in senior year in humanities? Why are our poets and philosophers being stifled by the lack of ‘advanced and challenging work’?</p>

<p>The fact is, your child will only truly be successful in a subject/field if, of course, he has the necessary intellect. That is obvious. But almost equally as important is the passion and the drive to learn it and to not only know it but master it fully. This is the kid you see at the library every day in the mathematics section picking up books and reading them, just to see what they’re like, even if he doesn’t understand it now. Or the kid who picks out the extremely difficult music of his favorite song, even if his skill level is nowhere near good enough. The curious ones that do things for the fun of it are the ones that you can count on to be successful.</p>

<p>You do not need multivariable calculus classes to learn multivariable calculus. If math is your heart and soul, you will learn what you want to learn, and that will be infinitely better than some dumb class where all the top 10% students take to cheat in and add to their ‘resume’. Likewise, a student who has the potential to be a great philosopher, for example, does not need to study philosophy in school to learn and to know about philosophy if that is truly his drive and his interest. He will sit and think and argue with others and himself and will go and read books that challenge ideas and bring about the types of philosophical arguments that he loves.</p>

<p>You can’t try to develop these natural tendencies and talents to succeed in such ways. Of course, if you’re looking to manufacture another kid to try and get into HYP then go ahead. But if you take the fun and joy away from the kid’s passion and talent and try to force some extra stuff that you think will help, you may do more harm than good.</p>

<p>Think about it this way. How did the OP’s children get to be so bright in the area of critical thought? Did the mother/father consciously do anything to make them that way? Of course not. There may have been some aspects of nurture that might have influenced them, but not much. They have natural tendencies to think the way they do. They’re children for god’s sake! Why would anyone worry with such brilliant children, especially in the area that they’re best in?</p>

<p>OP I’m not directly questioning you as I know your intentions as a parent are only to help them, but I’m trying to invoke some thought from a different perspective on this issue. Personally, I find it very distasteful how some parents try to manufacture their children into being ‘well rounded’ HYP graduates some day. It’s just no good. Grades are important, but you can’t let school get in the way of your education (for those who recognized that quote, let me know who it’s by because I know I definitely stole it from somewhere).</p>

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<p>hadsed–you make some good points but I would like to refute one of them, since you mention Feynman.</p>

<p>Feynman, in his book and in an interview I saw, gives full credit to his father for teaching him to ask the right questions. His father would take him for nature walks in the Catskills that were so illuminating that all the other mothers wanted him to take their kids, but that didn’t happen because he & his father had a special relationship. He mentions a kid who knew the Latin name of a bird, then says his father explained that knowing the NAME of something, in whatever language, told you nothing whatsoever about it. WHY did it do what it did? He learned to be very observant and to always ask questions.</p>

<p>It’s possible Feynman would have developed into the great thinker he was without this help from his father, but it’s interesting that he gives him the credit.</p>

<p>And I agree there may be some parents who want their children to be “well-rounded” to get into an Ivy, but there are many parents who just want their children to be exposed to enough different stimuli that they can discover their passion. Many high schools only have the “basics” and there are surely students out there who need more and aren’t getting it, just through lack of exposure.</p>

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<p>“You’re trying to find a correlation between success in terms of fame and mental ability? That’s absurd.”</p>

<p>No, Im trying to say that “Lack of support X cannot impede success(howsoever defined), because we know of cases A, B, and C where lack of support was still associated with success” is illogical, because it does not reflect the many cases where lack of support X DID impede success, most of which we do not know about it.</p>

<p>Let me give a more concrete example.</p>

<p>Teddy Roosevelt had childhood asthma. he received no drugs or other 21st century therapies. He nonetheless, became successful at a range of physical endeavors.</p>

<p>Does that prove that asthma does not impede success at physical endeavors? Does it prove that asthma drugs are unhelpful, or even harmful?</p>

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<p>Brooklyndad, you seemed to have glossed over the point I was making for two paragraphs in my last post. Passion is what will drive people to these ‘immortal’ heights. There is no reason for any parent to believe that their child could have been great if they had helped them a little more. That is nonsensical. There is no scientist, no mathematician, no musician, no poet, and no athlete that has reached those heights that has not loved what they do (with the exception of distaste for the system and how it works/rewards/etc.). You will not find your exceptionally brilliant child a Nobel laureate of economics if he’s a manufactured HYP-potential.</p>

