Ally: This all depends on what you mean when you use the word "peers." You mentioned that the kids only get a 45-minute pull-out for gifted services, which would typically be a time spent in structured activities. This might be the only time all day they're in a group with their true peers, and the structured environment doesn't lend itself to developing social skills. Kids need unstructured time together to work on that.
The rest of the day these kids are probably with their age peers, who are far behind them intellectually (and possibly socially), which lends itself to a lot of social problems.
So if the question is, "What can I, the gifted teacher, do about the problem in this environment?", the answer is probably, "Not much." It would take a lot of creativity to come up with classroom activities which meet all of these competing criteria:
- Fulfills the requirements of the gifted program.
- Provides the children with unstructured time to interact.
- Fits into the brief 45 minutes you see these kids each day.
This is why so many of us parents here go to bat for our children to spend more time with true peers, as opposed to spending most of the day in a class with kids the same age. Although I'm currently arguing with my DD's school about getting her a more challenging environment, it's the cognitive domain I'm least concerned about. But by placing her in the appropriate environment for her achievement level, I expect her to find more true peers, which would do wonders for her social and emotional domains... the ones I'm REALLY concerned about.
