Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion 3 groups of HG parents of HG kids - a good model?

Shari,
I'm sorry your family is going through this, but the only way to build self esteem is to face difficult situations and come through them.
Still, I think part of the victory is learning how not to 'go lemming' and become incompasitated, just because your peers do.

As Kipling's poem IF says -

That's why I'm so interested in slow breathing lately. Your DS might find this interesting.
Love and More Love
Grinity

I think that the female thing WAS part of it. But I also had(have) a significant LD, and I think the GLD thing was really, really, really badly understood.

More than either of those, though, I think the problem was that I'm naturally a radical (literal sense), and inovative thinker. I remember one "lateral thinking" excercise in grade 11 where I got sent to the office to get me out of class (like they do with kindergardeners), becasue my thinking was just too lateral and the five teachers in the room couldn't handle me. In retrospect, I was highlighting pretty clearly the wooly-headedness of the course designers (not the teachers in the school) because my solutions were much easier, faster, and better, and DIDN'T illustrate what they were trying to get across.


Most institutions -- not quite all.

Institutions are easy targets, because they really *can't* do everything right. I certainly don't disagree with the opinions I formed in that erra, I just have a bit more sympathy for the poor institutions. Funny how many smart people are anarchists.


And I HAVE learned that "playing along" is often the better solution. Wish me luck on that today. I'ma gonna need it.



-Mich
PS: thanks for the "fix" before the scary thing

I think that sympathy is a sure sign of maturity Mich!
Go you!
Good luck with the meeting.
2E kids are still difficult to accomidate in most school settings - I think there is tremendous potential there, but no easy answers!

Grin

**venting*
I was complaining again just yesterday about, this time, about identity theft. Now they have started cloning credit cards to make hard plastic copies of your credit card so they can buy groceries with your paycheck (happened to us. The bank lady said that's what the crooks are doing). But then I read here that the US is something like only 21st in the world in math and science. Hmm., wonder if it's because the system's set up to reject talent, except sometimes.

**done with 1st vent, beginning 2nd**
As for the quiestion. I fit as unfit on so many levels. Single mother. Moved, so new school every six months. Super religious. Everyone knew I was "really smart" but religiosity identity trumped personal rights. There was a Christian Rock song summed it up- "my closest friends are aliens and strangers, travellers here, living with danger.". From something someone said about being in this world but not of it.
That mentality did not work out well for me in the long run. I wish it was just "not living up to my potential". We'll say I lived through a Dabrowski's disintegration with the full force of a gifted over reaction, to put a positive spin on it.
So, I was in the group that believed there was something wrong with the school, but only because it was part of this world, and that it was beneath us to try to change the school. You know, "obey the law of the land.". "this world is not mine or else I would fight for it.". "we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against powers of darkness.". Hey, what can a non-Christian do with all that bible training but complain about it? With all due respect and love for believers.

I have actually disintegrated a few times since then. It hasn't been a dull life.

ETA: Geez, now I'm sounding bitter. Maybe it's best like Sandra Bullock said in The Blind Side, "When I count to 3 open your eyes. The past is gone and the world is a good place."

I've thought about your post and read other people's responses and I still don't know where I fit in. In some ways I was "fine" during school, bored, but I had friends. I do have some specific memories that stick with me and bother me. Like my K teacher who told the class that you couldn't subtract a larger number from a smaller number (and I was just thinking, duh, that means you have a negative number) or in 3rd grade how a teacher threatened to pull me out of the gifted program because I wasn't doing well on grammar worksheets (incidentally something that I hated, I was already missing class during that time due to algebra tutoring, and it didn't seem to affect my writing skills in general). I also remember being frustrated during elementary school that I had to wait to learn certain things or read certain books until I was older. But I also had some good teachers, or ones that I remember enjoying.

Once I moved on to middle school and high school they did more tracking so I was able to be almost entirely in honors/AP classes in high school. It wasn't always the perfect fit but I was the kind of kid that always pushed the system. For instance, I took some classes on the side as "independent studies" so I could fit in extra AP classes or more extracurriculars. I was always extremely busy but by my senior year I skipped enormous chunks of school due to boredom (but yet I always knew how to cover my tracks so I didn't get in trouble once!).