<p>If your goal is to see your kid ‘successful’ (in terms of making his $100K+ salary), then that is a different matter. But at an early age, there is no reason to have to do more than ease their kids and give them information on something they may be interested in. Beyond that, you’re being the typical asian-like ignorant parents which may or may not end up with your kid never forgiving you for it.</p>

<p>@mommusic: That is a good point, and in fact it did come to mind while I was writing that post. But the discussions Feynman’s father had with him were about things of his interest. If he ever said ‘Dad I don’t give a damn about that stupid swallow or why balls don’t move when I move this little red wagon,’ I doubt his father would have had any more discussions about it with him. It seems like what his father was doing was simply easing him in a particular direction, and seeing the response of his son to be delightful he must have seen it appropriate to continue. I think this is what parents should be doing, and in my opinion (not without some good reasoning of course) that is all they need to do. Personally, I don’t see what more high schools need to do beyond offering the classes they already offer. I find AP Literature to be quite sufficient, there is AP Music Theory as well as AP Calculus AB/BC and AP Physics B/C. There are something like… 30? What more do we need in ‘advanced’ humanities? Forget math and science competitions, those are superficial unless your only goal is MIT.</p>

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<p>^ Ugh… That was a brilliant post, until this line

Maybe the smaller more local comeptitions are a superficial and reek a bit of resume padding but the big-time ones like Simens and Intel (for Science) and the entire IMO program (for Mathematics) are in fact a magnifiscent display of both passion and talent in that disicpline.</p>

<p>Other than that fantastic post!</p>

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<p>Hadsed, it was Mark Twain. “I have never let my schooling get in the way of education”</p>

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<p>I just read this thread through. I “get” EmmyBet’s daughter. Wink to her. IF she’s like mine, she will thrive in college, having endured public school and gotten some lifelong people-coping skills and sense of democracy there. She sounds courageous and plucky. You intervened only as needed and sensed the emotional, not just academic, issues along her journey. </p>

<p>Good luck to her. Thank you for posting. IMHO your posts were also brilliant and heartfelt from experience. Your writing effort not wasted to share back from you experience to others, even if it causes you to revisit some old pain spots.</p>

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<p>p3t: Thanks for the kind words. Most days - more and more all the time - I have very high hopes that she will have a very rich and satisfying life. It would embarrass her to know she gets discussed here, but sometimes I wish I could share lovely comments like yours.</p>

<p>I’m glad if I could say something helpful to someone else going through this. I’m sad that after putting in 7 years in our school district helping to develop this area my (and other parents’) input seems to be unwanted. But maybe I can say things in places like this that will matter, and maybe the doors will re-open in our schools someday.</p>

<p>Best wishes to you and your family.</p>

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<p>TheYankInLondon: Perhaps you’re right. I know a lot of people who do these competitions, do relatively well, but they may go as far as to hate mathematics entirely! I know of one such student, very intelligent guy, 2nd in class and all. But he swore he’d never take another math class in his life. The only reason he would even do these competitions is because the teacher of the advanced mathematics students would basically force them to do so.</p>

<p>Perhaps in this case I’m taking personal experiences too far in generalizing. But I have a feeling that there are other students similar to my friend I described above. And it isn’t the sort of case where this guy would only participate; he would consistently place in the top 5, top 3, top 10, etc. He wasn’t the only one either. I have a feeling that there are other teachers like I described as well, and worse, maybe parents.</p>

