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Posts Tagged ‘social emotional’

Being Inconvenient

Posted in education, Gifted, School, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 20, 2010 | 7 Comments »

Looks nothing like an academic

Let’s just say I’ve read a LOT of articles and books on giftedness over the past 13 years, give or take. So something has to be pretty “wow” to, well, make me go “wow,” or in other words make my “I Wish I Could Have Read This Years Ago; It Would Have Explained/Helped So Much” list.

An Interview with Roland S. Persson:  The Talent of Being Inconvenient (First Published in The SENG Update Newsletter, June 2010) is one such article.  Dr. Persson looks like a member of the World Wrestling Federation or the older brother of Mr. Clean, but is in fact a Professor of Educational Psychology at Jönköpping University in Sweden, where his research focuses on giftedness, with an emphasis on social context and the gifted individual in society.

So what blew me away in this interview?   It’s the first time I’ve heard someone provide a coherent framework for understanding that which I’ve been clumsily trying to put forward these past 2.5 years in this blog, namely that verbally* gifted kids (and by extension I guess, adults) have it harder vis a vis their artistically and mathematically/science gifted peers.  (*IMO, verbal giftedness goes beyond facility with reading and writing.  It is sophisticated vocabulary, persuasive argument, deep interest in–and the precocious ability to question, analyse and think critically about–philosophical, ethical, moral, sociological, political and historical issues.)

Now some scoff at this notion.  Elementary school, they argue, is ALL about literacy and that “soft,” “easy,” “girly” stuff.  Instead, pity the mathy, science-kid!  It’s why our nation is falling behind and we have to pour inordinate resources into STEM (that’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, for those of you who might not be in the know.)  Or pity the artsy kid in this day and age of No Child Left Untested curriculum narrowing.

However what I have experienced through my girls, have heard mentioned quietly by some in the know, and have tried to argue here, is just the opposite.  “Geeky” mathiness–particularly among boys–is what our society typically reads as “gifted.”  By and large our school systems are pretty successful in meeting that need.  Not perfect, but there is a greater openness to and ability to provide acceleration, as well as a burgeoning math/science pipeline in place to foster and reward this type of gift (think math competitions, science camps, scholarships and mentorships, etc.).  Musical artistic talent too tends to be celebrated and rewarded. It’s “okay” for kids to be prodigies in these realms and it feels like summer programs for kids are chock-a-block with theater and art opportunities.  Meanwhile verbal talent is seen as somehow commonplace (“Everyone catches up by third grade and learns how to read”), thus serving as the source of endless frustration for parents trying to work within school systems to find appropriate educational pathways.

Frankly, I bought into the mainstream construct too.  It was only in the wake of a CTY SET ceremony that the reality was spelled out for me.  “Just look at the awards program,” this gifted expert told me.  “There is an entire page, four columns in small type of kids who made SET in math (700+ on the Math portion of the SAT before the age of 13).  Meanwhile, there is a quarter of a page, two columns in larger type of kids who reached the same mark on the Verbal section.”  Okaaaay.  Light bulb going off.  It explained why even in gatherings of EG/PG kids, my kid still had a hard time finding “her people.”  There truly aren’t that many.  Throw is the gender skew at the very far right of the bell curve and there really aren’t that many.

But back to Dr. Persson (whose research/writing I’m now going to have to seek out).  My “aha” in the interview was his Hero, Nerd and Martyr taxonomy of giftedness.  He writes:

Somewhat simplistically, perhaps, I construed societal functions as Maintenance, Escape, and Change, typified by the more common parlance expressions of Nerd, Hero, and Martyr…. Gifted individuals interested in, for example, technology, medicine, or finance—“the nerds”—all serve supportive functions in society. They are rarely controversial because their skills contribute towards maintaining society, its leaders on all levels, and its power structure as a whole. Also individuals gifted in sports, music, and the arts are much appreciated. A few are rewarded more for the moments of release from stress that their gifts offer. They allow us for a moment to escape into a very positive experience. As scientists, we go to great lengths to study the constituents of their skills.

