Aren't ALL children gifted and talented in something?

[pamelat]

Sorry I am new to this topic area but had a quick flick through and may not have done the topic justice, its just that I feel that all children/people are gifted or talented.

Take my DD, 10 months and only just learning to crawl (lazy monkey) and only doing commando style crawling BUT I am so proud that in my opinion she is so talented! She may as well be the first baby to ever crawl for how proud I am of her!!

I think that parents, friends, relatives and even schools are bias.

Who can really say whether anyone is of superior intellect or not?

At school my parents were always told that I was G&T (oh I quite fancy a gin and tonic!) but really I am very average but just went to a poor school. I was only G&T compared to the other students there. This came as a bit of a shock to me in the big wide world of work!

I am sure that there are the few exceptional cases of child genius, but I think that we all have the "right" to consider our little angels or terrors are exceptionally talented.

the purpose of school......John Taylor Gatto says its is to learn your place, conformity and suchlike.
Bright kids can learn outside of school and usually do. They go to libraries, watch TV, surf the net etc. They make their own opportunities.

" Bright kids can learn outside of school and usually do. "

Of course they will learn something.

But as much as they would learn in school with a course tailored to their needs?

When I was a maths teacher we had one girl applying to study maths at Cambridge University. They have a special entrance exam to take, that is harder than A Levels.

The sort of interactive help she needed was not something that is easy to get from watching TV or surfing the net.

sue they need some help (if stuck in school) but you cannot compare it to the sort of help a disabled child needs. Its insulting.
And I know both. dd1 is exceptionally bright (did Y6 sats in Y2 and beat the 11 yo's) and dd2 is severely impaired. dd1 could read around the subject and amuse herself. dd2 can't even scratch an itch or see.
dd1 taught herself GCSE maths without much input and passed as a home educator, dd2 needs one to one support at all times.
Home educate bright children. Its better for them IMO. But bleating about intelligence being a special need is ridicullous

Clairwil on Wed 17-Dec-08 21:59:00
"" Bright kids can learn outside of school and usually do. "

Of course they will learn something.

But as much as they would learn in school with a course tailored to their needs?"

Not necessarily as much of the same thing. But teaching yourself Old English at home will give you skills and independence that will stand you in good stead later in life. I often wish my university students had more of this.

I learnt way more outside of school than in it.
As Mark Twain said 'I never let schooling get in the way of my education'

I found they complemented each other. Each were good in their own way, but I was not wholly dependent on either.

Feel that very much for dd. Her academic education can always be supplemented at home, but as she has mobility problems and I can't drive, it would be very difficult for us to provide her with the kind of social experience she is getting at school.

Being G&T as defined by government (in the top 10% of any school intake) very rarely brings specific problems of the depth and range faced by children with SN.

But bright children can suffer in schools where they are left to get on with it. Happened to me. The teacher actually told my mother she (teacher) didn't have to pay me any attention because I was so capable. I remember being VERY bored and spending a lot of time helping out the other kids when they were stuck. Luckily that was a nice school with lovely kids from a whole range of abilities so being a swot wasn't a problem.

Later on we moved house and at secondary school being a 'swot' marked one out for bullying.

all children are not gifted and talented

99.9% of children in the governments gifted and talented programme are not gifted and talented either

It's a bollocks-govt. programme saying in this year we will have 3 children who are G&T .. next class?

So my questions have always been what happens to no. 4 bright kid .. what if you have a sporty kid, an arty kid, a maths whiz and a child who sings pitch perfect .. you're only allowed 3

what if your child moves schools and was on G&T and then isn't

what if they move years and was on G&T and then isn't

what is G&T for number purposes in one school is not G&T in another

I think there's probably 1 child per school (maximum) who can truly be deemed G&T

but many many parents seem to buy into it .. it's nice to be told your child is G&T by a teacher and hard to hold on to the feeling that it's all bollocks

I had a very similar experience to Edam, except that at my school being a swot did mark you out to some extent. But what I don't remember was it being bored bringing any severe problems. I was so interested in what I was learning out of school that I certainly couldn't think of myself as suffering: I knew I was privileged.

dd also gets bored but knows she is privileged compared to the kids who really struggle and compared to the kids who don't have a stimulating home environment

Oh, I wasn't bored outside school, I was bored during lessons when I was left to sit and wait while everyone ploughed through pages of the same ruddy sum over and over again and bored by the reading scheme and bored because I'd read every book in the library by the age of seven and bored because we were doing a project on the Romans yet again and I didn't think they were The Start of All Civilisation...

