Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Proximal Development

I have just been reading one of the threads about the book "Outliers":

http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....utliers_anyone_reading_it.html#Post33973

and found this quote from Inky:


I have wondered for a while why there is such a common theme of GT kids who aren't "seen" in the school environment, or even if it is acknowledged that they are advanced their abilities are still underestimated.

Is this proximal development the root of the problem? Are parents of GT kids particularly good at working with their kids at the child's proximal development level and schools particularly bad at it? Do schools pitch at any child's proximal development level or are they in fact pitching work at the average child's independent work level?

Thoughts?

I think all parents, gt kids or otherwise, are pretty good at figuring out when their kids are being challenged, overwhelmed or bored.

I think the idea of even finding a kid's zone of proximal development is only just becoming something u.s. schools are willing to consider, so yeah, they are worse at this than parents. Less practice, no protocols to rely on, less vested interest in keeping the straight A kid learning anything...(and variations there of), they are just not usually given time, but maybe this is changing a bit.
I am seeing some good signs at our elementary school, where at least the math is now being considered for group work, before all 26 kids would have to work the same work at the same pace.

Although I think there are some great school options, and opportunities sometimes cannot be created, I think the parent has the greatest responsibility to provide within the zone of proximal development. Just like all gifted kids are not alike, there are bands, all gifted kids within a band (MG, PG) are not alike.

It would be great if there was this great school with great teachers that would be one size fits all, but I haven't found it or gotten my kid into it.

Ren

Very interesting. I think you are onto something as I think the classroom environment more or less forces teachers to set work (at least individual work - group work can sometimes get round the problem, if there can be appropriate groups) on which each child can be almost independent. Although I'm sure almost all teachers know about Vygotsky's ZPD (I'd be shocked if there were any teaching qualification in which this was not taught) if there is only one teacher, the amount of individualised support s/he can practically offer to any one child is small. Something I do a lot with my DS (by accident, as it fits with the going to school by bus, but I like it) is sitting together while he works on a maths problem, e.g. in Alcumus or whatever. With me there to help if and when he gets stuck, he can do a *lot* more than he could do unaided, and yes, I think this is extremely rich learning time. The trick, of course, is to be there to help but not to help too much; I have had to learn to be comfortable with staying silent when he doesn't immediately know how to tackle something.

A trap to be aware of: when you talk to teachers about what your child can do, and you're drawing on what you've seen your child do in such a supported setting, it's easy to give a misleading impression. Even if you aren't actually called on to offer much real help, the mere fact of help being available, IME, can let your child tackle things that would seem insurmountable without it. If things you have said they can do then do seem insurmountable to them when the teacher asks them to do them independently, you may have a problem... I'm currently hoping that I've offered a suitable mix of detail and vagueness to have avoided giving DS's current teacher such a misleading impression!

have gone around this bend with the school;
If a child's able to do something with a little support at home, he should be given similar opportunities and support in the classroom, but apparently that is asking too much.

True! DD has been having trouble getting the hang of summarizing what she's read, and was hugely successful this morning while we were working on it together. I said that maybe now she'd be able to do it at school, and she replied that she had only been able to be successful because she was doing it with me, and that she still felt unable to do it with her teacher.

To my mind it's not just about whether the teacher has time for supporting my kids, but whether they will get the best way in which to support them.

For example I was working on adding non equivalent fractions with my eldest DD9, who is either 2E or just really really average (jury is out!). When she tried to add the numerators together and the denominators together all I had to say to her was "Stop. SEE the 1/2, see the 1/4, now add them together." She then sat down and did a whole sheet of problems of increasing difficulty, including improper fractions with no difficulty. Her teacher would probably try to explain it to her. Which a) she's probably not able to listen to and make sense of and b) she didn't actually need a lesson.

DD5yrs is coming along quite well with her reading but I suspect at first her teacher was failing to identify that most problems she does have are due to letter and word reversals rather than decoding problems. When I am reading with her I tend to know which words she needs simply to be told the first letter, which words she needs help sounding out and which words she just needs to be given whole for now. So I know that her decoding is better than it may immediately seem to be. I am lucky that her teacher did actually listen to me after a few weeks that she was making the same % and the same type of errors 4-5 levels higher up than the teacher had her at and that reading easier books was not going to help her get past seeing "saw" as "was" or b/d and p/q problems. And that often she didn't need to be helped with words so much as refocused on the book or helped locate the first letter of a word if she was stuck. If the teacher had not listened we would have continued to have a lot of frustration between the two of us. The first few weeks I spent a lot of time trying to figure out if DD actually was less able at school (presumably due to anything but the work being more interesting). But this is certainly an area where teachers DO spend 1:1 time with children and yet for us there was a disconnect between the level my child was working at with me v. school (though it's now significantly more closely matched than it was).

I sit at the table with DS8 while he does his homework. Very rarely does he ask for help. The major difference i've noticed is that when i'm not in my spot, he's much more willing to give up. My presence gives him the ability to persist. At some point he's going to have to realize that he is doing it without me but for now this works....

Lets me hold on to my little boy just a tiny bit longer!

That is an interesting question. I think that good teachers do teach at the majority's proximal development level a good part of the time. It is much harder for advanced kids to get their share of proximal development teaching at school.

As far as schools "underestimating" the child's abilities, I think part of it is due to the lack of interest and perceived relevance on the part of educators. For example, it doesn't matter that your first grader can read Harry Potter for fun since he isn't likely able to compose analytic answers to literary questions required at the 5th grade reading/language arts classes.

Independence also appears to become very important by third grade so that if the child can't produce/complete work independently, it doesn't really count in some (most?) teachers' estimations.

I agree with this. I'm not sure it's lack of interest on the part of teachers, but more a lack of:
1. awareness - this is a good theory, and one you're supposed to learn in college or grad school, but one that is often difficult to put in place for each individual child

and 2. a lack of resources (time, ability, classroom structure) to be able to take this from theory to practice.

I sound like I am trying to defend educators and I'm really not (though I am one)- I'm just making these points to show (once again) that the way the current PS system is set up (and many private schools) doesn't work! Esp. for g/t kids.