Gifted Issues Discussion homepage
Posted By: Loy58 Article about poor school fit? - 04/14/16 12:38 PM
I've heard the story from many parents here before about what PG kids look like in real life when they are experiencing poor school fit. Does anyone know of an article/literature that tells this story (something that I can share with a school, so they can recognize what it might look like, too)?

Thanks in advance!
Posted By: Loy58 Re: Article about poor school fit? - 04/14/16 05:09 PM
Ok, maybe no such document exists?

Posted By: ConnectingDots Re: Article about poor school fit? - 04/14/16 05:32 PM
Someone recently posted a long research summary that had examples of how different children behaved in a classroom, despite all being gifted.

A few places I'd look:
Hoagies Gifted
Davidson articles database
SENG

My guess is that PG kids "look" a lot of different ways -- but I'm thinking there are at least lists of how they may be acting.
Posted By: ConnectingDots Re: Article about poor school fit? - 04/14/16 05:36 PM
Sharing links I've saved:

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/tony.htm (A poem, so definitely not evidence based, but it makes some good points)

https://tip.duke.edu/node/934 Myriad Myths about Gifted Children

http://teachagiftedkid.com/ (by a teacher)
Posted By: CoastalMom Re: Article about poor school fit? - 04/14/16 11:07 PM
I think the article ConnectingDots references is linked in the Gifted Brains thread in GT Research.
Posted By: Tigerle Re: Article about poor school fit? - 04/15/16 08:10 AM
Is this what you are looking for?
http://www.stephanietolan.com/is_it_a_cheetah.htm
http://www.stephanietolan.com/another_dimension.htm
Posted By: ConnectingDots Re: Article about poor school fit? - 04/15/16 02:20 PM
Originally Posted by CoastalMom
I think the article ConnectingDots references is linked in the Gifted Brains thread in GT Research.

That's where I saw it! :-)

The first section has some nice examples of children with different personalities and how they behaved in the classroom. Thanks!
Posted By: Loy58 Re: Article about poor school fit? - 04/15/16 07:36 PM
Those are all great articles - THANK YOU! I am just trying to find something that really describes what I've been observing to a T, which isn't easy. I've heard others describe it before here (HG+ children refusing to go to school, avoiding school, etc.), but a nice, neat article summing up some of what I've been seeing is hard to find.
Posted By: ajinlove Re: Article about poor school fit? - 04/15/16 08:03 PM

These are great reads. Thank you for sharing.
Posted By: indigo Re: Article about poor school fit? - 04/15/16 08:16 PM
Your description calls to mind an article on the Davidson Database, titled Gifted children: Youth mental health update.
This article was also mentioned in a post here in October 2014, which may be where you previously saw it?

There is a section about midway through the article subtitled Special Needs of Gifted Children, which describes these four needs in detail:
A. Need for a challenging education.
B. Need for "true peers."
C. The need for responsive parenting.
D. The need for adult empathy.
In the clinical experience of the author, a range of behavioral problems (from daydreaming to school refusal) have resulted when the school curriculum was not sufficiently challenging.

The next section of the article, subtitled Giftedness and Self-esteem, highlights findings of a study by Miraca Gross:
In her study of exceptionally gifted children, Gross has reported that the self-esteem of exceptionally gifted students tends to be significantly lower than the self-esteem of average students, especially when the school is unwilling or unable to allow them access to other children who share their levels of intellectual, oral and psychosocial development. Thus the gifted child is placed in the forced dilemma of choosing to minimize intellectual interests and passions for the sake of sustaining peer relations or of pursuing intellectual interests at the cost of becoming socially isolated in the classroom. As Gross poignantly added "The gifted must be one of the few remaining groups in our society who are compelled, by the constraints of the educative and social system within which they operate, to choose which of two basic psychological needs should be fulfilled."
Here's a different article which describes what kids don't learn when they are not sufficiently challenged. This is consistent with the information from the article summarized above.

The thread on Buzzwords includes a list of resources providing more information on the positive benefits of flexible cluster grouping by readiness and ability.

Here's a post including reasons which some schools have given for not cluster-grouping children by similar level of ability and readiness. sick These are examples of working against the development of positive self-esteem and mental health in gifted pupils.


These observations may signal that a change is needed and may be overdue.

= - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - =
NOTE: The article "Gifted children: Youth mental health update" by Julia Osborn, 1996, published by Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Schneider Children's Hospital, is backed up on WayBack Machine, Internet archive.
Links:
1) article -
https://web.archive.org/web/20200112034938/http://www.davidsongifted.org/search-database/entry/a10170
2) list of archive dates/times -
https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.davidsongifted.org/search-database/entry/a10170
Posted By: indigo Re: Article about poor school fit? - 04/15/21 12:19 AM
The Davidson Database has recently been updated.

The article described in the above post as having the title "Gifted children: Youth mental health update" and including findings of a study by Miraca Gross can currently be accessed at: archive

Link -
https://web.archive.org/web/20191112165919/https:/www.davidsongifted.org/search-database/entry/a10170
Posted By: indigo Re: Article about poor school fit? - 07/06/21 03:37 PM
The Davidson Institute eNews-Update: June 2021 contains a link to the article, "Gifted children: Youth mental health update." The author of the article is Julia Osborn Ph.D., and she refers to the work of Miraca Gross and others.

https://www.davidsongifted.org/gifted-blog/25-year-review-gifted-children-youth-mental-health/

Article archived here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210513192235/https://www.davidsongifted.org/gifted-blog/25-year-review-gifted-children-youth-mental-health/
Posted By: Mrsmimikat76 Re: Article about poor school fit? - 07/11/21 09:58 PM
Thank you for sharing!
© Gifted Issues Discussion Forum