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Another relatively slow news day, and so you get another of the pieces I’ve been hoarding, thinking they’re not good enough to post for a while.
And one bit of Who-stuff: In The Time of Angels, are those Chucks that Amy is wearing? If so, that’s got to be one of the most interesting Shout Outs to the previous Doctor that I’ve seen so far.
And now, your regularly scheduled Special Comment.
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A letter from a gifted child to the teacher they will be under the tutelage of for the next year, expressing the sincere hope that the teacher will understand them for who they are, and work with them to bring out their potential.
I like this letter. Not just for the composition and execution, maintaining the tone of someone who is knowledgeable beyond their current age as well as the sincere desires expressed within, but because, well, I’ve lived it.
I’ve assimilated an awareness of how schooling and society doesn’t like the different, whether different-slow or different-accelerated, that comes out when I shy away from saying “Thanks” when someone says “You’re brilliant.” Yes, even in a profession where being brilliant from minute one to the end of one’s shift is a pre-requisite. The anti-intellectual streak that runs through the United States? May be fostered in grade school and then cemented in the rest of primary schooling. And as much as we try to teach the people with physical differences are still people, worthy and worthwhile, we have a much harder time teaching that people with mental differences are no less people, either. Furthermore, most of that “mental difference” teaching is geared toward “Don’t make fun of the slow kid, and some people learn things differently than you do.” We’re just now getting into the department of “let the hyperactive kid fidget some while he learns, so that he can concentrate on your lessons” and “keep trying until you find the way that the autistic or Asperger’s kid learns.” Because of budget cuts and the perverse incentives of the education system, most of the effort has to be focused there, or worse, on figuring out how to accommodate the special needs children in a regular classroom because there is no money for a special needs class.
What that leaves out are kids like the letter-writer. The anecdote of my own childhood involves my second-grade teacher sending me off to be tested because she thought I was one of the kids described above - not really seeming to pay attention in class, preferring to read books, probably pretty fidgety myself. As it turned out, this was not the case. Quite the opposite - what wasn’t being noticed was that while she was explaining the problem to the students, I was already doing the worksheet she had handed out to be homework. Like our letter writer, I had already figured out the concepts being taught, and so rather than waste time listening to something I already know, I was getting a jump start on my homework. Having finished the sheet by the time the class work on it was supposed to begin, I thus spent the remainder of my time doing something else I liked to do - reading books. (Small wonder that I ended up in the profession I’m in. And funnier still is the cruel irony that the profession that has lots of books surrounding it has almost no time to actually read.)
For our letter-writer, a little challenge is a good thing. Skipping grades may seem like a good idea, except that socialization doesn’t always match intellect. Pay no attention to the large neon flashing arrow pointing down at my head. Constant challenge, however, makes for burnout, especially if the parts that deal with frustration and failure are not all that well-developed. Plus, as our letter-writer notes, the gifted do not want to be “the different kid” or “the smart kid”. They want challenge, but not with the added expense of notoriety. Pro tip, by the way: “They’re just jealous” is cold comfort at best, if it counts as comfort at all. It plays up the antagonism dynamic between the gifted and the rest, instead of playing it down, regardless of the truth value of everyone else being jealous. Everyone may be jealous of the smart kid, but it tends to be expressed in playground teasing or pretending friendship long enough to get the good grade and then running off, laughing at the nerd. Some individual benchmarks will be better, set without the eyes of the class on them, so that, as our letter writer points out, we can all pretend to be the same and do the same worksheets and be friends with each other.
Friendship is significant, and the gifted need sincere friends that they can talk to who are on their level and share their interests. I’m not sure how that gets finagled, to be honest - although I suspect during-school arts education would be an easy way of making it work. Ensembles composed of several grade levels would make it easier to provide cover and make friends, as would extracurriculars. Maybe the school librarian (a luxury themselves) could pair up some older/younger and do some reading and talking with books together. (Hopefully, the school librarian is good about not caring too much about reading levels or rigid grade requirements so that the gifted kid can go grab a book that’s interesting and challenging).
The gifted need education that meets their needs as much as anyone else. Our insistence on standardization once a student demonstrates competence to a certain point is really hurting our abilities to foster people who are great at what they do. It always seems like university and/or college is the first opportunity a student with talents has to play to those talents and use them fully. For those kids that never get to go, how much of our brainpower is being wasted by not having been awakened?