However, when it comes to gifted individuals having the potential to change the social world by their knowledge and insight, they are rarely as appreciated as their colleagues more devoted to maintenance and escape. We tend to fail to realize the consequences of having an uncanny grasp of cause and effect, so typical of the academically gifted. When confronted with certain conditions and decisions, the gifted individual is very good at understanding what the outcome will be. However, being one voice in a group of others less equipped to foresee the results and problems, who in the group is inclined to listen and acknowledge the single and voice differing in opinion and conclusion? If this individual is being contrary to the leadership, harassment and being contrary to the leadership, harassment and persecution are sure to follow in one way or
another. Interestingly, it rarely matters whether the gifted individual is right or wrong; he or she poses a threat to the credibility of authority. Again, history is full of examples, and “martyr” is sadly an appropriate term.

The greater the prestige to be lost, the more severe the battle to retain dominance and authority.

Or, as Ellen Winner (1996) put it Gifted Children: The gifted are risk-takers with a desire to shake things up. Most of all they have the desire to set things straight, to alter the status quo and shake up established tradition. Creators do not accept the prevailing view. They are oppositional and discontented.

I also like what Persson has to say earlier in his article about why and when are gifted individuals likely to be “considered inconvenient or ignored.”  For me, this explains so much of our journey, particularly with C.

You can be “inconvenient” in any number of ways, of course, but in relation to being academically gifted, it is not always appreciated amongst teachers or other students to be a “know-it-all”: one who usually has all the correct answers. …. Then, of course, there are school systems which do not recognize giftedness at all as a viable reason for an adapted curriculum, such as is the case in the Swedish and Norwegian school systems. In these environments teaching is certainly student-active, but giftedness is a considerable inconvenience because students who want more, know more, and learn quicker than everyone else only become a further reason for teacher stress. Gifted students become inconvenient indeed! In a recent study, I found that 92% of students in the Swedish compulsory school system, with an IQ beyond 131 (n = 287), were everything from ignored to harassed by their teachers, resulting in some students even becoming suicidal….

A gifted individual becomes inconvenient either when posing a threat to others’ low self-esteem or when being perceived as a threat to social authority…. History is replete with examples: individuals who see and understand injustices, bring them to light believing this will be a good deed, but, more often than not, find themselves having become “inconvenient.” In short, our genetically imprinted social behavior, which we share with other species, decides whether we are friends or foes of authority. As a rule, perceived “foes” are ignored.

Boy did this resonate….  He also has some pretty interesting things to say about gifted individuals in the workplace.  So a three-fer.

Next up, my look at another recent “wow.”  This time a memoir that ties in very neatly with this Persson interview.

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Anxiety and Giftedness

Posted in Gifted, Interesting, tagged , , , , , , on October 12, 2009 | 10 Comments »

Finally!  I’ve been meaning to put up a blog post about the the New York Times magazine article, Understanding the Anxious Mind, since the day it was posted to their website.  Especially in light of a recent comment by reader Kirsten, who wrote:

The other thing that stands out in this post is C.’s high level of executive function. The combination of organization and determination that she has is rare.

Exactly.  I have always believed that to a large extent she–and other PG kids like her–came wired that way.  It’s one thing for Malcolm Gladwell et al to say that it takes 10,000 hours of practice and anyone can be “gifted.”  But it doesn’t explain where the dedication, the drive, the executive function to actually do that 10,000 hours comes from.  I say it’s wiring.

I first heard about Dabrowski’s Theory of Overexcitability was when the CTY psychologist went over C.’s test results.  It was a big “aha” for us.  Here’s how Ann Rinn describes overexcitabilies in the Fall 2009 Duke University Gifted Letter.

Overexcitabilities are extreme intensities or sensitivities that affect the ways in which an individual experiences the world. The Polish psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski (1902-1980) identified overexcitabilities as part of a larger theory of development. Although most of us may have extra energy at times or have strong reactions to various stimuli on occasion, those with overexcitabilities experience these distinguishing behaviors regularly. Most researchers believe overexcitabilities are innate and will be present in some form throughout one’s life. It is important to note that not all gifted children have overexcitabilities, but they do seem to be found to a greater degree in gifted and/or creative children than in average-ability children. (emphasis added).

It’s something I certainly noticed in C. early on–heck, it’s why this blog has the name it does.  She still is highly sensitive to smells, has acute hearing, dislikes crowds and noisy environments in general, is afraid of dogs and tends to brood and worry. Which is why I found this article on anxiety sooo interesting. I think it really ties in with Dabrowski and giftedness.

