Notes from a 2 day seminar.
Dec 1997.
Jeremy Lee.
What follows is an interpretation of
my notes resulting from a two day seminar on "Parenting Gifted
Children" headed by Mirica Gross, Associate Professor of Gifted
Education, The University of New South Wales, Australia. Other key
speakers were Katherine Hoekman of the University of New South Wales,
Jill Leemen, and Cathie Harrison of the University of Western Sydney.
The course started Saturday 29 November on the campus of NSW
university. I have supplemented these notes with information gleaned
from parent/teacher discussions on a mailing list over the last three
months, and a significant amount of private reading, observation and
deep thought.
The attendees were mainly parents
who either have been told that they had a gifted child or suspected
as such and wanted to find out more. Other attendees were teachers.
Mirica quickly established that a significantly high proportion of
those on the course were there
with
the knowledge of their own parents, but very
few
were there
with
the knowledge of more distant relatives, and a reasonable number had
told close friends about the course. Casual acquaintances were not
told. I fit the category perfectly having told close friends a
reasonable amount, a relative just enough to get an "oh yea" sort of
reaction, and parents just that it was a parenting course. This was
all highly significant since it has been shown that most parents
would be unsure about the reaction of friends and family were they to
mention that they thought their child was gifted. There seems to be a
sort of self-governed restriction on publicly stating that your child
is gifted. Many gave reasons were given. They did not want to be
viewed as "pushy parents", others seemed aware of several
misconceptions
in the wider community (more later) and did not want to have to argue
a case. The reason that close friends were generally told more is
that people tend to seek out acquaintances of like while relatives
cannot be chosen and there is a feeling of not wanting to overshadow
them. In the vast majority of cases, parents of gifted children are
themselves in the same category, and likewise, their friends also
tend to be similar in intellectual prowess. This is not surprising,
the trait is largely genetic.
It was also pointed out that the
single most qualified people in the world with regard to positive
identification of gifted children are the parents of those children.
NOT teachers, NOT psychologists, NOT medical practitioners. The
parents are the only people with the opportunity to observe these
children in all circumstances, under pressure, playing, working,
thinking, moving, musing, being naughty, devious and all the rest
over the entire developmental stages from womb to adulthood and
beyond. Children tend to modify their behavior especially for school,
and also of course for strangers. It was also stated that the IQ
test, with all its limitations remains the best tool with an
objective slant for establishing a predictor of success in school.
There are of course many traits ("gifts") that are not measured
adequately by an IQ test. Over 80% of all parents who suspect that
their children are gifted are subsequently proven correct by external
means. Another poignant observation is that a large proportion of the
gifted population tend to be introverts.; they don't usually make a
big noise, brag , be pushy or have illusions of grandeur.
I think this is one of the hardest,
and probably one of the more common questions. At first I hated the
term, then I came to realise that there is a need for a name or
category simply for enabling coherent conversation about the topic.
Then I tried to find a better word, and failed. I've come to the
conclusion that the biggest problem with calling someone "Gifted" is
that it tends to conjure up some kind of deity-induced status of
superiority, a characteristic heaped upon the individual rather than
earned through hard graft. What if we were to call it "high
potential" ? Useless. What would it mean to say, "I have a
highly
potentialed child "? perhaps:
"A child who has high potentials". This is ungainly and has no media
impact. Surely any child has high potential, but the term does not
indicate or hint their chances of realising any worthwhile talents.
Okay, what about the opposite of "disability"? That must be
"ability". What does it mean, "I have an
abled
child." Nothing. So we seem stuck with the term
gifted....
and now if you re-visit my objections about the term, the objections
do indeed seem relevant to some extent. A
deity-induced status of
superiority, should perhaps
be rewritten as a genetic
predisposition towards higher than average
ability, this being a
condition that is truly heaped
upon the child rather than
something gained through hard work. The child did not ask for this,
the child does not automatically become elitist. The crux of the
problem is interpreting what it actually should mean to be
gifted.
It's not a "gift" in the sense of receipt of global talent,
superiority or membership of an elitist club. The
club
does not exist anyway - we have seen that by the results of
questioning parents' attitudes towards their child's giftedness.
Superiority is not to be seen as an all-encompassing blanket
condition, rather a condition in which
some
intellectual, emotional, creative or kinesthetic abilities are well
advanced above the norm in
some
children. A talent has to be developed. The talent cannot emerge
without the support of many external factors. World society
(desperately) needs these developed gifts a.k.a. talents and
therefore we require first and foremost a means of identification of
the potential of young children to develop sought after skills; and
for that purpose, we require a name, a category, a label.
