Srry knute,
I didn't read all of the posts in great detail...I just saw someone (not sure who) making the connection between the self-lable 'gifted' and 'better at thinking than others' which does sound snotty, it just does...and then I was twrilled off into my own train of thoughts. And I'm grateful for whoever laid that track, because it's an important track.
I felt great sympathy for you Knute, at the reception you got from the other parents of gifted kids. How awful for you! How ugly to see how they feel about their own children - as brave freaks to be pitied.
((caution: in the next few paragraphs I'm going to go back and remember how I used to feel and see the world. I will use the words 'stupid' and 'dumb' because that is how I used to see the world. I would strongly alert people that there are very few places on this forum where these words are appropriate, and appologize in advance to those I am about to offend.))
I've gotten used to the idea that this is one of those identities that females in general often come to very unwillingly. So much denial. That is one of the features of this issue that lead me to think that 'Giftedness' particularly in adults, is as much an Identity as anything else. In the U.S. at least, there are very few subcultures where intellectual honesty and rigor and curiosity are celebrated. For the general population, there is a conditioning of 'well you aren't so smart/special' then the males are conditioned to insecurely have to knee jerk answer 'yes, I am, let me prove it' on top of the first conditioning and it's just a hot mess.
Kids who assume the Gifted Identity serve the purpose of making everyone else feel badly about their own intelligence (why can't the rest of you be more like little Besty?) and the same time that they are being heaped with the same conditioning. I thought I wasn't smart because I had terrible spelling and immature handwriting, which I felt humiliated by - not sure if that was self imposed or my interpretations of how people were acting. I also thought I wasn't smart because I couldn't crack the code of what was the meaning of the pointlessness of elementary school, or why it was actually difficult for the other kids, but I couldn't find it within myself to believe that the adults didn't know or didn't care that I was wasting hours and hours of my school day, so I trusted the adults and blamed my 'stupidity.' For years.
This is very similar to how elementary school age boys sometimes are singled out for the role of 'sissy' to teach the other boys what it means to be a man, i.e. don't be like the girls or that one boy over there. See how we'll treat that boy - you sure don't want that, do you?
Even as recently as my son being 3, I had a conversation with a boss, and self-depricatingly referred to my inability to let a confusing situation 'drop' like everyone else seemed to be able to do, and how I was unable to overlook certian inequities and wanted to talk about things that clearly no one else wanted to talk about. I used to call it 'The Elephant in the Living Room.' Now I look back and think: They weren't in denial, they were just seeing the world through different eyes and failed to notice what jumped out at me. What looked like an Elephant to me was like an ant to them.
My boss said: "You talk like you think there is something wrong with you!" Appparently he didn't see it. I agreed that I did think that there was something wrong with me, but that I just couldn't figure out what it was. Which I somehow felt that I should be able to do (LOL) Part of my conditioning was a strong message that I had better be 'like other people' (or else I am in great danger) and no one can do that. My perfectionism was out of control. We were all created with a great variety of strengths and challenges - that is the nature of humans.
I owe my son such a debt of gratitude for dragging me out of the closet, toppling all the carefully built up rules I had made to keep my 'safe' from the danger that no longer actually existed. When he was little I used to say: I don't care if he learns in elementary school, I just want him to be a good classroom citizen. This reflects my earlier belief that there is so little to learn in elementary school but that can't be helped, it is the way it is because of some great secret that I'm too dumb to understand, and my belief that social skills aren't just important for life long happiness (they are) but vital to save oneself from pain of mistreatment and exclusion.
But this gift my son gave me means that I wasn't really able to be the parent I should have been in those days. It wasn't my fault. I couldn't have known any sooner. But it gives me great satisfaction to post here and hope that
1) I can do for others what he did for me
2) I can be of service to other parents who like me, didn't know and couldn't have known, but maybe now I can share what I've learned so that your kid doesn't have to take the years and years of crap my son took from the adult world without me getting the picture.
He has a right to be in a classroom where the teacher is teaching stuff within his readiness level to learn.
6 years old is too young to expect a kid to 'suck it up' and sacrifice themselves so that other kids can learn.
He is in the classroom to learn, not to play a leading role in the conditioning of other kids that they are somehow lesser because they are at a different readiness level.
Females need other options besides 'they are right and I am too stupid to understand, but I trust them' or 'I still feel stupid, but I suspect that they are stupid too, I don't trust them'
Males need other options besides 'I feel stupid, so the stupider I feel I more I have to prove I'm the smartest' or 'I'm the smartest, and I can't even remember that I used to feel stupid so I started this game by pretending' or 'I just won't play and keep to myself.'
Even among people with the Gay Identity, there are some who find it easy to blend in and 'don't see what all the fuss is about' as long as they can be their 'work-self' at work and their 'home-self' at home. And there are others who can't walk down the street without attracting comment and attention who just don't feel that they can be 'who they are' without the various parts of them that seem to scream 'I'm not one of you' 24/7. I'm not saying one way is better, just that each soul is unique and has it's own journey, and that all the Identities have a wide population varies in this way. The little girl sitting in the corner who the teachers all love may be just as gifted as the little boy throwing chairs across the room out of despair that he has to read baby books.
I lived the particular experience of never being identified or accomidated as gifted. I know that there is a parallel story for kids who were identified, and even perhaps accomidated to various extents. I've heard stories about kids being conditioned that they are 'better' than the unseen kids in some other classroom, and that they have a special responsibility to 'cure Cancer' or 'End War.' This is also a deeply wrong and painful way to treat a child.
I'm becoming more aware of the stories too, of the parents who single out a child from their siblings to be the 'little genius with so much potential.' I'm hopeful that soon we will be able to see and understand the whole generational chain of misfortune that sets parents up to take that road.
I'm putting all this out how I experienced it, and I don't expect it to resonate with everyone, but I do expect you all, my dear ones, to take the ball and run with it and let's develop a wider version of how we got to be this way. Ok?
Love and More Love,
Grinity
