You know how gifted people are stereotyped as perfectionists who are never pleased with themselves?
Yeah. Stereotypes exist for a reason.
The name I'd given this blog has been wearing at me as not quite right pretty much from day one, and I finally realized why: the name, or rather the thought behind it, was too much about advocacy. Now, I will be writing some advocacy stuff, no question, but this blog is mainly intended for people who already believe in the need for GT services. So I wanted a more general name. And I've just spent the last three hours wracking my brain to come up with this: Twenty-Nine Letters.
You may find this an odd name. Its meaning is very personal. This blog is now named for (not after - for) the first gifted student with whom I ever worked. She continues to inspire me and I thought it only fitting that I honor her somehow. And no, there weren't 29 letters in her name; it's not that simple! There are 29 letters in the word I taught her how to spell the first day I worked with her: floccinaucinihilipilification (here's the link to prove I'm not just making that up). And yes, she learned it.
The original "What is an Icarus Indomitus?" post will stay up, because I do still believe in that philosophy. It's just not an appropriate name for the blog as a whole.
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What is it like to be gifted?0 comments |
It's like when you're a kid, the first time they tell you that the Earth is turning and you just can't quite believe it 'cause everything looks like it's standing still. I can feel it - the turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour and the entire planet is hurtling around the Sun at sixty-seven thousand miles an hour and I can feel it. That's who I am.
Those of you with impeccable taste in television will recognize this as a quote from Doctor Who. You may wonder what it has to do with anything, considering the character speaking in this quote is a nine hundred-year-old time-travelling alien. Well, I'm not suggesting that gifted individuals can feel the Earth's rotation, obviously. But this particular quote occurred to me today when I was thinking about how gifted people experience the world. They see and feel and understand things others don't, often provoking the same emotion with which the Doctor delivers this line: wonder tinged with loneliness - the loneliness of experience. It's a bittersweet feeling - probably (though sadly I will likely never be able to test this comparison) the same as that of seeing the Earth from space for the first time and knowing that nobody you talk to when you get home will be able to understand what you saw and felt, even if you were to talk about nothing else until the day you died.
Being gifted is about being different, and giftedness brings a different experience of the world. One of my two "favorite" myths about giftedness is that gifted children are "ahead" of their peers. "Ahead" makes it sound like all kids are in a race and the gifted ones got a jump-start somehow. It also implies that gifted and non-gifted children have the same experiences, just at different points in their lives. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Here's a new metaphor for you: imagine there are two trains crossing a mountain range. One is the "gifted" train and one is the "non-gifted" train. The "non-gifted" train heads through the mountains in a perfectly straight line, through tunnels and over bridges. It never detours. It arrives everywhere it's expected to be at pretty much the right time. And it gets to the other side exactly when it's expected, to the cheers of those waiting on the platform.
The "gifted" train, on the other hand, is a very special train: it decides it doesn't need to follow the track. Instead, it crosses the mountain range in a dizzying maze-like path, looping around mountains, going over peaks, running through valleys, exploring rivers and waterfalls, stopping at a few villages along the way, and by the time it reaches the far side of the mountains, its route map looks like a knot the very thought of which would be enough to give an Eagle Scout a coronary. And with all the extra things it's seen and done, it still arrives before it's expected - and before the non-gifted train.
My other favorite giftedness myth is that the word "gifted" is actually a prefix that must be attached to the word "children". People ask, "Were you gifted as a child?" How is one supposed to answer that question? Perhaps, "Yes, I was, but a large spike was accidentally driven into my head when I was eighteen, so I'm now a perfectly normal adult."
Gifted children grow up to be - surprise! - gifted adults, and thus progress from a group whose discussion causes general discomfort into one whose existence is essentially denied by all factions of society apart from the writers of The Big Bang Theory. People seem to think the "problem" of giftedness simply goes away somewhere between the SATs and the first day of college. But it doesn't. Gifted adults face many of the same issues gifted children do - issues such as a lack of mental challenge and intellectual stimulation in everyday life, difficulty finding friends who are intellectual peers, a tendency to "dabble", inability to follow unfounded rules, and proneness to overexcitabilities. Of course, gifted adults are also blessed with the same abilities they had when they were gifted children: creativity, flashes of insight, impeccable memory, etcetera. From both the positive and the negative impacts of giftedness on a person's life, there comes an experience of the world which is unique, and which does not suddenly revert to normal upon reaching adulthood. The gifted train never returns to the track.
So how does it feel to be a person who experiences the world in such a special way for his whole life?