Gifted
is the label that has been chosen. Learn to understand what it really
means, and try to spread a decent definition among the wider
community.
Rubbish. This is a ludicrous
as saying that all children are terminally stupid. Perhaps one in
six fit the current definition now widely accepted as being those
children who, tests show as having abilities greater than one
standard deviation from the norm. (Gagne)
What this person is referring
to is a private interpretation of the term
gifted.
In this interpretation, we would find the mathematical prodigy or
linguistic phenomena that may occur perhaps as fewer than one in
several million. We hear about this kind of giftedness in the
newspapers, sometimes on TV, radio,books, magazines, all out of
proportion and in contrast to the scarcity of such abilities. What
we must never forget is that, within the gifted population, the
range of abilities is far far greater than the total range of
abilities within one standard deviation of the norm. Thus it is
essential to further qualify levels of giftedness, just as we
qualify levels of disability.
Maybe in some cases, some
gifted children with certain personalities will make it on their
own. It should be considered rude however to assume that this is
the case for all gifted children. Certainly the more out of sync
from the norm is the child, then the less likely the child is
going to go through school problem-free. In any case: Is it fair
to force a child to slow down and sit through instruction and
practice that is already familiar or not in the least challenging
? Probably not. In the same way, it would not be fair to ask a
child with a bad leg to run with the normal kids in the 100m race.
It would be fair to make some kind of adjustment to the
competition. If this principle were not considered fair, then
horse racing would not have handicaps. The point is, there have
been six personality types identified of gifted children, only one
of these results in a self-starter, able to independently advance
at a comfortable pace in spite of the fit of their learning
environment. Society is undoubtedly losing a lot of talent because
of this myth. I know personally several gifted
underachievers.
What utter nonsense ! Nobody
can
have
an IQ ! This really gets me going when I here this type of
statement. You might be wondering, why the fuss ? Well for a
start, let's make a similar ridiculous
statement:
Joey Bloggs has an English
test score of 80% and it is fixed for
life.
Now perhaps you can see how
stupid is the first statement. Here are some of the objections
that you probably harbor of the latter statement, the more obvious
ones first (maybe):
Why should this score live
with him for life ?
How hard was the test
?
Was the test normalised
against a group of classmates ?
Was the test appropriate for
the allowed subject exposure ?
Does everyone in the world
take the same test ?
How old is the test - does it
use modern language or is it in Olde English
?
Is the test internationally
recognised ?
Has the
test
been tested ?
Could he have cheated
?
How was Joey's health on the
day ?
What was Joey's attitude on
the day ?
Did Joey lose 20% just for
presentation or bad spelling ?
... and importantly, who
interpreted the results ? After all, if the test involved story
writing, obviously a significant subjectivity is involved.
So next time you hear/read about
someone "with an IQ of XYZ", remember these objections about the
English test, and translate them into the context of an IQ
test.
One thing though is fairly
certain... notwithstanding cheating, if someone scores an overall
figure of 160 on an internationally respected test, administered by a
competent professional, then that person is pretty damn smart, and it
is unlikely that the score is an over-estimate. The trouble is, this
single figure still tells you very little about the person. Much more
useful would be to have a test score that differentiated somehow
between a range of abilities, and in a truly scientific spirit, state
a range of certainty for each sub test. In this way, you can at least
see that Joey is this
good at comprehension, and
that
poor at spelling with a
specified degree of certainty.
[ You might find it useful to
read up on the
"normal
distribution" to fully
understand the percentages quoted in the following paragraph. ]
The first three of these
misconceptions were presented in the course as "Cop Outs", excuses if
you wish, something to fall back on by way of explanation as to why
there is no need to make any extra effort for gifted children. Lets
face it, teachers have a tough enough job as it is, making even more
special demands, even for able, capable and often when they get
going, enthusiastic children, is just a bit too hard. It costs more
money and if, with the current level of effort and expenditure 68.3%
are well served, and the 15.85% with mental disabilities are given
special treatment, then the remaining 15.85% - the gifted population,
can cope on their own, or work within the rules. Maybe most of these
gifted children make passable grades, then the schools' success-rate
is quite adequate thank you very
much.
