Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments What does hard work look like?

Odd question isn't it? But it is a serious question, what does hard work look like? More specifically, in the late elementary and middle school years, what are other children doing that is considered hard and difficult? How does one 'imitate' that type of hard work for an advance child?

I suspect I would need to accelerate to more complex and in-depth subjects, with more details, etc etc to get to the 'difficult' material.

Brain fog has settled in. Your point of view and wisdom is much appreciated.

Every child deserves to work in his readiness level - with some material that is easy and reinforcing the old knowledge, some that they can pick up themselves, and some that they can only get with emotional or educational support.

Find the readiness level of an individual child and one is half way home. Spend some time in the homes of ND kids of a similar age during homework time, and you'll see what hard work looks like.

Smiles,
Grinity

IMHO hard work looks different for everyone, and a project that might be hard for one person may be easy for someone else, even if the people were equally intelligent.

I worked through Smart But Scattered a few weeks ago, and my DD has a weakness in Planning and Prioritization (among other things). The book talks about breaking a project down into manageable chunks - ones that feel like a 3 on an effort scale of 1-10. A 3 approximates "I feel confident I can do it, but it won't be easy."

A 1 is defined as "takes virtually no effort at all." The book defines 10 as "the child can do it, but it feels very very hard" - DD defined a 10 as "an insurmountable task I have no hope of accomplishing." She (at age 8) felt that she needed some way of expressing that the task was more than "very very hard" - that she felt she literally could not successfully accomplish the task as presented.

We actually left some items on her list with ratings of 5 or 6, rather than trying to get them all broken down into 3s, with the understanding that when she got to that task, if it still felt like a higher-than-3, I'd help her break it down into a 3-or-lower. At least one of those tasks she's already completed without any assistance.

In the case of my DD, who hasn't been challenged much in life, you can tell she's working hard when she is emotionally engaged and excited, perhaps even sometimes on the verge of tears, but also persisting with the task and ultimately very happy and satisifed upon completion. In some cases the experience is more positive (writing comes easily to her--we never have tears there; just deep engagement) but I have also seen her doing what I considered to be positive but emotionally challenging hard work in 3 specific scenarios:

1) Learning to swim
2) Learning to ride her bike
3) This year, for the first time, in an academic task--when working on the enrichment/gifted math worksheets she gets weekly. These are brainteasers--they require thinking outside the box and figuring out what the problem is asking. DD is used to seeing what is required immediately, and these throw her out of her comfort zone--in a good way, IMO.

I would also say that I have seen her working hard on drawing and winning at chess.

The sight of her actually working is a beautiful one for me.

I have seen DD have to work hard a couple of times recently. It was awesome.

1) AOPS. Some of those questions are really tricky. She might go up a blind alley, and have to start again. I could see her getting a little panic-y every once in a while but then she would renew her focus and start again. I would say this was working "on the edge of her competency"

2) For the first time this year, she's had some abstract concepts in English (for example) that she's had to really mull over to completely understand. It's been good to watch her stretch.