Harvard psychology researcher Jerome Kagan, like many people, was initially resistant to the idea of “wiring”:

Kagan studiously ignored this finding; it didn’t fit with his left-leaning politics, which saw all individuals as born inherently the same — blank slates, to use the old terminology — and capable of achieving anything if afforded the right social, economic and educational opportunities. “I was so resistant to awarding biology much influence, I didn’t follow up on the inhibited temperaments I was seeing,” he told me. It took another 20 years of listening to arguments about nature versus nurture for Kagan finally to entertain the possibility that some behavior might be attributed to genes.

But research revealed that

in people born with a particular brain circuitry, the kind seen in Kagan’s high-reactive study subjects, the amygdala is hyperreactive, prickly as a haywire motion-detector light that turns on when nothing’s moving but the rain.

I think it’s that edge of anxiety that could be the driver of C.’s drive, which in turn feeds into achievement.  In the article Susan Engel, a developmental psychologist at Williams College, says,

“The way we deal with [anxiety] is that we both get everything done in lots of time. We can’t stand the anxiety of a looming deadline; we’re so worried about being late that we do it five days early.” This is one way to alleviate anxiety, she said. “There are other things we could do. We could drink, we could procrastinate, we could pretend we don’t have the deadline. I guess we both happen to be lucky that our method is adaptive.”

The article continues,

”This kind of adapting might have something to do with intelligence, says Steven Pinker, a psychologist at Harvard and author of “The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature.” He says he believes, based on pure conjecture, that people with higher intelligence are better at overcoming their anxious temperament and more likely to “see their own worry list as a problem to be solved, minimizing unnecessary anxiety while still being anxious enough to get things done.”

This certainly squares with what I’ve observed.

In the modern world, the anxious temperament does offer certain benefits: caution, introspection, the capacity to work alone. These can be adaptive qualities. Kagan has observed that the high-reactives in his sample tend to avoid the traditional hazards of adolescence. Because they are more restrained than their wilder peers, he says, high-reactive kids are less likely to experiment with drugs, to get pregnant or to drive recklessly. They grow up to be the Felix Ungers of the world, he says, clearing a safe, neat path for the Oscar Madisons.

People with a high-reactive temperament — as long as it doesn’t show itself as a clinical disorder — are generally conscientious and almost obsessively well-prepared. Worriers are likely to be the most thorough workers and the most attentive friends. Someone who worries about being late will plan to get to places early. Someone anxious about giving a public lecture will work harder to prepare for it. Test-taking anxiety can lead to better studying; fear of traveling can lead to careful mapping of transit routes.

Now watch her read this and do something crazy just to prove me wrong ;-) .

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Close to the Bone

Posted in Gifted, Home Life, tagged , , , , , , on October 3, 2009 | 1 Comment »

My, what perceptive readers I have.  Kirsten recently wrote:

This post loosely touches on comparison between the parent of a gifted child and the child themselves. It seems like your area of talent and C.’s area of talent are similar (language arts and history). As she takes on challenges that are closer and closer to adult challenges, how do you keep from being jealous?

Well funny you should ask, because I recently had an exchange with a friend of mine on just this topic.  She too wondered if other parents struggled with some resentment or envy over how much our kids are getting–and what we didn’t get.

And I had to answer her honestly: ‘Yes”  As teens, our kids are so bright and stand on the cusp of all that…possibility.  While we’re at a place in our lives where we’re realizing that…we’re not.  Or not at least in that exciting, totally clean slate, the world is wide open sort of way. They’re moving onto the stage.  We’re moving off.   It kind of sucks.

So although “resentment” or “envy” or “jealousy” are probably too strong, there certainly is this wistfulness, this awareness that time is running quickly. You’re made to reckon with the choices you’ve made–or were made for you.  I would love a few do-overs.  But there is also excitement and happiness on my kids’ behalf. Because so much of it was so much fun, and now they’re going to get to do it too:  first love, college, beginning a career.  Meanwhile, I have to remind myself not to put all my eggs in their basket, so to speak.  Eventually they will leave and I might get call once a week.  I have to be sure that I will be living my life, learning new things, meeting new people, having new experiences.  Those possibilities are not over.

As for C.’s talents and interests, they are uncannily similar to my own.  Which is actually kind of nice.  It’s meant that over the years I’ve felt very confident in my ability to provide her with suggestions of books to read, movies to see, activities to try.  I’ve gone out of my way to expose her to experiences and people that would stoke her interests, and build her knowledge.  I have been able to give her better than I got. And it’s been fun, because I love the things she’s interested in too!  If somehow I had produced a child whose passion was zoology or computer gaming, well, it would have been more challenging.  l don’t know people who do those things, and they don’t really interest me.  Perhaps I would have risen to the challenge…but I imagine it would have been a bit of a slog.