Oh, I just thought about the work I would do after school.

well then you are probably more G&T than me! I was just frustrated at having to sit there and wait.

I worked hard outside school- I needed those few hours to rest

I'm also very jealous of today's kids who get to 'estimate' in Maths. Which is what I did naturally. Only you weren't supposed to but had to write pages of the same damn sum over and over using the tedious, long-winded and inefficient method in the text book.

edam I think that kids boredom is due to unimaginative teaching and teachers not planning adequately or differentiating. Obviously a crap school! good teaching methods complimented with a good teacher will interest even the so called gifted and talented at what ever level they are at. Learning can be fun and interesting for all pupils if the teacher is teaching at a good standard. All kids love an exciting lesson , lots of movement, lots of challenges with banter. Fun!

To some extent I think lijaco is right. I was taught in Sweden where there was virtually no streaming or differentiating and I still remember a lot of the lessons as being fun, because of the teacher.

And dd is very interested in people, so she won't get bored in class even if the actual lesson is a bit dull: a classroom is still full of interesting people interacting (well, she is hoping to be a writer).

Or at least, if dd does get bored in class it would never occur to her to compare that in any way to the very real disadvantage in having a disability. Because she knows about that side of life too

And I think you'd have a job to convince her that being a little bored in maths is as bad as having to crawl on your hands and knees to access the lavatory.

The point being that quite a few schools still lack the basics to look after their disabled pupils.

It was the 70s, I think attitudes were different then. It was a very good school in lots of ways. I must have been a pain in the bum, was so far ahead of even the work for the top set.
(Am not boasting, am not particularly outstanding as an adult, proof that all this 'my child does X early' pretty much levels out in the end.)

(This was at junior school, btw - ended up eventually at an academic secondary school where I was definitely not outstanding!)

Though perhaps if your primary school had given you sufficiently demanding work you wouldn't have 'levelled out' and would have remained outstanding at secondary school .

6 hours is a long time to be bored, if a child really is bored for all that time (neither of mine are, and neither was I, though I was bored sometimes and so are they. So are all children, I suspect.) Little children are too tired after being in a busy classroom all day to do all their learning then, however nice it sounds in principle.

Schools don't have to pick just 3 children in a class of 30, by the way - they can have a maths list, an English list, an art list, a humanities list, a generally all round clever list if they like. So, many, many children can appear on a list. So my friend's primary age DS1 is apparently deemed G&T for art and maths, her DS2 for maths and English.

to 10%

One of my children is in year 3 and working at a high level 3 and close to level 4 maths which is government requested level by end year 6. Not on G&T register although I'm fairly sure she would be at another school.

OK, I am officially in the top 1% of the population IQ-wise, and was what they called a gifted child when it only applied to a small handful.

I think a lot of the problems that occur are along these lines:

1. Everyone expecting you to be brilliant at everything all the time, when you are still crap at art, or remembering your coat, or learning irregular verbs, or whatever.

1. Some teachers hating you for asking questions they don't know the answer to, and then picking on you in class as a result.

1. People laughing at you for teaching yourself Latin or piano or whatever to keep your brain fed (brains get very hungry sometimes, like something off Dr Who).

1. Getting in trouble for reading novels under the desk because you have done all the work in class for the rest of term already, and you are quietly entertaining yourself to pass the time, minding your own business.

1. People stealing your schoolbag because they think you are up yourself, when in fact you are not being up yourself at all, and your only crime is to be a bit different and a bit cleverer.

I think a lot of these problems are similar to those experienced by the bottom 10% actually, and what we need is a bit more tolerance of difference, not special G and T programmes. And nicer teachers.

Miss Glynn Jones, I have not forgotten what you did to me, and the fun you made of me, you cow.