Continued sewing of the gifted thread

[Tabouli]

I knew if I tangled with this thread I'd never escape.  Sucker for punishment, obviously.

Amy:
> My only quibble with the rest of your profile (...) is its place in the context of the original thread, which was about the validity and value of intelligence testing and in particular, the label of "gifted" or "profoundly gifted."
>
>In that context, you seem to be suggesting that the labels themselves are 
the problem, when in fact the problems you describe come from other 
factors:  parents' and teachers' overemphasizing this one label, the 
child being given no realistic models but only Nobel winners and other 
certified lucky geniuses, the message being sent that people who don't 
measure up in this narrow definition of intelligence are inferior to 
him/her<

(You mean all my posts are supposed to be consistent?  Wot?)

Actually, I don't think there's that much inconsistency.  In my first post on this thread, which focussed more specifically on IQ tests, I said:

> I have become increasingly convinced that the way "giftedness" is typically handled by well-intentioned parents and teachers is a disaster, and contributes massively to the sort of life breakdowns I have witnessed.<

and:

> It's as if that IQ score is magic.  The hapless child, typically aged 4-7, is suddenly told that s/he is a genius, a creature superior to other mortals, who is, and this is the worst bit, Destined For Greatness.<

I don't know if this is the post you're referring to, but assuming it is, I was trying to say that it's not the IQ score in itself or the label "gifted" that bothers me, it's the connotations.  How people react to "giftedness".  What people say to the child, how their attitudes and behaviour towards that child change once the results of the IQ tests come back.  (Or when the primary school teacher observes that one of the children is way, *way* ahead of his or her peers' ability level, or whatever).  And scholastic giftedness is much more likely to take over the child's identity than musical or Quidditch giftedness simply because the child is spending five days a week in an environment which focuses on this domain.  Life=school + family for most kids, and if they're primarily playing Gifted Child in one or both of these, it'll have some impact on the way they view themselves.

Amy:
> I'm not a fan of telling children their IQs, or indeed 
even testing for them, but I don't believe that doing so automatically 
equals teaching them that intellectual superiority is their defining feature<

Not in itself.  However, the way the conventional Anglophone education system is set up, I'd say it takes an insightful and concentrated effort to stop, or at least dilute this effect.

I mean, the system is set up under the assumption that children of the same age are at roughly the same level of ability and knowledge, which means you can deliver curricula in a more efficient way (i.e. the same curricula to groups of, say, 15-35 children at once).  Moreover, the system is competitive.  Children get assessed on things and they know this is a means of ranking how "smart" they are.  They're interested. They want to know what their peers got.  It's pretty obvious when one person always gets 100% on tests, wins spelling bees, gets gold stars and their work up on the wall, always knows the answer, finishes first, gets A+s, and, as often ends up happening, singled out for special "extension" work because they're so far ahead.  Unless the child is particularly devious about hiding this in some way (playing up, deliberately doing poor work) it will be noticeable.  The *other kids* will define the child by his/her superior intellectual ability.  Putting the child up a few grades makes him or her stand out even more by virtue of youth.

Then there's the authority figures.  Again, unless the child's doing a very good disguising act, the teachers will start to notice that s/he is significantly more advanced that his/her peers at some point.  I mean, they're the ones *assessing* the work, seeing that child being bored with the curricula they have to deliver, having to snub the child who always knows the right answer out of fairness to their other students.  They're the one who get to see the IQ test results.  By virtue of their high intellectual ability, the gifted child does not fit the system.  What do they do about it?

In some cases, the child will get a teacher with the time and inclination to give them "extension" work.  This happened with my favorite primary school teacher.  Within a few weeks of starting Grade 1, she picked out three of her class as the "bright kids" who could already read, etc., and gave us special activity books to do while everyone else was learning how to read.  Now of course it's *good* to stimulate a bored gifted child, mind you, but it does kind of rub in that you are so smart you need special individual treatment, no?  And when you're in a competitive system where the best is the thing to be, well, it's kind of hard for the child not to feel pleased about it.  I've been picked out as one of the smartest kids in the class, Mum!

Then we have the teachers who, juggling the gifted and struggling contingents in a limited time frame, feel that the latter need the extra time and attention because the former are clearly not going to end up illiterate and unemployable.  Well, fair enough, but it does mean getting some very bored and restless gifted kids who don't learn anything about putting in effort and so on.  Give 'em books to read or something (easy, quick option)?  Probably, but the other kids will notice that. How come *he* gets to read while we're working?  Because he's finished, Lucy.  Yup, that smart kid definition is on the way.

Then we get the delightful ones who actively resent gifted children, because they're disrupting their lesson plans and perhaps because on some level they feel threatened  (e.g. my Grade 2 teacher, who was reading a book aloud to the class, chapter by chapter, which I'd long since read myself.  I timidly asked if I could read something else during reading time, and she was livid.  How dare you, you can sit and listen like everyone else!).

And, of course, there's the parents.  Let's be fair here.  English-speaking societies are intrinsically competitive. In employment, education, the media, the same message: the "best" person for the job, the "best" student, the most beautiful model, etc.etc.  People don't just suddenly discard all of that after giving birth.  You don't have to be bent to want your child to be successful, and let's face it, the most concrete measure of "success" once the child starts school is scholastic achievement.  What parents could be unmoved by the teacher ringing to tell them that little Kevin is gifted, and therefore in some way "better" than his peers and has what it takes to WIN in the scholastic competition of his early life?  In terms of the school environment, it's a significant discovery.  They have to respond in some way, and their response is crucial.   If the child is lucky, the parents will be reasonably level-headed and realistic about what the giftedness tag means, try not to let it take over the child's entire persona, etc.  If not, well...