I chose to go to a smaller college that was free for me instead of a big university (very well recognized but I would've been paying off debt FOREVER!). It turned out to be a great move, though, because I was able to even create some new courses that I was interested in, study abroad multiple times, and really tailor my education to my needs instead of going by a set curriculum. Grad school was also good but I had to relearn a lot of study habits because once you took away the incentive of grads my motivation took a huge hit. I'm still recovering from that but I'll have to tell you later how that works out for me.

As a side note, though, I can see the effects of being forced into a lock-step curriculum with how much I tuned-out well into grad school. I was never an obviously gifted kid. I always knew how to get an A and then tune out (normally doing work either for another class or reading or working on stuff for my extracurriculars). I had had some teachers who were absolutely floored when I aced my AP tests because they never realized what I was capable of. In college I started getting better about talking in class but I still held back quite a bit (and tuned-out still).

All that being said, now that I have the experience as a parent I've decided that the whole system is flawed and am not looking to send DD to a traditional school at all. Right now we're looking at Montessori because I feel strongly about multi-age classrooms and child-led learning (granted, we have to see how well our local individual schools carry that out still...). I can also see how grades did a disservice to me (many times I was more focused on them than the process of learning). My parents advocated for me in that they did get me tested and put me in the gifted program but that was about it. Looking back I think I could've really benefited from a grad skip or at the very least more differentiation in math. What they DID get right was to always challenging me at home. However, they ALWAYS patiently answered my questions no matter how crazy (I remember some great talks we had about the beginning of the universe and capitalism vs. communism), although sometimes my questions were answered with new questions from them.

I'd say that both the 3rd group and the 1st group have a claim on your past. I would guess that because of your positive 3rd group experiences, you were able to still game the system and get your As while quietly hating it (group 1) The fact that you are dead set against sending your children to traditional school tells me that for all the attempts to give you enough to be in the 3rd group, it just wasn't enough.

Does that sound about right?
Grinity

Wow Dear Ones,
Thanks so much for all the discussion. It seems like some of us fit snugly into one catagory and others had a more mixed experience, but that these 3 groups are workable short-hand for what many of us have lived through and how our early experiences color our parenting of our gifted kids.

I'd love to hear more experiences, and I'd like to invite suggestion for names for the 3 groups. I'm looking for names that are descriptive without being pejorative.

Any suggestions?
Thanks!
Grinity

For the most part. I don't think I ever consciously hated it, though, while it was happening. I think this is something that I've realized more looking back through the eyes of a parent. When I was actually going through school I always kept myself so busy with other stuff (whether it was just a good book or extracurriculars or drawing cartoons of the teacher) that I didn't really notice it that much. I do remember sometimes having problems getting along with other kids or understanding some small talk that they did. But I still managed to have friends.

Maybe my problem is more that hate is such a strong word. There were times that I sincerely enjoyed school but I just think that the system is too flawed in its current form and that distracts from the way learning should be. For me this goes way beyond being a gifted thing, though, as I think schools should be changed significantly for all kids (I just wish I had a nice tidy answer on how to do that on a national level ).

Hi Grinity and everyone else out there! Grinity, you always have great ideas! You asked for more experiencs, so here it goes. When it came to education, I never had much support. I was never expected to do really well...Average was good. During high school, I pretty much just gave up and metamorphosed myself into an airhead. I continued on as the homecoming queen and head cheerleader. I got out of class for everything. I had the teachers wrapped around my finger. I wasn't held accountable for anything. Even though I was one of the "popular" girls, I remember feeling so lost. Now as an adult, I look back and feel so sad of what I missed. That's why I'm such an advocate for my kids and indulge them in every opportunity possible. Interesting...In highschool, my boyfriend and all of my friends were the smart achievers. They all went on to great colleges and in adulthood, continued to achieve. I went to an "okay" college. I never confronted my feelings about all of this until I had my three kids and had to deal with the complexity of their giftedness. Funny...Today I look at what I subscribe to, read, etc...Hahaha Is this the same person??? Sometimes I look at my facebook profile (Lol) and think is this really who I am??? It almost seems like it can't be true, even though I know it is. Small talk drives me nuts. I only want friends that I can continue to learn from. My mom came up for Thanksgiving and once again said, "I wonder where your three children get all of their intelligence?"...

@NM21C, that sounds just like me in high school. I got through high school by cramming my time full of activities -- so much that I ran out of room on my college apps. I think that I came off more negative than intended when I posted yesterday about my high school experience. I didn't hate high school. I just knew that I wanted it to be over and questioned the sanity of anyone who told me that high school represented the best years of their lives.