Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy How High School Can Accommodate

Dude.......power in numbers........................

Now, that was an ironic joke.
Yet, nothing but crickets.
I will not quit my day job.....................yet.

I think we were all just eating dinner, 'Neato. It always gets quiet every evening around that time.

It's not your jokes...it's your timing!

Har har har! Get it?

Oh, I crack myself up. Maybe that's what you need to do--laugh at your own jokes. It works for me!

Not as bad as the frogs though!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Love that!

Now THAT'S comedy.

That's it, 'Neato! I think you've found the problem with your humor. You're going for witty, esoteric banter. We laugh at beer commercials.

See where you're going wrong?

Ania, I am imagining a situation I encountered in high school where a teacher was just punching the clock and not interested in really teaching anyone. I think that somehow kids need to switch from external motivation (pleasing a teacher for instance) to self-motivation. Even though the teacher is giving me pointless busy work and useless comments (if any!) on graded work, I should still play the game, turn in the stuff, but extend my own learning just because I want to learn something. I think at some point, we want our kids to start differentiating the curriculum for themselves.

How do you extend your own learning? In class or outside of school?

When I was a kid, I would extend my school learning when something caught my imagination. For example, I found an old and wonderfully illustrated (Gustav Dore) edition of The Divine Comedy at a fair for a quarter, and read Inferno on my own over the summer. What a wonderful book!

With my kids, the process seems to happen the same way. Just now, literally, we were all watching a video about a hypothesis for the origin of the moon.

We got on the topic in the car for some reason, and three kids aged 3-8 stood transfixed watching the video again and again.

I try to expose my kids to different ideas to make them aware of what's out there. I also buy tons of books, especially DK-Reader type books, which give good illustrated overviews of a topic.

Val