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.

I was meaning more long term happiness tbh. I wonder how the parents of a very highly gifted child would feel if all through their childhood they supported them in extra maths, took them to university early etc etc and sometime in their 30s, the child said 'I really wish you hadn't done all that, I just want to have normal relationships.'

Because the experience of dh's friend was that he didn't have normal relationships, and also didn't really achieve what his parents had hoped in music either.

The gifted pupil shouldn't be bored in class - they can always go into more depth I would have thought, and as MB said, they can learn from the internet, the library etc. But why not be radical, and get them doing something completely different when the class are doing maths - suppose they are SO far ahead that the teacher can't find something to do. Why not give them a basic French/Russian/Hebrew/Latin/Greek children's book, and a dictionary and get them to do some decoding. Probably a simplistic solution, but you get my meaning - there is SO much to learn, you don't need to concentrate on the thing you're gifted at and take it to a ridiculously high level while you're still a child. Use their brain to learn a wealth of other things. Or have a school garden that they could do some work in. Or get them to do a research project. All things that could be done without too much diversion of resources, and hopefully wouldn't make the child too precocious and unable to relate to their peers.

just seen your message about thinking about secondary mostly. I only have experience with my kids in primary. They have groups for literacy and numeracy which are ability based, so they are all doing ability appropriate work.

peachy - DD is a fast runner too. She's in the school athletics team (which has taken the local schools cup 10 yrs in a row). But the school obviously knows about that. DS#1 is doing very well in karate but in no way is he exceptionally talented. But the form specified pupils that were 'involved' in an activity not who were very successful.

In the areas I was G&T in at shcool, it wasn't hard to keep me amused- once I'd finished a volume of Tolkien or in relaity anyting printed and I was totally and utterly content.

Well I do wonder if I had attention deficit problems too - so maybe that was some of it!

Anxiety about hothousing tends to wash over me as my parents were not at all interested in education (my mom was rather grumpy about my going to uni as by the time I was finished 'all the best men would be snapped up'....). Classes were big - sometimes over the 35 limit. Teachers were good but overstretched. The very concept of studying outside the clssroom was alien to me. it is possible to be bright and yet not able to take your education into your own hands for alsorts of reasons to do with your situation both at school and at home. I guess I am trying to champion all those other kids in overcrowded schools with apathetic or hostile parents who become disaffected, bored and miserable.

Tortoise - totally agree with the radical not more of the same approach and I think project work is a very good solution. Truthfully though - this kind of thing can be beyond the scope of the teacher unless they have very strong conceptual competence (thinking of science for example where as I recall some of my contemporaries with bearly passing grades at A level went on to be science teachers - perfectly understandable but problematic). Jill (who should get off this thread and back to work.....)

My dd's school factors in "reading rest" every day. Its great.

Actually, I think school should be about more than learning. Learning stuff at any rate. I think it is about development. Not what you know, but how you come to know it. How to learn, as opposed to just learning.

As a science teacher I often felt I was just passing on information rather than teaching scientific method. And that it was not necessarily the best way of doing things.

I agree with those who talk about happiness being an important part of learning as well.

I had a lot of academic achievements. A string of them. Including Oxbridge so easily fit into the G&T definition of 10%. The most useful thing I learned at school? How to follow a compass bearing in thick fog. I'm serious.

No-one needs academics all day- and academics all day does not produce well rounded individuals. Whilst someone may need extension work in say maths, things like English should be easily adaptable. The same text can be analysed at different levels of complexity.

Agree tellus, eduaction should train the brain how to think

Yep agree Tellus- the number of people - even at postgrad levels who just want to be told 'the answer' rather than carry otu a piece of research is staggering.

I had books confiscated for this very reason.

'school is meant for learning not whiling the hours away reading novels.... '

Nowt wrong with reading novels for hours on end. You could do a lot worse. I think most would encourage this. There are some fantastic novels out there that teach you more about life than any dry textbook.

Actually yes! See my recent thread on special needs about actually having something that ds1 and I can do together (or look at photos on profile- although they were taken on a fine day)(.

Tellus - That is SO true about method vs facts.

Also agree about more practial stuff. But that would require less dependence on the pieces of paper that are the schoo-leavers currency in the working world. Bizarre really - but without changing that you will never get time and resources for non-academic interesting useful stuff. Jill

Kerry, do you have a clear idea of what you want for your son? What provision you would like to see for him, in school?

I genuinely am interested. I'm not having a pop at all.

I used to get detention for reading too much, pathetic!

And you know what? those books- they formed me. The Tolien stuff led to my present career path, I know my typing is awful but I have never yet been faulted on gramamr, spelling, essay structure at Uni- all esential skills. I even have had things published in the past. I don't put that down to an eduation in the seventies where grammar was non-existent. I put that down to reading widely from a ridiculously early age. Give me a text- any text- and i'll enjoy it, just for the value of the language. Obviously I particualrly enjoy rich religious texts- wonderful epics, incredible poetry (reading some by Rumi atm- few words but the true understanding takes time). The gift of words- especially as my maths (dyscalculia) is so affected- is probably the first love I ever had, and one that really defines me as a person. So no, I don't think that reading time is ever wasted time. There is always something to be learned from a book- words, ideas, whatever- every challenge and problem is contained in a text somewhere, and the truly lucky child is one who can access that.

I find my son's inability to read far mroe challenging on a personal level than his lack of social skills, because I am not a hugely social being myself. I can get out there- PTA whatever- but for me, its always a book.

Can you guess I like reading?

I remember the HE teacher at school describing a prospective Oxbridge student - the first thing she said is that they had a thirst to read - and read anything - novels, text books, poetry, the lot. I don't agree with everything she said, but surely reading is the key to learning.

At the other end of the spectrum, ds1's Y1 teacher last year came round for a curry (we are good friends) and we were chatting about whether differences even out as they go through school (differences caused by different home environments) and she said the children who could not read struggled throughout (I don't mean the ones who can't read in Y1 btw, more later up the school), because so much of learning is based on reading.

And we have such a fine stock of literature, which helps with EVERYTHING - language development being an obvious case.

I don't think school is for 'learning'. It is for educating. Which I interpret quite differently - an all round education will set you up for the rest of your life. Learning seems much more fact based.

And I reiterate the examples cited below - the person whose parents really did concentrate on their gift, reacted very strongly against both their gift and normal life, taking a good 20 years to return (with regrets). The twins who were given a very broad education, taking in more subjects, but not doing anything 'early' are very well balanced happy young adults. QED.

Oh Peachy. I'm definitley not going to admit to the kind of books I had confiscated. Much too embarassing. I think my tastes were less literary!

How much more useful than daydreaming though!

As an adult it does feel as though the mind runs a natural course, like water, and will just go around attempts to divert it into areas that are uninteresting. That makes me uncertain about 'forcing' a child to pay more attention to areas outside their skills area. I would go easy with that one. You can lead a mind to new ideas but you can't make it think. Jill

Interesting Tortoise - I suppose there needs to be a happy medium between over-encorougement and neglect.

What do you mean by 'early'? Do you think students should ever take exams early at all? I took maths early. There was 10 of taught together (we had a pioneering math head who went on to greater glory elsewhere) and we could all get 95-100% in less than an hour (of 2.5 hours) a year early. Seemed we were all going along in our comfort zones and I don't recall anyone struggling or trying that hard. I think that was about 5% of our year (there were 10 math sets altogether - can't do that for all subjects). I remember that as one of the better experiences - very jolly classes. So perhaps it's not always a bad thing, in moderation. Jill

were, even