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Encouraging Genius
What's Best for the Gifted Child? By Kelly Burgess
Because their gifted children were also their first children, Mary Bevan and Lorie Hood-Kaniefski thought it was perfectly normal for a toddler to understand complex concepts, use words like "frustrated" in context and read chapter books before kindergarten. It was only later that they discovered their children, Pax Tirrell and Christiana Kaniefski, were profoundly gifted children, with IQs measuring well over 145.
Both women took different paths to solve some of the schooling dilemmas they encountered because of their children's startling intellect, but navigating through the public school system with a profoundly gifted child can be perilous for the very bright child, simply because most public schools' one-size-fits-all approach to schooling doesn't fit the gifted.
She says when her children were small she didn't really understand what gifted children needed. If she had it to do all over, she says she would have handled their educations very differently. "Gifted children are not seen as having an urgent need primarily because gifted kids can fend for themselves, unlike children who perhaps can't read or write," says Davidson.
Even schools with gifted programs in place often don't challenge their bright students. The most common gifted education program in schools is what's referred to as a "pull-out" program. Children attend their regular classroom every day except for two or three hours one day a week when they are taken to a special classroom to work with a gifted education teacher.
One problem with this approach is that gifted children are gifted all the time, not just a few hours a week. Not making accommodations for the gifted in the classroom, just as accommodations are made for those at the other end of the special education scale, doesn't give gifted children the challenge they need to thrive.
Another problem that gifted advocates have with the "pull-out" program is that it often doesn't offer intellectually advanced children significant acceleration or challenges. Instead, it is used as creative time. "It's not as boring as regular school but this type [of gifted curriculum] seems to be the popular model," says Davidson. "It's fun, but if you're very bright it's just not challenging. Why can't they accelerate and have an educational program in math and languages? This is just a politically correct way of doing something that doesn't really serve the gifted students."
The other approach taken by public schools toward very gifted children is to advance them until they're in a grade where their intellectual and academic needs are being met. Unfortunately, this doesn't address their social or emotional needs. When Christiane Kaniefski was 7, her school suggested that her mother advance her to junior high school. That was the best they could offer. Ultimately, it prompted her mother to pull her from school altogether and begin home schooling. "I pulled her out of school because socially I didn't want her in with fifth and sixth graders with the hormonal surges they're going through," says Hood-Kaniefski. "I didn't feel it was safe for her emotionally."
