Musings on Giftedness

[atropus]

I preface this by clarifying that I am relating ideas about "academic giftedness" and to a lesser extent "creative genius" as opposed to "physical giftedness" which is a whole 'nuther ballgame (and for which success is very much down to the luck of the draw).

I have done a lot of unpacking about "genius" and "giftedness" as they were labels I had

Comments

[anonymous]

There's a lot of research about this stuff around, and a lot of other musings by people who've worn the label at times, if you're interested in this field.

I think "gifted" usually means "inconveniently intelligent for a particular context", the inconveniences happen to both the cursèd (ie gifted) person and to those in their envronment. I doubt anyone is inconvenientally gifted in every environment because Stephen Hawking's all good in his niche. I think that's why the poor gifted Vulcans stand out as being bright but having poor interpersonal skills; people with really good interpersonal skills can be far far brighter in the quick, logical, and problem-solving ways and it's not inconvenient, because they can debug their friend's, family, and workplaces, and we don't label them because we're too busy enjoying their company.

Susan Harper

[atropus]

Touché. I think there are plenty of labels that kids get that are euphemisms for difficult-to-fit-in-the-box.

I have done some research and I can see myself doing more when my children get more independent.

[ext_943945]

I saw this on your brother's page and clicked because while I am of an age (perhaps fortunately?) I was never 'tagged' as gifted, I know the pains it can bring; I was jumped up a grade partway through year 3 and have no fond memories of the experience. Being the smallest in your grade is never easy but then being bumped up a grade where you are even more out of place AND all the kids know you were just a runt from the next hall makes for a tough, or often impossible adjustment. My children didn't manage to avoid the label and my youngest, now 24, still writes poetry expressing anger at some of the absurdities and outright stupidities she endured from clueless adults. I and she will neither one forget the language arts teacher who thought giving her "gifted programming" was having her do all the same work as the others in her grade, then asking her to do additional work at a university level, which she got no particular reward for completing. The teacher seemed completely baffled when my daughter refused to do the "gifted work" and

[atropus]

Thanks heaps for your input. Yah, fair call on the Aspergers/ASD thing. I know it doesn't account for all gifted people, but it is certainly something that my experience reflects. I'd say that seeing as most of my friends tend to be fringe/geek I have a (MUCH!!) higher than normal number of friends who are on the autistic spectrum (whether or not they have been diagnosed, or even recognise it themselves - I'm sure that I have offended a couple of them by calling them "kinda Aspie" to their face.

In the teacher training that I have done (particularly a teacher aide course I did it focused a lot on extending gifted children within the bounds of the normal work. Blooms Taxonomy for example can allow teachers to target questions to a child's level of ability so that a whole class can be working at different levels on the same material.... and there are a lot of these strategies around, but the teachers have to have the training and ability to pull it off

[katrinamlupin]

YES. This

[katrinamlupin]

And horror stories! I have horror stories. One case in point: in high school, I had this dimwit woman teaching 'honours world history II' because she thought 'gifted kids would be easier to teach'. That we were supposed to know everything ABOUT A CLASS WE'D NEVER TAKEN

[atropus]

And because it's relevant to us we have a litany of scars because we remember all the dumb things that "stupid" teachers just didn't GET

[atropus]

I have decided that the point of the post is closer to: "Aspergers kids aren't as smart as you think they are - they just happen to specialise in the few stupid things you are testing for in primary school".

[roselet]

[atropus]

I don't object at all :) I seldom post but it's a good place to leave my random rantings. I've been quite ill this year (pregnant again - my body hates when I do that). I may or may not reciprocate.