Hi,
As usual, some great conversation here.
This message thread really hits close to home for me. Initially, my wife and I knew very little about gifted education until it sprung itself upon us via our son about one year ago(currently 8 years old).
Part of the solution is to educate the parents about giftedness. Forums like this and DITD website are a real blessing. To be honest, until we discovered our son was gifted, we just thought he was an above average "bright" kid (early reader, speaker, etc.) and our friends' children were not as bright (no insult intended). As mentioned, we did not know about gifted children and therefore, we didn't know what to look for.
When applying to schools, we tried to do the right thing and we actually held him back one year because he was a summer boy. We were advised that summer boys should be held back a year due to maturity issues. In Kindergarten and the beginning of first grade, he told us he was very bored but we told him to stick with it. I still feel guilty about this response as he could have easily shut down. Fortunately, de did not.
Thankfully, his first grade teacher alerted us last year (November 2005) and we were able to have him tested and design a better program for him (we finally decided on home schooling). And, as parents, we were able to educate ourselves.
Part of the challenge, in my opinion, is that giftedness, by definition, covers such a small part of the population - anywhere from 1% to 2%. The school system is setup to deal with the vast majority of the children who sit in the 95%. And, the school systems (public and private) are challenged dealing with the norm.
I like Trinity's idea about having some basic milestones. These milestones should be given to all parents when they put their children in pre-school. Or, as WG states, by health care professionals. This would help alert parents to the world of giftedness if they see the milestones.
When I talk to friends about it, I compare discovering our son's giftedness to another parent discovering their child has dsylexia. Obviously, giftedness is a happy event. However, both "conditions" must be dealt with and the school system does not know how to deal with them because they are way outside the norm.
Just my two cents...