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<p>I haven’t read through all of this so I hope that my comments are on track for this thread. I think that part of the undoing in public school, especially in rural school districts is the trend toward “differienciation” in the heterogenious classroom rather than creating opportunities for “gifted kids” to be in a community where they can reinforce each other and facilitate teaching at a higher level. In our district the solution was to “cluster” gifted kids in a classroom. A “cluster” was 3 kids and when you consider the variations and dimensions of “giftedness” this didn’t amount to very much. We sought, even created opportunities for our S to find a peer group. He did learn to mix but was also guarded about revealing himself in the classroom. While quiet in the classroom through HS he craved a college expeience with lots of opportunity for discussion to debate ideas. I found this to be an interesting dichotomy. Now in an LAC, I think that for the first time he is comfortable about putting himself into the mix without holding back for fear of being a “nerd”. He seems happier than I have ever known him to be. I will say that while pull out gifted classes didn’t do a lot to enhance educaton they did help S when he was young to see that there were others like him and helped him to become comfortable with who he was. For us, it seems that no matter how great the teaching, and there were some great teachers along the way, sometimes the best teachers are the students. While dividing “gifted” kids into many classrooms may elevate the level of the heterogenious classroom there is a cost to these kids who desperately need a peer group and who also are often bored. I’ve been told that differienciation works but I really didn’t see it work well. It is a difficult balance but I would like to see more classes designed for, if not restricted to gifted kids in elementary education.</p>

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<p>Here in NY state making “everybody a Regents student” …aka “everyone is supposed to be a four year college kid” has hurt. The smaler the range in ability of a particcular class makes for better teaching. It goes both ways …for the brightess, but also the slow learner. The result has been that the Regents has been “dummied down” which hurts the brightest kids, and the slow learner students either drop out or end up in the military, in the work force, or at a community college just like they did prior to “everyone is Regents”.</p>

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<p>Maybe this is cynical, but aside from trying to find some adults and ECs that will be satisfying, I basically told my kids that HS will pretty much be a constant disappointment, and college will be where they finally can be and do what they always wanted. This is one of the reasons why I’m a CC parent - I really want to help my D make that decision well, after having gritted her teeth in public school for so many years. I think she’s done remarkably well at making lemonade out of some pretty big lemons.</p>

<p>spectrum - I get what you’re saying, absolutely. I’m glad your S has found his good place to be.</p>

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<p>In general, I think that giftedness is really misunderstood. Everyone thinks their kid is bright and unless you do have a truly gifted child, it is very difficult to understand the challenges these kids face (and we parents face). I wouldn’t trade with anyone, but I have often wished for my child to have a few more people in her life who get her and celebrate her gifts, and it is getting better as she moves through her life. My challenge has been to facilitate her interests and give her opportunities to challenge herself. Even my husband doesn’t really see how different she is because he has such limited experience with young people. I don’t think that I have pushed at all, but I found things for her to do that were not duplicated in her K-12 education. The last thing she needed was to be any farther ahead of her peers academically.</p>

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<p>With regard to teachers, we’ve been really fortunate with my daughter being assigned teachers that “get” and appreciate her, that have allowed her to be herself with just a small amount of reigning in (in elementary school her 504 allowed us to choose teachers). Also lucky in that she had a group of peers going all the way back to kindergarten and was in a k-8 program, her class had a very high co-hort of kids that were “identified”, mostly girls! Many of them are still close in high school even though they are scattered across three high schools, they are all proud to be their own clique of nerds, some are in IB programs, some are at Performing Arts programs and some take almost all AP classes.</p>

<p>We did a lot of ECs in elementary that were mostly performing arts in nature and that has stuck. My daughter has been ability grouped in dance with older children since the age of 10 so that’s been helpful in gaining her another peer group where she is comfortable. I’ve found also that for the most part, dancers are bright kids academically as well.</p>

<p>I think more than anything, what has allowed my daughter to soar are her amazing peers and a lot of really good teachers. She claims that she is bored still, but I know from our dinner discussions and car time that her intellect is allowed to shine and she is allowed to display her passions in a nurturing environment.</p>

<p>Which leads me to believe that socio-economic status has allowed for her success, for kids trapped in failing schools, we are throwing away a ton of talent.</p>

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<p>MD Mom and mnmom62 - Both of you say the truth.</p>

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<p>We are fortunate that our DD is attending a small public high school of choice which groups students identified as gifted into gifted homerooms. Aprrox. 30% of the student body is “gifted” with the rest high achieving/talented (probably just not identified as gifted). Having friends who “get” her humor especially, has resulted in her enjoyng school for the first time. In elementary school she begged me to home school her. At one point when they had spent weeks on long division my quiet, shy child folded her arms and told the teacher she couldn’t and wouldn’t do any more long division. Now, her teachers are gifted certified and are aware of the psycho-social needs of these kids, beyond the academics. I think grouping them together is vital.</p>