Inattentiveness vs. Multitasking
by C. Bainbridge
Surprisingly, gifted children can continue to follow what a teacher is saying so that when the teacher calls on a gifted child who looks like he hasn't been paying attention, the child can answer the question without any problem. However, it's also quite possible that a child can become so engrossed in his own thoughts that he is essentially in another world and doesn't even hear the teacher, even when his name is called.
To the teacher, the child looks as though he is not interested in learning, but the opposite is usually true: the child is very interested in learning, but has already learned the material being discussed and therefore isn't learning anything. Consequently, the child retreats to the rich, inner life so typical of gifted children.
My daughter seems to play pretend all day long. She sings, makes up stories, creates little things out of bits of paper and string, poms and googly eyes, and draws the most amazing things. She might seem like she isn't paying attention to what's going on around her, but just ask. She has perfect recall. Even if she doesn't seem to be listening, she can retell a story with understanding.
Now new challenges arise. As she enters 1st grade, and has a desk she is supposed to sit in for long stretches of the day, I have become worried about how she will adapt. I want her teachers to know how gifted she is. She isn't normal. Her behavior can be very different, but it isn't less. There is a richness and depth to her imagination that only comes along once in a great while.
My goal is to get her teachers, and the world all around, to understand that she isn't necessarily distracted. Look at her father. I am known as the drawing guy at church. During messages I fill sketchbook after sketchbook with drawings taken from the sermons and other things running through my mind. It is how I process all of the thoughts and stimulus. I'm not ignoring the message. On the contrary, I am assimilating it in my own way, in a way my mind can take it and own it. I remember it better than if I just had to sit there and focus on the pastor.
This just didn't start recently. Now that I think back, I recall filling the margins of my notebooks in college with elaborate drawings. And I believe my grades reflect that I was not distracted. As an honors graduate with a 4.9, I feel my idiosyncratic doodling during lectures was a way I learned to cope with a monotone, boring environment of lectures and make the information come to life.
So now I see my daughter naturally taking on this method of synthesizing the stimulus of the classroom. And it becomes my job to advocate for her. She is not inattentive. On the contrary, she is an imaginative steamroller, churning out creative byproducts while ingesting the lessons. My mission must be to grow tolerance for her way of thinking so she can flower and grow in the classroom setting.
