is this what you had in mind, HK?
Yes, more or less. Part time-- maybe 2-3 hours a day? Honestly, that
is all the time that many HG kids actually need in terms of live instructional supports.
I suppose I'm assuming that a college educated educator could handle most things a gifted kid up through 8th (6th?) grade would throw at them. Then again though, gifted kids could probably get up through high school by then, so maybe separate specialist teachers become needed. Another angle could simply be that it doesn't have to be a model where the teacher is omniscient and dispenses knowledge down to the student, but instead that the teacher is just a mature adult with strong teaching skills who could at times simply say "I don't know either, but let's learn how to learn and research the answer together on the internet". As far as the cost of teachers, I need to investigate.
Exactly-- I've not been that kind of omniscient educator with DD-- ever. She outstripped THAT ability outside of STEM and a few humanities topics by the time she was about 7yo.
I have a PhD, however, and teaching/curriculum development experience at the post-secondary level
and at the primary level. I'm also something of a polymath, with some esoteric and unusual interests way outside my (admittedly fairly broad) base that spans botany through biochemistry through pharmacology through natural products/medicinal chemistry through neuroscience through vet-med through environmental chem through hard core instrumental methods of chemical analysis. All at that post-secondary (or beyond) level, and with the supporting math and modeling skill set. I also had a parent who was a scholar of English literature and a poet; plus a professional pianist and a studio musician and a math professor in my extended family.
So for me and DH, this wasn't a stretch at all. We back-filled with things that DD was interested in, and learned along with her as needed/desired, outsourcing when we got out of our own league.
Like aeh, though-- our family is unusual and with a PG child, we didn't feel like we had a lot of other options in front of us anyway.
One caution that I have about that kind of plan is that it often relies upon pretty significant
teaching sensibility, and very definitely the kind of autodidactic mindset and KNOW-HOW that tends to come with an advanced degree. I grew up in that kind of every-moment-a-teachable-one environment, so it's very natural to me to BE that way, just as a lifestyle thing. DH did not, but he's an
amazing teacher (truly gifted) when he chooses to be. He's mostly all wrong for our DD in particular, though. It's unfortunate.
I'd also (with all due respect) suggest that many HG children get into insightful territory where an advanced understanding of the subject is a good idea
pretty young. Again, I'd look for someone with an advanced degree, and preferably someone with that polymath characteristic of insatiable curiosity.
DD9 undertook a months-long odyssey into Yad Vashem and the Righteous of the Nations that had her digging in the stacks of our local university and requesting interlibrary loans of pschology journals, examining Milgram's methodology... etc. All because she was hunting down altruism in human beings, and looking for just what goes into making a Ted Bundy versus a Raoul Wallenberg. What makes the latter tick, and why do they do what they do? Is it a feature genetically of humanoids? Etc.
My own background in neuroscience and an interest in history led me to be able to GUIDE her to resources, but beyond that, she was mostly on her own. We
discussed a lot.
That's life with a PG child, though.