[Part II of my answer to Kirsten in my next post.]

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Why I Care About the Singam Case

Posted in Gifted, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 8, 2009 | 13 Comments »

Two weeks ago, when I learned about the unfolding drama surrounding Kumar Singam’s efforts to enroll his 9 year old daughter in an MCPS middle school (posts here and here), I wrote him an email:

… I wanted to let you know that I really, really empathize with you. Just last night my 15 year old who will be a sophomore at [deleted] was sobbing about how she didn’t want to go back to school because she feels like she is “spinning her wheels”….  MCPS refusal to accelerate students who need it–especially those who are verbally gifted–is a travesty….

The Singam case, and the resistance by MCPS officials to grade skipping, gave me a feeling of deja vu.  My daughter was never whole grade or radically subject accelerated.  Instead over the years we bought hook, line and sinker into every MCPS-touted GT program there was, with promises that “next year” it would “get better.” Nonetheless, by the time C. was in middle school, she was asking school officials for acceleration–or some kind of  intervention–ironically first in “GT” science class, but really in other classes as well. She self-advocated, as GT kids are often urged to do. And was brushed off–which is when things took a serious turn for the worse, to the point where we felt we had to withdraw, and were left no option but to homeschool. We were told by the magnet coordinator, “If she’s not happy in the magnet, she’s welcome to return to her home middle school.” Snort…As if. I had naively believed that the magnets were part of that “continuum of services” MCPS likes to talk about, where people would appreciate and “get” kids like mine and where we would work together to find a way to meet their needs. But clearly I was wrong. The magnet, I was told by the then-coordinator, was a “privilege.”

Fine. We withdrew C. The next month she took the SAT as part of the CTY Talent Search and got a freaking amazing score for a 12 year old.  (No, as it turns out, they probably didn’t “have many students who fit her profile.”)  What to do?  More to the point, what would MCPS do for this kid/with this kid if we wanted to re-enroll her for 8th grade?  Because she–we–could not return to the one program supposedly tailor-made for kids like her.  That relationship was shattered.  After countless phone calls and conversations with indifferent or clueless school system officials, I finally connected with someone in the Office of Accelerated and Enriched Instruction (since retired) who got it.  I mean, by that time I had met with so much resistance and hostility that I actually cried while on the phone with her.

Much like Mr. Singam, we met with someone from the Community Superintendent’s office.  We too believed that based on testing, our daughter needed to be placed beyond the norm for her age, namely high school.  MCPS didn’t want to go there; it was not even open for discussion.  Our fall back was that at minimum she needed access to high school English and social studies courses:  just as they arrange for very advanced math or foreign language middle school students to take classes at high school (and for which there is ample precedent) they should do the same for our child. Again, we could get no commitment from MCPS.  The best we could get was an offer of possible placement into the middle school housing the math/science/computer science magnet. (Not the magnet itself mind you, but just to be in building with other really bright age peers.  And they made that sound like a huge concession.).  Once there, we were told, this MCPS individual, the principal and someone from AEI would meet with us and personally build our child’s schedule.  However there was no assurance that she would receive high school level instruction, and by this point we were just too gun shy to take a risk–yet again–on an MCPS promise.  So we homeschooled another year, returning C. to an MCPS high school program that is the unspoken “service” at that level.

All should be great, no?  Well, actually no.  I mean, it’s a really great program and she’s getting vastly more than is available to most kids her age.  But she still has felt underchallenged in her strength areas.  For example she essentially had to repeat government last year (after sucessfully completing an equivalent college course).  To the credit of the coordinator there however, this year C. has been able to get permission to take an AP history class typically reserved for seniors. It’s her favorite class, the one where she feels she “belongs” intellectually and socially.  Clearly, this is a student who could have been radically subjected accelerated years earlier in her area of strength, the humanities, if allowed.  And no, I’m not pushing her.  She’s the one who is yearning for more challenge, for true intellectual engagement and risk taking, for the chance to get to college sooner in the hopes it will be there.