The nineteen in twenty gifted individuals who fall in the mildly to moderately gifted range may not see the world so uniquely that they feel the loneliness of experience, though they will almost certainly feel a regular stream of "Why can't everyone else see this?" moments for the whole of their lives. They may sometimes be frustrated by the world's general "slowness". They are capable of a great deal of self-teaching, have huge reserves of mental and sometimes physical energy, and think things through much more deeply than non-gifted people. They may find that post-school life provides the intellectual stimulation they have missed as children, if they choose a profession that requires deep, creative thought. In school and in later life, they are likely to be seen as exceptional and labelled "geniuses" or "geeks", but generally speaking, they can function as part of a "normal" group and have meaningful friendships with non-gifted individuals.
Those who are highly gifted (approximately 0.1% of the human race) or exceptionally gifted (0.01%) - I myself sit right around the dividing line between these groups - have a more unique experience. We see connections others don't and have frequent moments of creative, philosophical, or intellectual insight. We experience emotions in unique ways, and sometimes react to things with a staggering intensity. We tend to find that the world at large is simply not "set up" for us, nor we for it. Life is an ongoing search for intellectual stimulation. Peers are difficult to find and it is hard to maintain more than casual friendships with non-gifted individuals. Boredom sets in easily, necessitating job, lifestyle, and even life-course changes that occur with unusual frequency. Our perception of society at large is often that it is overly rigid, mistaken in some of its values or priorities, or generally lacking in creativity and individuality; to highly and exceptionally gifted children and adults, the world can seem a grey canvas begging for color.
Those who are profoundly gifted (approximately one in a million people, but often impossible to properly identify) are, quite simply, the greatest minds of their age. Da Vinci and Mozart numbered among these individuals; Einstein did not. These people may never encounter a concept they cannot comprehend, and the intuitive leaps of which they are capable can escape the understanding of others for years (or centuries). They are extremely sensitive to detail and complexity. They often have extremely intense emotional and moral reactions. They face all the problems associated with giftedness tenfold: they are so unique that even high-IQ societies offer little opportunity to meet intellectual peers (of whom there may be only a few thousand in the world), no occupation exists which can provide them with a consistent mental challenge, and the workings of "normal" society may be completely alien and indecipherable to them (imagine trying to work out the social norms of an ant colony and then insinuate yourself into it). Even highly gifted individuals cannot begin to guess what it means to be profoundly gifted. The loneliness of experience for these people must be overpowering.
So maybe gifted children and adults don't feel the turn of the Earth - but just like the Doctor, they have an experience of the world others don't. And while that experience is often wondrous, it brings with it a loneliness that touches every facet of life.
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Fight the Sledgehammers0 comments |
This being my first real post about GT issues, I think it's fitting that I start from the beginning: the need for gifted services.
My mother happened to meet a teacher at a recent event of some sort, and mentioned in conversation that I was starting my MA in Gifted Education. This "teacher" essentially roadblocked the conversation by saying, "Oh. I don't believe in streaming kids that way." My mother, not having the passion for gifted issues that I do, didn't respond. Had I been there myself, my reaction would have gone something like this:
What is the purpose of education? Some - I call them the Sledgehammers of Equality - believe the purpose of schools is to produce an entire population with a standard, undeviating skillset. Some may talk about “preparing children for the workforce”, and seem to be under the impression that a twenty-first century, technology-based economy does not prize individuality and talent; some are more concerned with “self-esteem”, and believe that the key to giving each child confidence in their abilities is to ensure that they do not differ at all from the people around them. Whatever their reasoning or provenance, the Sledgehammers are powerful. Many (perhaps most) teachers either agree with them or, at least, are content to teach under the system they have created.
But good teachers know that the purpose of education is to ignite the mind and help each child reach his own intellectual and creative potential. Research has borne out the idea that, roughly speaking, students whose intelligence is within two standard deviations of the norm can reach their potential within the regular classroom, perhaps given some accommodations. This equates to an IQ between 70 and 130 (if you’re one of those who don’t believe in the validity of IQ, I will be discussing this in a future post), and includes roughly 95% of the population. The other 5% (2.5% at the low end and 2.5% at the high) require special services to reach their individual potential. The regular classroom and the regular teacher are simply not equipped to educate a mind different from the average to such a degree; the “direction” of difference changes nothing. A freeway built for cars that travel at 75 miles per hour is appropriate for neither bicycles nor Formula One racers.
The 2.5% of children with an IQ below 70 are variously known as mentally handicapped, mentally retarded, or whatever term is considered sufficiently sensitive this month. These individuals generally require full-time or near-full-time special educational programs. And they generally receive such programs. The 2.5% at the other end of the scale have to fight tooth and nail to receive any services at all – and any services they are offered are often stopgaps or temporary solutions, like one-hour-a-week pullout programs or grade acceleration (that’s another future post). Why? This goes back to the Sledgehammers. They believe that the purpose of special education programs is to help children with special needs function identically to their agemates (not true), and they shudder at the thought of programs that might allow the gifted to reach a higher plateau. This, they say, would make everyone else feel bad.
