More on gifted kids...follow up

A few days ago I blogged about gifted kids and it sparked some very interesting comments and insights on facebook. I love this social networking stuff. This led to someone leading me to a blog that posed the question, "How do you talk about your gifted kid?"

I don't have the answer to that, because as I've stated before, my daughter is only 3 and it's a little early to tell one way or another whether or not she's gifted. Well, I mean academically. I think all kids are gifted in one way or another, but some have the gift of intellect and a very high IQ. And yes, it's hard to talk about your child who's gifted to someone who is just excited their son passed the spelling test he studied so hard for.

I do know that there are kids that will stand out right away as gifted. My friend has a child like that and she has just recently had to face the decision of whether to put him in Kindergarten (where he would be age-wise) or whether to place him at a higher grade level based on his reading skills and critical thinking skills.

When I blogged before, I didn't mean to say I was 100% against skipping grade levels. I'm not. One of my best friends graduated High School two years early and she should have. I guess what I was trying to say-and maybe not as eloquently as I had hoped-was that there are other options besides skipping grade levels. I think when you are trying to decide whether or not your child should skip a grade level, you should consider things like social skills and maturity. I've seen kids fall apart under the pressure of trying to perform, that's all I'm saying. Some kids thrive on it, others-even though they may have a big intellect-are not so emotionally well-balanced.

Case in point-I had this one student named Rebecca. She was smarter than almost any student I've ever seen. Her test scores were off the charts. In fact, it was hard to know what to do with her in a classroom because all she wanted to do was read. I could be giving a math lesson and she'd have her nose buried in a book. I would too if I were 11 years old and read at a college level. But there was a problem--

Rebecca couldn't sit forward in her chair. She couldn't listen to instructions to save her life. Her papers were scattered on the floor around her and extended to the next 2 student's desks beyond. (When we were studying Egypt, some students took to calling her paper trail "The Nile River"). She could never remember to bring the right books to school. She would come to school with her hair disheveled and her clothes a mess. She played with younger kids at recess because no one her age knew what to do with her. She forgot her homework all the time. She could never really look you in the eye.

Rebecca had (has) aspergers. She had never been diagnosed because up until the 6th grade, she had been able to pass these things off as part of her "intellectual quirkiness" to her parents. But we, as a 6th grade teaching team, were terrified to send her to Jr. High.

I'm just putting this out there...I think we have had a great discussion on this topic.
Next let's shake things up and talk about special needs kids. I love this stuff!