...let's whip up some archetypes here of Dodgy Parental Reactions I Have Known (not mutually exclusive, of course, and can be exhibited to varying degrees) (tongue slightly in cheek here, I should add to any bristling parents out there...)

1. Child as Messiah: Common among parents who've never knowingly encountered anyone "gifted" in their life.  Dazzled by visions of stratospherically successful world leaders in the field of endeavour of choice, convinced that this means their child will be among them.  Treat child with reverence.  Child is superior being beyond their comprehension.  Leave dealing with giftedness to educators.

2. Child as Trophy: The reaction of choice for the competitive and image conscious.  The child is family mascot, whose job is to produce brilliant achievements and impress people with them.  Success is expected and taken for granted.  Expectations still stratospheric (get that degree before the age of 18!  Win that maths competition!), but the difference is the parent involves him or herself in the process, applying pressure.  Any failure in this duty is laziness and bad attitude, as child is gifted, after all.

3. Child as Threat: Popular among parents who feel inadequate about their own level of achievement in life, who consciously or subconsciously resent the child for having opportunities they didn't.  Find ways of undermining child, purportedly to stop child "getting above him/herself" because of giftedness.

My father and two exes both fall into the first category for an obvious reason: all three were born into poor working class families.  The problem being that almost all dazzling fields of achievement which involve intellectual prowess require entry into the middle class before they can be embarked upon.  Which means if they are going to approach the glory they have been told is rightfully theirs, they need the social skills to negotiate a class jump.  Not easy.  Not easy at all.  My father managed it, albeit with a lot of struggling: my exes didn't.

Me?  My father, having had parents who didn't understand at all what being intellectually gifted meant (both left school at 13, and my grandfather wanted to pull my 15yo father out of that poncy school to which he got a scholarship and get him a real man's job), was *determined* not to do the same to me.  Ooo no.  He was archetype 2 all the way.  He was a *very* involved father.  He *researched* how to stimulate my mind.  He gave me IQ and reading tests from about the age of 6.  He gave me books (thanks Dad!), he tried to interest me in chess and mathematical puzzles (uh, no joy there).  He was obsessed with my academic performance.  After joining the gifted program he wanted a complete rundown on every test I sat, where I came in relation to my peers, the class average, etc.  Showed my achievements off to his friends whenever possible.  Came down on me heavily if I didn't perform, made it clear that my job was to be The Best at things.

My mother, alas, didn't much like the amount of attention he gave me, and plumped for 3, of course, and my brother joined in wholeheartedly.  As, it seems, did both of poor Catlady's parents in her case.

Catlady (quoting me):
>> My thoughts (for what they're worth without extensive research into
>> the area!) are that gifted children should be encouraged to 
>> *diversify*.  
>
>IE forced by parents to do things that one is no good at (and often 
not interested in), so that one can fail over and over, and be 
terribly frustrated, and be mocked and taunted, and then go home to 
parents ranting about you not trying hard enough.<

"Huh!  You think you're great just because someone said you were "gifted", don't you?  *We'll* show you!" Type 3 parents.  Unenviable.  An unfortunate friend of mine has an archetype 3 mother to the core.  Every time she did brilliantly at something academic her mother would crush her with scathing comments about her appearance or character or friends or whatever else was handy and tell her "not to get ideas above her station".

What I meant by diversify wasn't force the child into doing things s/he is bad at, it was giving the child the opportunity to find a niche *outside* the school environment which defines him/her as "superior" in the main areas of assessment (not bullied into extending into ever more domains where excelling is expected a la archetype 2 parents).  Where, hopefully, the child can be something other than the Gifted Kid, and learn about effort, and humility, and not needing to be good at everything, and respecting people as equals, and being treated as an ordinary kid not a gifted kid.

Though really, as Naama says, the gifted child problem is probably a symptom of the way our competitive, individualistic society works.  It's that ol' "what you receive should reflect how much effort you put in" level playing field concept.  Lots of people don't like them goldarn Overdogs whose lives they imagine to be rendered glorious by virtue of some unearned genetic gift, like being beautiful or gifted, and they rush in to deliver compensatory punishment to redress the balance.  Make things fair.  Find the flaws in the beautiful woman and trash her (yep, Rita, I totally agree with your comments on putting all eggs in the beauty basket being a similar thing: I ranted at length about this last year on OT, IIRC).  Squash the intelligent child.  With the result that the beautiful/gifted/etc. frequently don't end up having the glorious life they're assumed to at all, they're too busy dealing with all the people trying to cut them down and often get driven into clinging to their asset and adopting supreme isolation as a comfort.

One more musing re Shaun's comments: if research suggests gifted children's social and emotional adjustment difficulties are a myth, how does that fit in with your earlier comments about them being at risk and disadvantaged, putting them up grades to have people on their level to talk to so they have a higher change of making friends, suicide and mental illness rates, boredom, frustration, etc.?

On a final note, my inestimable mainland Chinese friend Kaiyu (soon expecting his first child!) told me that the Chinese *don't* separate ability from effort the way we do.  Diligence is smart!  A child who has ability but does not work hard is not considered intelligent.  An adult who has ability but does not know how to use it to make money is *stupid*.  Defining "intelligence" closer to "resourcefulness", eh?  Interesting, I thought.  Made sudden sense of the day when a Chinese guy in my class came up after I did well on some test and said he admired me because I "worked so hard".  What??? thought the western-raised Tabouli indignantly.  Is he implying I have to *work hard* to get good results?  What an insult!  (see also gifted child syndrome).

Very interesting.  Any cross-cultural research into giftedness, Shaun?

Tabouli.


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