Because apparently, the way to feel good about yourself is to compare yourself to others. And they would instill this philosophy in our children.
In advocating their philosophy of enforced equality, they attempt to rob 2.5% of the population – approximately 1.5 million school-age children in the United States alone – of the opportunity to fulfill their potential. They also attempt to rob the greater society of the benefits of innumerable products of genius that may never come to be. We almost lost Einstein himself to the education system’s contempt for genius. How many potential Einsteins have been lost along the way?
Is gifted education divisive, as the Sledgehammers claim? That depends on whether you believe self-worth comes from within or without. Most children who are not athletically skilled seem comfortable with the existence of those who are. This is because they see that adults are comfortable with the concept of athletic ability. Most adults, however, are not comfortable with the concept of intellectual giftedness. Genius is a taboo subject; the only thing it is less appropriate to talk about than one’s own giftedness is one’s children’s. So of course children learn that everyone should have the same level of intelligence. But we can un-teach this. We can teach children that in the realm of the mind, just like in the realm of the body, there are some with talents others cannot match, and that this has no bearing on anyone’s value as a human being. We can, in essence, practice what we preach about celebrating diversity and everyone being special in their own way.
Or we can continue ignoring the problem and failing the greatest minds of tomorrow.
You choose.
My mother happened to meet a teacher at a recent event of some sort, and mentioned in conversation that I was starting my MA in Gifted Education. This "teacher" essentially roadblocked the conversation by saying, "Oh. I don't believe in streaming kids that way." My mother, not having the passion for gifted issues that I do, didn't respond. Had I been there myself, my reaction would have gone something like this:
What is the purpose of education? Some - I call them the Sledgehammers of Equality - believe the purpose of schools is to produce an entire population with a standard, undeviating skillset. Some may talk about “preparing children for the workforce”, and seem to be under the impression that a twenty-first century, technology-based economy does not prize individuality and talent; some are more concerned with “self-esteem”, and believe that the key to giving each child confidence in their abilities is to ensure that they do not differ at all from the people around them. Whatever their reasoning or provenance, the Sledgehammers are powerful. Many (perhaps most) teachers either agree with them or, at least, are content to teach under the system they have created.
But good teachers know that the purpose of education is to ignite the mind and help each child reach his own intellectual and creative potential. Research has borne out the idea that, roughly speaking, students whose intelligence is within two standard deviations of the norm can reach their potential within the regular classroom, perhaps given some accommodations. This equates to an IQ between 70 and 130 (if you’re one of those who don’t believe in the validity of IQ, I will be discussing this in a future post), and includes roughly 95% of the population. The other 5% (2.5% at the low end and 2.5% at the high) require special services to reach their individual potential. The regular classroom and the regular teacher are simply not equipped to educate a mind different from the average to such a degree; the “direction” of difference changes nothing. A freeway built for cars that travel at 75 miles per hour is appropriate for neither bicycles nor Formula One racers.
The 2.5% of children with an IQ below 70 are variously known as mentally handicapped, mentally retarded, or whatever term is considered sufficiently sensitive this month. These individuals generally require full-time or near-full-time special educational programs. And they generally receive such programs. The 2.5% at the other end of the scale have to fight tooth and nail to receive any services at all – and any services they are offered are often stopgaps or temporary solutions, like one-hour-a-week pullout programs or grade acceleration (that’s another future post). Why? This goes back to the Sledgehammers. They believe that the purpose of special education programs is to help children with special needs function identically to their agemates (not true), and they shudder at the thought of programs that might allow the gifted to reach a higher plateau. This, they say, would make everyone else feel bad.
Because apparently, the way to feel good about yourself is to compare yourself to others. And they would instill this philosophy in our children.
In advocating their philosophy of enforced equality, they attempt to rob 2.5% of the population – approximately 1.5 million school-age children in the United States alone – of the opportunity to fulfill their potential. They also attempt to rob the greater society of the benefits of innumerable products of genius that may never come to be. We almost lost Einstein himself to the education system’s contempt for genius. How many potential Einsteins have been lost along the way?
Is gifted education divisive, as the Sledgehammers claim? That depends on whether you believe self-worth comes from within or without. Most children who are not athletically skilled seem comfortable with the existence of those who are. This is because they see that adults are comfortable with the concept of athletic ability. Most adults, however, are not comfortable with the concept of intellectual giftedness. Genius is a taboo subject; the only thing it is less appropriate to talk about than one’s own giftedness is one’s children’s. So of course children learn that everyone should have the same level of intelligence. But we can un-teach this. We can teach children that in the realm of the mind, just like in the realm of the body, there are some with talents others cannot match, and that this has no bearing on anyone’s value as a human being. We can, in essence, practice what we preach about celebrating diversity and everyone being special in their own way.
