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Gifted Grownups : the mixed blessings of extraordinary potential by Marylou Kelly Streznewski

Thank you Sanne!

Pinecroft - here is more information which may help you advocate: this post has a brief summary of a few points from an article in the Davidson Database titled "Gifted children: Youth Mental Health Update."

Thank you so much, Indigo. Super helpful.

In addition to helping my own kids, for whom I advocate year after year (like so many of us!), I am also on site council at my daughter's elementary school. We are incorporating teaching students within their ZPD in the school improvement plan! I am semi-hopeful that having it documented will help our top learners (who may or may not be gifted, but there are plenty of academic achievers who are bored for sure...). Having some articles to back up what we are trying to do - especially the one you linked to that talks about what kids *don't* learn if they aren't challenged - might be really helpful when talking with the district and other parents.

Glad you like that article about What Kids Don't Learn, when they don't have appropriate challenge. It is a favorite of mine.
One word of caution: When discussing appropriate challenge, be prepared to define challenge as being consistent with:
- the Federal definition of gifted (as found on the NAGC website),
- teaching in the ZPD.

I mention this because from time to time some have used the term "challenge" to mean:
- not focusing on developing a child's strengths,
- focusing on a child's relative weaknesses,
- nit-picking to find faults, possibly encouraging perfectionism and/or making kids risk-averse and/or inclined to avoid stretching their skills and abilities. Essentially making kids afraid to be "wrong"; Instilling a fixed mindset instead of a growth mindset.

Another article which may be of interest to you, and also the OP: A report from 1997, titled What it Means to Teach Gifted Learners Well, by Carol Ann Tomlinson, Ed.D., University of Virginia. This report is on the website of the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC).