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I stopped off at Taylor's school this morning on my way to work to drop off a donation for the school dance. My friend Michelle and I hung out in the library to watch morning announcements, which are shown on TVs in all the classrooms. Her son Connor was doing a bit on garbage (those kids are pigs) and Taylor was doing some powerpoint thing on the computer as well as reading about Read In Week. She pronounced Lois as Louis but otherwise did very well.
As we were standing there the resource teacher came in and said she had to talk to me. I said "Oh, do you have Liam's PAT results?" (Every Grade 3 student takes Provincial Achievement Exams in June, and the results have just been released.) She said "This is about your other child." There must have been a look of horror on my face because she said "Don't worry it's good news!"
And it was. The school would like to code Taylor as gifted. This doesn't really mean a whole lot. They used to have a gifted program but she said the kids didn't enjoy it as they were being made fun of for being smart. Really, at this point, all it means is that Taylor will have extra work and will be encouraged to go to some robotics fair. Oh, and the school will get some extra money because she has been coded. I'm not sure about Taylor and extra work as I am hard pressed to get her to do the homework she brings home as it is. I did say I was concerned about how lazy she was, and that her marks do not reflect the gifted title. She said that she and the principal had discussed this and that the marks on the district wide exams were what mattered. And then she showed me those marks. And let me just say my daughter is SMART. Like Mensa smart ( I looked it up and she really is.) Out of 100 children in verbal and non verbal testing only one student would do better then Taylor. In Math, 4 would. I always knew Taylor was quite smart, she learned the alphabet in one go (except for the letter O) at the age of 10 months and she could read chapter books at 4. But because she does tend to be lazy and leaves everything to the last minute her school work tends to suffer. So a kid who should be scoring in the high 90s often only gets 80. There was a huge fallout last week over the 78% in a science exam.
I'm not sure what this will all mean for Taylor. Do I tell her about this or not? I think I might just say that her teacher would like to give her extra work to see how well she does. I want Taylor to try harder and to put in more of an effort. So while I don't want to tell her she is "gifted" I do want her to know that the teachers, and myself, expect more of her. The good thing about her being coded is that it follows her to junior high and the school she wants to go to has the IB program and I suppose it would be much easier for her to get in to it.
What astounds me about all this is how two children can be so different. On one hand, I have Liam who has been coded as Learning Disabled and had to change schools as ours couldn't teach him. Although he is great at math, at the age of 9 still can not read. Liam will not pick up a book while Taylor never has her nose out of one. I think I'd rather have 2 kids in the middle of the pack than have two extremes. I'd sacrifice some of Taylor's smarts to give a bit to Liam. Isn't that a terrible thing to say?
03 October, 2005
Today's Good News
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4 comments:
No, it's not terrible. You shouldn't beat yourself up. Your kids are different is all. Taylor may be book-smarter than Liam, but as he gets older he might excell at things Taylor does not. Just remember there are tons of successful people out there who are "learning disabled."
I don't know if the standards are different in Canada than they are in the US, but when I was in public school, I was classified as a "gifted" student. All I did is go to a special class every Thurs.
Hi Emma,
My opinion - absolutely, unequivocally, please tell Taylor what you know about her IQ. She is highly unlikely to get all conceited on you, and if she does, you can deal with that when it happens. She *is* different, she has an unusual brain. Once she knows what it is that makes her different, it will be easier for her to find and access resources to support herself.
The alternative - well, my parents didn't tell me, and I spent many years thinking I was crazy, bad, or both. I knew I was different and I didn't know why, so that was my conclusion. What an enormous, and unnecessary, blow to my self-esteem.
Being gifted does not make a person any better or more valuable a human being than anyone else. They do however have special sensitivities; a little bit of education (of the parent and child) on what this can mean is so worth the effort. Check out www.hoagiesgifted.org for a ton of information recommended by parents of gifted kids.
Siblings are usually within 10 IQ points of each other, but giftedness often shows up *as* a learning disability or *with* an LD (this is known as twice exceptional, or 2E). Is it possible that this is happening with Liam? Hoagies has links to 2E sites if you want to investigate.
Alberta is a great place to raise a gifted kid, they have lots of resources and magnet schools. Google Alberta Gifted and you'll see what I mean. A lot of gifted kids are underchallenged in a regular school program; doing their homework can feel like trying to ride a bicycle too slowly. I don't know Taylor, but underachievement due to boredom or wanting to fit in is common in gifted kids. It's possible.
Anyway, as you can tell I have big opinions about giftedness! I would be happy to point you to other resources - feel free to email me.
Best of luck,
Joanna
www.lionlifecoaching.com
The difference between being lazy and being ambitious is the difference between finding 0 things you want to do and finding 1 thing you want to do. Just think, if Taylor had been asked to read those books she always has her nose in, everyone would be saying what a hard worker she is. My parents did their best by me, I'm sure, but maybe if they had spent less time trying to get me to do things I didn't want to do, and more time encouraging me to go further with interests that came naturally, we all might have been happier. Anyway, good luck. In twenty years or so, you can let us know how it turned out!
Joanne, Thanks for the information. I will look at it tonight. Liam has dyslexia, and his IQ is quite different than Taylor's. His overall IQ is 99 and ranges from a 56 in some areas of Language Arts to 127 in Math. The psychologist who did his testing said that he had never seen such a wide range.
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