Before this coming school year, I want to start a list of tips for schools to help gifted students.
The tips are meant to keep the gifted children as happy as possible and to not feel traumatized (sorry, if it is too strong a word) by being in regular classes or regular school environments.
The intention is to find a best way to inform schools of the differences that gifted adults have noticed, that schools or other parents might not be noticing, and to make the schools user friendly for everyone regardless of IQ and at the same time understanding any differences (allergies, over-sensitivities, quirks, ticks, speech problems, poor eye-sight, whatever is going on to make that high IQ child have a different experience than considered the norm (also the same list that gets these children picked on)).
Maybe it could be thought of as a Bill of Rights and it might end up helping all students. Although, since the powers that be consider the gifted brain to not be the norm, I am assuming that the way they have always set up schools is geared for the masses, the large group in the middle in the average range which depending on stats might be 89 to 119.
To be clear, the schools seem to be considering gifted at 130+.
We would like to see if maybe this generation of gifted students could be spared the bad feelings they might have about the way they are treated in school.
A positive change might have a rewarding positive impact. We want all people to be happy and reach their full potential.
When I talk to gifted people who are in their later years, they might not have even realized what their potential was and / or they had parents (perhaps immigrants new to the USA) who stopped them (in their opinion) from reaching their full potential.
I would like to see schools take the issue of the high IQ students seriously from pre-K through the end of 12th grade. We need some support. It is very uncomfortable advocating parent to school district and I am not sure it is working.
A detailed list might help for future conversations - parent to school. Thank you for any tips or pointers to make the list.