And one bit of Who-stuff: In The Time of Angels, are those Chucks that Amy is wearing? If so, that’s got to be one of the most interesting Shout Outs to the previous Doctor that I’ve seen so far.
And now, your regularly scheduled Special Comment.
-------------
A letter from a gifted child to the teacher they will be under the tutelage of for the next year, expressing the sincere hope that the teacher will understand them for who they are, and work with them to bring out their potential.
I like this letter. Not just for the composition and execution, maintaining the tone of someone who is knowledgeable beyond their current age as well as the sincere desires expressed within, but because, well, I’ve lived it.
I’ve assimilated an awareness of how schooling and society doesn’t like the different, whether different-slow or different-accelerated, that comes out when I shy away from saying “Thanks” when someone says “You’re brilliant.” Yes, even in a profession where being brilliant from minute one to the end of one’s shift is a pre-requisite. The anti-intellectual streak that runs through the United States? May be fostered in grade school and then cemented in the rest of primary schooling. And as much as we try to teach the people with physical differences are still people, worthy and worthwhile, we have a much harder time teaching that people with mental differences are no less people, either. Furthermore, most of that “mental difference” teaching is geared toward “Don’t make fun of the slow kid, and some people learn things differently than you do.” We’re just now getting into the department of “let the hyperactive kid fidget some while he learns, so that he can concentrate on your lessons” and “keep trying until you find the way that the autistic or Asperger’s kid learns.” Because of budget cuts and the perverse incentives of the education system, most of the effort has to be focused there, or worse, on figuring out how to accommodate the special needs children in a regular classroom because there is no money for a special needs class.
What that leaves out are kids like the letter-writer. The anecdote of my own childhood involves my second-grade teacher sending me off to be tested because she thought I was one of the kids described above - not really seeming to pay attention in class, preferring to read books, probably pretty fidgety myself. As it turned out, this was not the case. Quite the opposite - what wasn’t being noticed was that while she was explaining the problem to the students, I was already doing the worksheet she had handed out to be homework. Like our letter writer, I had already figured out the concepts being taught, and so rather than waste time listening to something I already know, I was getting a jump start on my homework. Having finished the sheet by the time the class work on it was supposed to begin, I thus spent the remainder of my time doing something else I liked to do - reading books. (Small wonder that I ended up in the profession I’m in. And funnier still is the cruel irony that the profession that has lots of books surrounding it has almost no time to actually read.)
For our letter-writer, a little challenge is a good thing. Skipping grades may seem like a good idea, except that socialization doesn’t always match intellect. Pay no attention to the large neon flashing arrow pointing down at my head. Constant challenge, however, makes for burnout, especially if the parts that deal with frustration and failure are not all that well-developed. Plus, as our letter-writer notes, the gifted do not want to be “the different kid” or “the smart kid”. They want challenge, but not with the added expense of notoriety. Pro tip, by the way: “They’re just jealous” is cold comfort at best, if it counts as comfort at all. It plays up the antagonism dynamic between the gifted and the rest, instead of playing it down, regardless of the truth value of everyone else being jealous. Everyone may be jealous of the smart kid, but it tends to be expressed in playground teasing or pretending friendship long enough to get the good grade and then running off, laughing at the nerd. Some individual benchmarks will be better, set without the eyes of the class on them, so that, as our letter writer points out, we can all pretend to be the same and do the same worksheets and be friends with each other.
Friendship is significant, and the gifted need sincere friends that they can talk to who are on their level and share their interests. I’m not sure how that gets finagled, to be honest - although I suspect during-school arts education would be an easy way of making it work. Ensembles composed of several grade levels would make it easier to provide cover and make friends, as would extracurriculars. Maybe the school librarian (a luxury themselves) could pair up some older/younger and do some reading and talking with books together. (Hopefully, the school librarian is good about not caring too much about reading levels or rigid grade requirements so that the gifted kid can go grab a book that’s interesting and challenging).
The gifted need education that meets their needs as much as anyone else. Our insistence on standardization once a student demonstrates competence to a certain point is really hurting our abilities to foster people who are great at what they do. It always seems like university and/or college is the first opportunity a student with talents has to play to those talents and use them fully. For those kids that never get to go, how much of our brainpower is being wasted by not having been awakened?
