And foremost among the reasons for a gifted student to appear or become lazy is because the material is unchallenging and unrewarding. But it's so much easier to blame the child when the school's one-size-fits-all solution doesn't fit.
Isn't that why we're all here?
I completely agree. My child was the typical gifted underachiever. He shut down in school after 2 years of begging me and his teachers for something more. We finally had someone take his PG-level IQ seriously, despite the lack of work to show for it (we had switched schools). He was grade-skipped and subject accelerated 3+ years on top of the skip.
Within 2 weeks he went from doing *nothing* to being one the top workers in his class. Fast forward a year later and he is thriving: organized, happy, learning a ton, and growing socially as well. He has gained confidence as well.
BTW, as long as we had stayed in the public school, he would not have been eligible for any kind of acceleration, and probably not even a gifted pull-out, because he was not a high achiever and there were plenty of those.
Now, who knows what he will do with his life -- but at least he's got a chance to do something -- where before it seemed like he was on a road to nowhere. He used to come home crying. Now he comes home smiling.
I would be sad if even the gifted organizations, who gave us so much support along the way, came to withdraw their support from children like mine. I hope that is not the direction that NAGC is headed.
