Okay folks - I am aware that I may be opening a can of worms here but why does this topic piss so many people off?

[Theclosetpagan]

I mean if someone has deemed a child G+T (or is it G or T) why is it that they seem to be flamed when they post about any difficulties here?

If the label has come from outside the family and the family struggle why can't they post here saying "Help" without people leaping in to say "your child sounds normal to me"

For what it's worth I don't have a child labelled as G+T but am glad I don't given the response some posters get to this topic.

Surely it's okay for some children to be extra bright. Or is it that there is distrust of this label?

Just interested really.

Those gifted children who have been enabled to fulfil their potential at an early age (e.g. Ruth Lawrence) have done so at the expense of any genuine autonomy or free choice (RL's father has already been mentioned. Moving to chess, I think the eldest Polgar sister was given a small range of options, but once she'd opted for chess, the rest of the family had to follow).

And if there were to be special classes for the very rare exceedingly gifted, because those children would be spread far and wide the classes would presumably need to be residential, which brings its own problems. And even then, somebody has to come top.

The provision would be expensive, with costs paid by parents/other sponsors or by the Government - either way, the pressure would be on the children to stay the course (your chess dilemma all over again, I'm afraid, KerryMum).

And one of the Polgar son's (Judith I think) is well on the way to becoming a chess grandmater as well. He has been having coaching since pre-school. One ofhis tutors(who taught him aged 5- had had hours of coaching a day) used to write in a chess magazine. It was the only bit I used to read

I definitely think the answer is to give a broader education, and concentrate on social skills. Two examples.

Dh had a friend as a child, who was a very gifted Musician, don't want to post details on here, but definitely the true definition of gifted. Pulled out of school by parents to concentrate on music, ran away at 16. Now going back to the music, aged 40.

I used to babysit identical twins when they were babies/toddlers. They used to FRIGHTEN me with the stuff they told me about science - at age 3-4 they were explaining to me about how physics worked (i was doing A Level Physics at the time, and in some ways they had a better grasp of the concepts than I did). They too were EXTRAORDINARILY gifted. Their parents sent them to an ordinary primary school, private secondary, and they had a broad education encompassing music, sport, all the usual subjects, classics etc. THey did an extra A Level or two each (but not early) and had a good social education as well. They are happy and balanced boys, one is at Oxford, one at Cambridge, one doing medicine, one law. A real success story.

Judith's a girl (well, grown woman by now) actually, gess!

Or were you talking about a son of Judith?

Yep I was talking about her son. Although according to wikipaedia he was born in 2004 so he's tiny. UNless it was another Polgar sister. Anyway one of them is employing a full time chess tutor for a small child!

gess, thanks for clarifying (and please excuse touchiness - bad attack of Woman Chessplayer Militancy striking after another awful experience on Yahoo ).

may have been Susan. Interesting post that about 'delaying' her younger son's entry to the game until he was 6 because he doesn't seem that interested & not pushing. Sweet pic if you look at the original post as well.

Thanks for that, gess

And what about the emotional and social develpoment of these children who are pushed on to higher education at an early age? I certainly wouldn't want a child of mine at university at an age when they couldn't legally go to the pub - for example. It seems to me that if you have a child who is exceptionally gifted in one area they need to be stretched in that area - but they also need to be encouraged to develop all other areas of their lives. I remember someone said ages ago on this thread something like -some of these children will just never fit in. I thought that unbearably sad - it seems to me that one of the functions of education is to produce a rounded individual. Yes, an exceptional 7 year old might want to spend all his time doing maths - my 6 year old would eat chocolate for every meal if I let him. Neither is good for them!

Very interesting reading. How odd - to apply G & T to the entire top 10%. Clearly we have grown up with an entirely different and somewhat more rigorous interpretation of that term - I wonder if this achool-going generation will actually think of 'gifted' as meaning what we would call 'quite clever'. Not sure that would be healthy.

I'm a postgrad at Cambridge (gess - obviously - much higher IQs than the The Other Place) and occaisionally you come across someone who really seems 'out there' gifted. People here, while generally pretty confident of their intellectual abilities (and not infrequently annoyingly so) generally do not think of themselves as 'gifted' but may be causght gazing wistfully at those few who are.

I've done some undergrad tuitions and had a couple of students I thought were gifted - but one I wasn't sure if he was gifted, really strange, or both!

I'm interested in the policies talked about. No idea if these will be relevant to dd who is only 2 but I had some problems throughout school that I hope she won't have (not that I was gifted in the traditionsl sense - but bright enough to have some of the problems associated with being out of step with my peers). I know for me personally, extra classes were not the answer - the problems needed addressing within the normal classes. Having a more interesting activity at the end of the school day won't address the mind-numbing tedium of the rest of the day that was spent compulsively daydreaming. What a waste of time.

My overall feeling is that reducing class sizes would be more helpful - in fact decreasing class sizes is quite a mantra with me as I think it would improve everything for both students and teachers and consequently society.

