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Encouraging Genius
What's Best for the Gifted Child? By Kelly Burgess
While it's easy to blame the schools, the fact is that the public school system has to meet a broad spectrum of needs from the profoundly disabled to the profoundly bright. They also have to teach everyone in between. Standardized testing and the federal funding tie-ins of the last few years have made individualized education even more problematic. So what's a mother to do?
In some cases, it's easier to get individual teachers to make daily accommodations. It's more difficult with profoundly gifted children like Pax Tirrell (Bevan's son), 14, and Christiane Kaniefski, 8. In their cases, there's little the public school can do beyond grade advancements. Pax's mother started Pax in public school, moved him to private school, home schooled him ad even allowed him to home school himself.
Recently, they moved from Alaska to Clinton, Wash., so Pax could attend a program for profoundly gifted teens at the University of Washington. This program will provide him with both peers and mentors as he goes through college during what would, traditionally, be the age he would attend high school. "Learning is not a team sport," says Bevan. "This is working for Pax right now, but I'm prepared to find him something else if he finds he needs more in the future. You really have to follow where these kids lead you; you can't take a cookie cutter approach."
In Christiane's case, Hood-Kaniefski, of Troutville, Va., is sticking with home schooling for now, along with plenty of extracurricular activities so that Christiane has interaction with her peers. Hood-Kaniefski has also gone back to school herself to better understand how to teach her child. Eventually, when Christiane is 12 or so, Hood-Kaniefski plans to look into enrolling her in a special program for highly gifted girls. In the meantime, she just wants to help her develop, intellectually and emotionally, in a safe environment.
"When the public school looks at my child, they see this highly gifted intellect and they react to that," says Hood-Kaniefski. "When I look at her I see a young girl with vulnerabilities. I want her to be able to advance in her learning without having to grow up more quickly than she can handle."