The encouraging point is this:
with the extra effort, reasonably minor modifications to the
syllabus, class attendance modifications, acceleration and enrichment
programs, the trained teacher could address those children lying up
to about two standard deviations from the norm and significantly
enhance the whole schools' performance as well as the lives of many
gifted students who would otherwise not pass through school with
enough enthusiasm to really make a mark on the world. It is from this
pool of intellect that society often gets the doctors, the
scientists, engineers, craftsman and so on. It's nothing short of a
crime that more effort is not put into the education and development
of these children. This is something that has to be addressed top
down. From the government to the people. It won't happen though if
parents don't make a big noise. With significantly more effort, we
could address the 2.3% of the population that lie beyond two standard
deviations. Individualised attention is probably required here, since
the range of abilities in this top 2.3% is truly vast. Some would
(and have) stated the top 5% of the population requires
individualised programs. It is likely that the cure for cancer, AIDs,
environmental pollution and other major world problems are going to
require some pretty smart bodies, and these bodies are those largely
neglected in our schooling system for various reasons, some of which
are given above.
The middle class ideal. 90% of
untrained identification of the gifted population fall into this
category. Type 1 is NOT a teacher
pleaser.
Can become a bully. Often NOT
identified as gifted.
Underground. Strives for peer
acceptance. Does not stand out in ability due to the desire for
normality. Deliberately underachievers for peer acceptance. Girls
do this more than boys.
The dropout. Often boys,
thrives outside the classroom.
Double labeled. Also known as
twice-exceptional. This is the child who is very bright but has a
specific learning disability, this could be short term memory
problems, dyslexia, ADD etc. Guess which of the two
exceptionalities gets most
attention.
The Autonomous learner. This
child sees the teacher and the child as a partner. This type of
attitude is desirable and hopefully, other types can be brought
into the same category; not that this sort of transition happens
all on its own though, it takes external effort from parents and
teachers firstly to identify the gifted child, whatever
personality type and secondly to implement a programme.
First, let it be recognised that of
all families with one gifted child, 88% will have at least one other
child in the same category. This is because as mentioned before, the
trait is genetic. It should follow therefore that the parents of a
gifted child are usually gifted themselves. This may of may not be
reflected in the social and monetary status of the family. Why ?
because being smart does not automatically bring success. Talents,
high income and social success has to be developed. It is almost
obvious but often overlooked, and sometimes I suppose
forgotten.
Never ever try to compare
siblings. It not only cannot be done with any degree of success,
there is the potential for great psychological damage. Remember that
all children are different, all parents are different, and there are
different parenting styles. It is likely that a different parenting
style is required for each child, but of course you have to be seen
to be fair.
Since many parents of gifted
children are also gifted, it is likely that these parents have a
perfectionistic attitude. You might think that this attitude has been
mastered, even devised a perfect method ! ( laugh now ).
Perfectionist parents are going to be unwittingly teaching their
children the same ways by example. More on this later. Try to expose
your own mistakes, give the opportunity to fail, partake in
activities that you do not do well.
Talk to your highly able children
about giftedness, what it means, that all children are different,
some have special talents. Do not praise
everything
that a child produces or eventually the child will see through this
and never try hard. In the end anything will do knowing that the
wildest scribble elicits a response like, "Lovely darling, may I hang
it on the fridge ?" If you know that your child can do much better
and could be in the mood, try something like asking if it really is
the best that s/he can do, then if something better is produced, then
reward the effort as well as the results. Constructive criticism is
often required by the gifted child, they may have no peer based
benchmarks with which to compare. By way of a real life example,
there was once this 14 yr. old with a new camera that took a lot of
snaps and everyone liked them so much. So more snaps were taken and
everyone liked them so much. So more snaps were taken, and everyone
liked them so much... except some old guy who complained that this
one had a pole sticking out of the head of the person in front, and
this one would be great but for that tree there, and this one is
lovely but overexposed and so on. So the child instead of being upset
asked, "Will you tell me what's wrong with the rest of my photographs
if I bring them for you to see ?" In the end, the child saw that none
of the photographs were really special, they were just snaps but
there was potential, and the child understood finally the difference
between a photograph and a snapshot and this old guy will never be
forgotten as a friend. The next roll of film included a photograph
that won first prize at a flower
show.
On the other hand, never tell
your gifted child that you do not believe that the work produced
could possibly be done without help. In that same flower show the
judges refused to judge some craft work of one particular child,
insisting by way of an explanatory note that they could not and would
not judge anything that was made from a kit. In fact the work was
original, the design was original, and the finish indicated that the
work was professionally produced.