Of course it's all about money and resources but I do think all students should be offered extra activities, ideally. I do think it's wrong to so openly appear to value some children more than others. How often do you read news reports after a child-death referring to how marvellously that child was doing in school, as though if they had been doing less well we shouldn't bother to mourn them? Jill

Something occurred to me while I was out having posted below. It is all very well to say that a child COULD achieve very highly in, say, science, or maths, but does it set them up for future happiness as an adult? Isn't that what we're preparing them for - a happy fulfilled life? And even if they WANT to be a super achiever early, and could do this, isn't it a parent's responsibility to equip them for life.

If a child said they wanted to eat sweets all day, we would say no, because it would be bad for teeth. But if they want to do maths all day, that is seen as ok, as maths is a 'good' thing. But it doesn't prepare the child for making good friendships, lasting relationships, running round in the fresh air, building a good immune system, filling lungs with oxygen etc. A child doesn't know what is best for them. And any 'great' discoveries can wait - how much greater would they be with greater maturity and wider knowledge base.

If someone has missed their childhood because of outstanding early achievement in one area, won't the other areas of their life fail to develop beyond childhood - socially etc.

A word I don't read very often on here is happy.

Exactly, tortoiseSHELL.

And for some posters, this thread seemed to give them the carte blanche to randomly tell others to fuck off - and then they come back and say they mean it is a joke .

On the subject of there being more children labelled as G&T than really are G&T.... end of last year we had a form given out at school, asking us to nominate our own children if we thought they were exceptionally gifted or talented in some area. 'Talented' I beleive included non-academic areas such as sport or hobbies - not entirely sure TBH as the form got recycled. As far as I can see the teachers would be in just as good, if not better, a position to nominate pupils who were academically gifted. The school was looking to apply for potential additional funding for a new G&T scheme. Which begs the question how many pupils have been so labelled because it's flattering for the parents to do so and financially expedient for the school to back them up?

The gifted and talented scheme is supposed to include talents in non-academic areas. That's what the talented bit is all about.

Yes indeed tellus. But its seemed to be a fairly arbitary way of deciding. That was all I meant.

And,as I said on another thread, politically expedient because the government can then shut up the Daily Mail Tendency by proving to them that all thier tax money isn't being spent on sending truants on skiiing holidays!

Tortoise - perfectly good points. But it's hard to be happy when you are bored out of your tree most of the day. I enjoyed daydreaming and still do - but I think it's a shame to spend most of every school day doing that for want of anything better to do. I'd like to see something done to address that within normnal classroom hours. Not sure why it should mean studying one subject all day just spicing things up a bit to hold students' attention.

As for the 'truly' out-there gifted - I tend to think you can't generalise about their needs very well because it depends on the overall skills of the child. They are so different again - I can only imagine that it must be incredibly frustrating to sit through normal classes in your gifted area. I agree that parents shouldn't push and hot-house their children - but they might be pretty miserable wihout some appropriate outlet for thier gifteness. Excessive, chronic boredom just destroys the will to live. Jill

Trouble is, is your chld is national judo champion or something like that, the school is only likely to know if you tell them.

I expect the school lokks for a bit of evidence before actually putting them on the register (I would hope so anyway...)

But they shouldn't be bored! In my ds's year 2 class there are 4 ability tables and they all do different work. If anybody finished what they have to do they get given a bit more. Or they are given a book to read. Or they use the time to finish something they may not have finished earlier. If there was naother table with a couple of children on it who were a step or two up from "red" table why wouldn't hte same system work for them?

And I can tell you, it is a damn sight more boring to be stuck at the bottom, not understanding what's going on but seeing other kids getting all the praise for being able to read and write and all the other things you can't do.

And actually, now I come to think about it, why should a school get extra funding because a child is national judo champion or someting? Presumably the school didn't coach him/her? Or am I missing something?

That's interesting ormirian, because I could have handed that back for DS1- he's an exceptionally fast runner and has never lost a race in his life, had to race with the older kids at sports day etc, he really is amazing and if Dh had received that form, being an ex County runner himself it'd have been handed back in (). However, I wouldn't have sent it in becaue I don't think he has the emotional ability to hack success at a level he could probably
achieve. Which of us is right? Do I really have a right to deny him potential success at a high level? There is a hsitory of sport in our family beyong dh, not me of course (yuck) but my Uncle used to train olympic swimmers, dh's family are all County rugby types. Its a difficult decision. I've often driven past the athletics club and thought, 'i really should go in and talk to them'- but ds1 having the Sn he does, I feel he needs to spend the time he does have on other things he enjoys- eg, he likes a board games club where they happen to work on turn taking, he attends a sn rugby group, etc. BUT Dh woudl feel that if ds1 has this gift it may be just what will carry him through life..... but then again, Dh was pushed into an academic area (IT in an era where it was very much still a Neww Thing),long before he was emotionally ready to specialise, forced to take on extra study because of a gift (he was designing and selling agmes at 12), he had a complete collapse at 18 whilst working FT and studying, and has never gone back there professionally again.... its not easy, there are no guarantees of getting it right and you just ahev to go on your best parenting instincts.

Seeker - that sounds like a good system. I have no idea about years and grades - is yr2 primary or secondary? My main concern, personally, is with 2ndary schools, where education is more formal and structured and less flexible. In fact I have very little good to say about 2dary education generally but that's another story (should move to the education threads for that one).

As for being bored at the bottom - I'm sure that's true - but this is a G & T thread not an SN thread so surely we are not going to descend into a competition about who is more bored? Jill