Recently we met a young man from elsewhere in the country who has grade skipped, someone C.’s age who will graduate this academic year–and she is angry that she never had that opportunity. To her, it feels as if MCPS has held her back every step of the way, and she has asked me “Why with MCPS is everything always a fight?”  I wish I had the answer.  All I know is that children like mine–and potentially Mr. Singam’s until he fought back–are being harmed–yes, that’s right, harmed–by MCPS’s refusal to deal with the realities of giftedness at the individual student level, to fully and truly meet their academic needs.  What kind of a toll does it take to be given the message year after year that it’s not okay to be who you are, that you must stifle and dampen your curiosity and passion to learn?

It’s because of these experiences that I have been following, and will continue to follow, the Singam case so closely.  By very vocally and fearlessly pushing MPCS to do the right thing by his daughter, Mr. Singam has forced truths about the system into the light that go against the happy feel good message they put out.  (It should be noted that many GT advocates have more than one child in the system and that the fear of retaliation is often what mutes their advocacy efforts.)   The Singam case reveals the lengths to which MCPS will go to put the institutional status quo above the needs of a student.  It reveals MCPS attitudes towards the legitimacy of homeschooling.  And it shows that the Centers, and middle school magnets are essentially mechanisms to hold the the brightest kids in MCPS from advancing too quickly.  Meanwhile in “regular” school there is no GT there “there.”

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News: Child Enrolls in MCPS Middle School

Posted in Gifted, In the News, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 3, 2009 | 12 Comments »

While the statement “Child Enrolls in MCPS Middle School” shouldn’t be news, here in Montgomery County it is when the child in question is a qualified and gifted nine-year old.  As blogged about a few days ago, Kumar Singam’s daughter was enrolled and welcomed as an incoming 6th grader at Cabin John Middle School on July 22, only to have that enrollment rescinded on August 17, when higher up MCPS school officials insisted that the girl (who completed 5th grade as a homeschooler and has math ability several grades above that) be placed in elementary school with vague assurances that she would receive “advanced classes.”

On Monday, the first day of school, the Singams brought their daughter to Cabin John and were greeted by a phalanx of MCPS officials, who escorted them to a meeting which lasted 4 hours.  To his credit, Mr. Singam came well prepared with full documentation of his daughter’s ability.

Yesterday, Wednesday, I received the following good news from him:

After a week during which MCPS informed us that our daughter would fit into a Highly Gifted Center, and acknowledged that she was more than qualified for sixth-grade, last night at 10:31 p.m., Dr. Smith took matters into her own hands, and invited my child to her school.  In doing so, I believe, she went against Carver, and showed immense courage and fortitude.

My child was met by a principal who cried, and the chief of the guidance group who cried as well.  I can say with absolute conviction, now supported by events, that my child being kept out of school for two days was never about her academics.  Her academic achievement was measured by MCPS with its own yardstick….

My child was accepted after a social worker from MCPS stood up and said she could, and the principal, Dr. Smith, insisted she could.  Her academic instruction was never a bona fide issue.

If there were heroes in this story, I confess they were all women.  Women who showed the courage to stand up for what is right. I know Dr. Smith will suffer retribution and I hope that everyone passionate about GT will give this wonderful lady her due.  Write to her, write to MCPS (copy to her), and tell Carver we want more Dr. Smiths.  It is only by supporting women like her (and men, too) that GT education can find its feet within MCPS. I also hope that parents in GT will be front and center in ensuring that MCPS will never again keep a child out of school.

If this is a victory, then my daughter’s words describe its purpose well, “I hope Dad that everyone won’t be afraid to ask MCPS to do the right thing for their child.”  Personally, if my daughter’s wish comes through, I would feel it was all worthwhile.  Today belongs to the courageous women of this world, especially those who are an integral part of our community. As for men, well, we’ve hogged that stage too darn long!!

I thank everyone for their support and prayers.

Kumar

Excellent, excellent news.

While whole grade acceleration aka “grade skipping” isn’t for every child, it should be–as the good Dr. Weast likes to say–”on the table” as an accepted and acknowledged option for some children in this county.  I say this as a mom who is convinced that her daughter has suffered harm by not being allowed to accelerate beyond the MCPS norm in her areas of academic strength.

That Mr. Singam had to go to the lengths that he did to make his case (to the point of producing MCPS testing results which it claimed it didn’t have) is really unfortunate.