Devastating.
Give your gifted child tasks
around the house. Not too easy, not too hard. Challenge is the crux
of the matter. Take your foot off the break and do not refuse to try
to answer and discuss complex and difficult concepts with a child who
is openly inquisitive about some of life's really hard problems. Even
if you don't know, then this is still an opportunity for learning.
Try to find out from whatever means you can. Hopefully, you have
developed a good enough relationship with the school (see later) that
you can ask the teacher to help to provide an
answer.
Recognise that when a sibling
gets an award or achieves a particular position, the self esteem of
the on-looker will take a dip; but don't worry. this is temporary and
normal. Look for something that the second child can do well that the
first finds difficult.
There is much anecdotal evidence
that I have seen regarding difficulties between parents, teachers and
schools. Sometimes it seems that this is justified on the part of the
parents, many times perhaps the situation could be different. In
order to get the best out of the system and thus serve their children
better, parents need to develop a good working relationship with the
school. Perhaps the most constructive thing that a parent can do to
cement a good working relationship with the teachers is simple. Write
a thank you note! Most teachers will probably confirm that such notes
are very rare indeed. Some might have only received five letters of
thanks in thirty years of teaching. You can use this statistic to
your advantage because when a nice letter is written to a teacher at
the school, you can be sure that everyone there gets to see it! It
may even be pinned onto the staff notice board. With some of this
behind you, it would be fairly hard for the staff to refuse to at
least listen to what you have to say. Another sure-fire way to get on
side is to donate some time or services to the school. This could
range from covering books to finding scrap paper for the children to
use. A useful way of finding out just how the learning environment
works is to get into some position where you are helping out within
the classroom environment, reading recovery, maths tutoring and the
like. If you do this and can see that the learning environment is
hopelessly out of control for your child, then at least you know
first hand what it's like and can make an informed decision about
changing schools if it goes that far. On the other hand, you may find
that there are opportunities that you recognise that may be
implemented for your child. With a good relationship with the
teachers, you will find that it is much easier to suggest an
extension program, acceleration or whatever. Many good teachers may
be working in an environment that is less than ideal. Perhaps they
feel powerless to make the changes that they know are required
because it goes against school policy. For this reason, it is
important to find out the attitudes and policies of the school which
is undoubtedly going to be under the control of the headmaster. So if
you can find out that the headmaster has specific policies, attitudes
and goals, start with the headmaster because that is from where
action will be driven. Maybe if the school is a primary school, they
have an unwritten goal to get x number of students into selective
schools. Identification of such a goal may be used as a vehicle for
getting them to take notice of certain professional articles on
gifted education and even perhaps to accept an invitation to
accompany you to a seminar or similar. If you can afford to supply
cassette tapes or a substantial book on gifted education, this would
be an ideal gift to accompany a letter of thanks. Try and find other
schools from well out of the area that have a gifted program in place
and approach the coordinator to find out if they are willing and able
to visit some parents and teachers in your area, perhaps addressing
two or three schools at the same sitting one evening. It would be
hard to ignore an advocate of a working program, and hopefully
difficult to refuse the opportunity to hear what other schools are
doing.
Don't be too surprised however to
find out that it typically takes five years to implement a solid
working gifted program in a school that previously had none. You
might be wondering now, "Why bother ? - My child will be in secondary
school by then." Well, that's understandable, but apathy will prevent
any changes ever being made for the good, and remember also, that
even if the full program takes five years to implement, benefits must
surely come within a reasonable time. If you can find or create just
one advocate for gifted specialised education, then your child will
benefit over having no one to understand the child's
situation.
Some Golden Rules for good school relations
Mirica was discussing a few common characteristics of gifted children, perfectionism, sensitivity, and the like. After talking about how it has been observed that highly intelligent children often have very good hearing and/or sense of smell, she indicated that touch is another heightened sense that can be correlated with the gifted population. Some children are acutely interested and sensitive to the feel of things. Some might have to touch everthing, fabrics, walls and so on. On this topic, she asked of the audience for each parent to raise their hand if they had to cut the lables from the clothes of their children. More than 60% put their hands up ( some put up two hands ). Then she asked who had to turn their socks inside out because the seams annoyed them. About 40% raised their hands. She said that this never ceases to amaze her because when she does this with a random group of parents only a small number raise their hands. This is representative of the tactile sensitivity of gifted children.