Hi, everyone.
I am Rachael. For 10 years I taught as a middle school teacher, with the gifted students. This past year I went back to school to get my masters in Gifted Education, and I also have a gifted son. I found this site while doing research for class, but it has been so useful in helping me deal with my own child. He is really the reason I decided to join here.
Teaching gifted children, and having your own it totally different. Where I watch kids Jo's age outside running around and playing, my son is drawing intricate strands of DNA with sidewalk chalk on the driveway. While the other kids were learning their alphabet, he had been reading for years, others learning to count, he is multiplying.
He is a perfectionist to a huge degree, he has few friends, because no one understands him, and we are in a state does little to nothing for it's gifted population. Everything is whole group instruction (he is in 2nd grade), where everything that is being covered he has been doing for years.
My heart breaks for him, and I have no idea how to help him not only learn more (he loves learning), but to be happy in his own skin.