What Dr. Paulette Smith ultimately did took courage and makes an important statement for gifted education options not only here in Montgomery County but beyond.  You can show your support for her decision by writing to her  with copies to Superintendent Weast.  Commend her for making her decision based on what was best for the individual child, not the bureaucracy, and most of all, let her and Dr. Weast know the impact such a decision can have on our children.

The email addresses are:

  • Paulette_Smith@mcpsmd.org
  • Jerry_D_Weast@mcpsmd.org (and just in case, his assistant’s address is Suzanne_Peang-Meth@mcpsmd.org)

UPDATE 9/3: Mr. Singman has posted an account of these events. You can read

Why was my child barred from a Highly Gifted Center?

and

After two days, my child is allowed to attend public school

…Plus a comment from Mr. Singam below.

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Thanks, New Yorker

Posted in Homeschooling, School, tagged , , , , on August 2, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

So nice to see homeschoolers treated as, well, not-freaks by a respected publication. In this week’s New Yorker magazine Talk of the Town section, there’s a nice little piece about some young actors in a production of “Snoopy!!!” who happen to be homeschoolers.

For Mary Albert, who recently appeared in a musical production of “Snoopy!!!” as Sally Brown, Charlie Brown’s little sister, the challenge lay in embodying her character’s notoriously ambivalent relationship to the classroom, since Mary, who is twelve, has never actually been to school. “When in rehearsal the director would say, ‘How do you think, at this moment, you’d be responding to your teacher?’ I would say, ‘I have no idea’

There are some great quotes from the kids on homeschooling and regular school. They come across as smart and thoughtful. But the laugh out loud quote for me was this: “Regular school, Ben reflected, “can be kind of a dirty pleasure. It’s like watching ‘America’s Next Top Model.’ ”

Also funny….the timing, as I just came across this thread on the DC Urban Moms and Dads list, titled “Help me overcome my prejudice against home schooling.  Maybe this will help.

P.S.  This issue also has a great essay that reviews the Kindle.  A must read for book lovers everywhere.

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And the Living is Easy

Posted in Gifted, Home Life, Homeschooling, School, tagged , , , , , , , on July 28, 2009 | 19 Comments »

Looks nothing like me

You’ve probably noticed that the feverish pace of blog postings has slacked off here.  Yes, it’s summertime.  On Friday I waved goodbye to the family as they drove off to Canada for a week to see my brother-in-law and his new wife. And what did I do for the rest of the weekend?

First off, I cleaned the house.  Reeeaaallly cleaned.  Something that doesn’t happen often anymore.  And then I savored the blissful, delicious notion that it will stay in this calm, pristine condition for days.  Since I don’t have our one car, I decided to play tourist and ride the bus to Bethesda, something I’d never done before (the bus, that is).  I strolled into Blue Mercury and bought makeup, taking as long as I damn well please, thank you very much.  I watched Gilda and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in one sitting.  I asked myself, “What do you want to do?” (One answer:  Not write a post about the barf-inducing Wash Post profile of Jerry Weast.)

Equally important, what didn’t I do:  worry about three other people’s schedule in addition to mine and make Trader Joe runs because there is “absolutely nothing” to eat in the house.  For an entire week I will endeavor to eat the food that is already in our cupboards.  Imagine.

All of which is why I read the New York Times Motherlode blog posting, Why Summer Matters with heightened appreciation.  Brooklyn-based children’s book editor Ruth Katcher shared her thoughts about why summer was so essential to her rising 5th grade son, “Snoopy.”  It’s heartbreaking.  Snoopy is clearly a gifted child, full of imagination and happy to amuse himself for hours.  Meanwhile,

In 7 weeks he’ll go back to school, to a 5th grade class we can only hope will be more suited to his nature than the previous grade…. Last year’s teacher assigned hours of mindless homework. At some point, she decided our son was bright (her term) and thus eligible for enrichment — but she was in no way capable of providing it, in a class of 29 children with extremely mixed abilities. Our son isn’t the only child in the class who survived 4th grade with a perfect report card and his self-concept deeply shaken.

The comments, both on the post and on listservs are interesting.  Some slam the mom–test prep in 4th grade?!–with little sympathy or understanding of the cutthroat calculus of New York City middle school admissions.  Others take her son’s story as a compelling argument against year round school calendars.  As for me, and a few others, I was practically screaming at the screen “get your mind out of the box!”  What is wrong with this picture, with you parents?  The case against year round schooling shouldn’t be built on the notion that school is a horrendous, mind-numbing, soul-crushing experience from which children need the summer to “recover.”  How has our culture come to accept this as normal, even something to celebrate?

