Posted by Dinah on March 23, 2006, at 14:29:03
In reply to Re: Subject close to my heart » Dinah, posted by special_k on March 23, 2006, at 14:03:29
Actually, I lied a bit.
Part of the topic is dear to my heart. The part about gifted children having special needs that should be recognized as much as any other special needs.
Too well do I recall moving from schools that recognized that to schools that didn't. Fortunately I spent my bored senseless time moving ahead in the book and asking for extra assignments from sympathetic teachers. But not all gifted children would.
I never said I had a low IQ. I said I have trouble with the spatial abilities portion that seems to make up a lot of the Mensa test. I just didn't use my own IQ as an example, because, well I'm sure you understand. And since it's a few points below my son's and probably a few more points below my husband's, they were better examples anyway.
Does my son know he's more than ordinarily smart? Of course. He doesn't know his exact score, but it would be hard to miss that with the reports he gets. If they didn't want him to know, they shouldn't write that he is phenomenally gifted. And that was the teacher who had no idea what his IQ was. Does he know he's smarter than some of his classmates and less smart than others? Show me a kid who can't do a pretty decent job of lining his classroom up by relative ability. Does he think he's *better* than some of his classmates and not as good as others according to his intelligence? Absolutely positively not and he'd vehemently argue with anyone who said that. And so would I.
It's *just* intelligence, just like beauty is *just* beauty, and athletic ability is *just* athletic ability. Not acknowledging it is, in my opinion, putting as much more emphasis than it deserves as letting them think that they are better people because of it would be.
poster:Dinah
thread:622738
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20060322/msgs/623729.html