Or we can continue ignoring the problem and failing the greatest minds of tomorrow.
You choose.
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So what IS an Icarus Indomitus?0 comments |
Note (22 December 2009): "Icarus Indomitus" was the original name of this blog.
The story of Icarus is probably the best-known of all the Greek myths. A young boy, wearing wings his father built for him, flew too high; the heat of the sun melted his wings, and he fell to his death. He was reckless. He was prideful. He refused to listen. In fact, Icarus is generally portrayed as a bit of a moron. So why would I name a blog about gifted & talented issues after him? And what's this "Indomitus" business? Isn't that Latin, not Greek?
Icarus died for ignoring the commands of his elders. He was too adventurous, too curious, too passionate. He did not do as he was told.
If he wasn't a gifted child, he would certainly have felt a great affinity for them.
Around the world, there are young Icaruses who fly too high for the comfort of the adults in their lives. I'm talking about the child who arrives in kindergarten able to read and is told she has to go back to learning her letters; the child who is reprimanded for reading about quantum physics while he is meant to be practicing long division; the child who should be spending her school days with children three years her senior, but is told she wouldn't survive among them.
Adults tell gifted children it is wrong to fly higher than anyone else. Is it jealousy? Fear? I wonder. And then when they do try to fly too high, adults pull them down.
"Indomitus" is indeed Latin (my Latin is better than my Greek, and anyway, I like the alliteration). It means "untamed" or "unconquerable". The Icarus Indomitus is, therefore, the gifted child who will not be pulled down from his rightly earned heights. Who will not do as he is told when the person giving the command is his intellectual and moral inferior. Who is adventurous enough and curious enough to fly to places undreamt-of by most, though he may go alone and be punished for the transgression. These children may be some of the most difficult to teach and to raise.
Which only means there is something vastly, perhaps irreversibly wrong with the way we view and treat them.
Gifted children should be untamed, should be free to explore and fly and be. Childhood is the time for passions and adventures, before the loss of spirit and wonder that comes with adulthood. Icarus Indomitus is my own little philosophical concept: the child who flies as high as she wishes, unfettered by adult society's strange notions of propriety, and in fact aided by adults who believe in the right of such a child to flourish and grow in his own manner, in his own time, to his own ends.
That is what this blog is here to advocate. In the coming months, as I begin my Masters program in Gifted Education, I plan to write weekly (ish) entries about teaching, mentoring, and raising gifted children. I hope I'll be able to offer some insights, and receive some in return.
The story of Icarus is probably the best-known of all the Greek myths. A young boy, wearing wings his father built for him, flew too high; the heat of the sun melted his wings, and he fell to his death. He was reckless. He was prideful. He refused to listen. In fact, Icarus is generally portrayed as a bit of a moron. So why would I name a blog about gifted & talented issues after him? And what's this "Indomitus" business? Isn't that Latin, not Greek?
Icarus died for ignoring the commands of his elders. He was too adventurous, too curious, too passionate. He did not do as he was told.
If he wasn't a gifted child, he would certainly have felt a great affinity for them.
Around the world, there are young Icaruses who fly too high for the comfort of the adults in their lives. I'm talking about the child who arrives in kindergarten able to read and is told she has to go back to learning her letters; the child who is reprimanded for reading about quantum physics while he is meant to be practicing long division; the child who should be spending her school days with children three years her senior, but is told she wouldn't survive among them.
Adults tell gifted children it is wrong to fly higher than anyone else. Is it jealousy? Fear? I wonder. And then when they do try to fly too high, adults pull them down.
"Indomitus" is indeed Latin (my Latin is better than my Greek, and anyway, I like the alliteration). It means "untamed" or "unconquerable". The Icarus Indomitus is, therefore, the gifted child who will not be pulled down from his rightly earned heights. Who will not do as he is told when the person giving the command is his intellectual and moral inferior. Who is adventurous enough and curious enough to fly to places undreamt-of by most, though he may go alone and be punished for the transgression. These children may be some of the most difficult to teach and to raise.
Which only means there is something vastly, perhaps irreversibly wrong with the way we view and treat them.
Gifted children should be untamed, should be free to explore and fly and be. Childhood is the time for passions and adventures, before the loss of spirit and wonder that comes with adulthood. Icarus Indomitus is my own little philosophical concept: the child who flies as high as she wishes, unfettered by adult society's strange notions of propriety, and in fact aided by adults who believe in the right of such a child to flourish and grow in his own manner, in his own time, to his own ends.
That is what this blog is here to advocate. In the coming months, as I begin my Masters program in Gifted Education, I plan to write weekly (ish) entries about teaching, mentoring, and raising gifted children. I hope I'll be able to offer some insights, and receive some in return.
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