In this particular case, the answer is right there, even if Katcher doesn’t want to see it.  She herself says:  “Sometimes this past year, I started to feel that our child is homeschooling himself, that his real education was taking place mostly on weekends.”  Why not be done with it and make it official?  (My guess, fego.  Her slice of Brooklyn is probably a lot like Montgomery County, with fewer trees.)  As for those who can’t homeschool, what is the answer?  Radical school reform, emphasis on the radical.  That could mean a year round calendar (which would still include ample vacation, and would address lower income “summer slide”) — but not with just more of the same.

I happen to agree that the standard American summer vacation is too long, and that at least a month of it could be parceled throughout the school year without appreciable loss of the summer “experience.”  Few families have the luxury of a “summering” somewhere, or 6 weeks of sleep away camp, or of a full-time at home mom/dad who can act as memory-making cruise director.  For most families, it’s a huge juggle to make sure that 9 weeks are “covered.”  It’s one of the reasons why even at my kids’ ages my husband and I are tag-teaming our vacations.  I say, let’s spread summer goodness year-round.  And at the same time tell our education leaders that the rest of the year shouldn’t be akin to a prison sentence.

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The Secret of the Old Book: Nancy Drew and Bibliotherapy

Posted in Gifted, In the News, tagged , , , , , on July 22, 2009 | 5 Comments »

One idea that was raised numerous times during the course of SENG Conference weekend was the value of bibliotherapy for highly gifted kids.  What’s bibliotherapy?  Here’s here’s how teacher Tamara Fisher at Unwrapping the Gifted blog describes it:

Hopefully we’ve all had that experience of reading a book that powerfully “spoke” to us, a book whose characters we could relate to, and whose struggles and triumphs we identified with. Taking this experience a step farther is the strategy of bibliotherapy, the process of helping the reader learn about and cope with any social or emotional struggles or developmental needs by identifying with a character in a book who shares a similar struggle or need. The reading is typically followed up by discussion with a trusted adult.

Probably the most well known bibliotherapy resource is the book Some of My Best Friends Are Books. Now I don’t know about formal bibliotherapy, but my hunch is that a whole lot of highly gifted kids “self-medicate” with books.  Gifted kids often have a hard time finding true peers. They have deep questions about life and relationships.  Books allow them to live vicariously through story characters, to feel a connection, to work through questions  and situations far beyond their years.

Which is why I loved the recent New York Times story on the enduring power of Nancy Drew.

Nancy Drew was invoked last week during the Senate confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor. She has said that her Nancy Drew represented boldness and intelligence, the books a gift from a hardworking single parent. In recent years, Laura Bush, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Gayle King and Diane Sawyer have described themselves as fans.

Touchstone, pole star, reflecting pool. Often what women remember about the books speaks to who they were — shy girls seeking inspiration; smart girls seeking affirmation. The series even gave voice to girls who rebelled against the Girl Sleuth’s pearl-necklace perfection.

All told, the women’s recollections capture the impact of a formulaic, ghostwritten series approaching its 80th year.

Greta Van Sustern, Nancy Pelosi, Mary Jo White…all sing the praises of Nancy.

Full confession, I was not a Nancy Drew fan.  I don’t really know why–the cover illustrations?–but I don’t think I ever read a single one.  They just didn’t appeal to me.  My thing was The Black Stallion books.

C. on the other hand adores Nancy Drew.  The love affair began when she was about five and my father-in-law read her The Secret of the Old Clock.  The story captured her imagination.  When she started reading, she started out with Nancy Drew Notebooks and when she had her reading “explosion” she moved on to full-on Nancy Drew.  She became a Nancy Drew connaisseur and collector, arguing that the older versions were superior to the more modern versions, and that the really contemporary versions were not worthy of the Nancy Drew name.  Her fondest memory of elementary school is from second grade, when the school’s librarian–affirming her reading passion–gave her a Nancy Drew book from the 1930s as a gift.

Her reading texts have evolved since then–though the passion is still there–and she’s moved on to Brideshead Revisited and The Great Gatsby and On the Road, but I have a hunch that Nancy Drew will always be special.

[As always, Hoagies has an amazing number of resources on books for gifted kids.  For example, here's a link to Book for Children, Featuring Gifted Children.]

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