I suspect that most people don't understand giftedness because they have no experience with it.
The only time I don't excuse failure to have a basic idea about giftedness is in teachers. IMO, people in the business of helping children learn have a responsibility to understand how different groups of kids learn. Schools talk about the importance of understanding the needs of many different groups of kids (ethnic, racial, low IQ, learning disabled, etc), yet often ignore the gifties completely.
Yes! Yes!
QT3.1414 - I know both my daughters are misunderstood. They are still young (8 and 9) but I can tell certain teachers don't get it and probably don't believe they are gifted. These teachers have it written all over their faces, and I doubt they realize how obvious it really is. Any time we hit a gap in knowledge these teachers start to question things. If DD9 doesn't ace a worksheet that happens to be the 10th worksheet of the week over the same repeated concept, then that is the one worksheet the teacher writes all over and sends home. The other 9 worksheets have a checkmark at the top to indicate it was graded.
I agree with what Val said above - shouldn't the people that are responsible for teaching our youth know more about gifted students because they certainly seem to know about the importance of differentiating for the lower end of the curve.
I also know if I go to these teachers to try to "educate" them, it will come back on my daughters and make things even worse. It takes a lot of tact and patience to advocate.
As for the sensitivities - I see some of this in both daughters. They display what I would call - over-emotion. They get upset over little things and are always concerned about things not being fair. This over-emotion comes fast and furious and becomes consuming. They also have some sensitivity to clothing, tags, waistbands, etc. but not to the extreme.
