The Wall Street Journal recently ran a 3 part series on education by Charles Murray. The last part of the series was on gifted education. I found the article very interesting. You can find it here:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009541
This is a debate we have - stay in age appropriate grade level and always be so ahead that you gain confidence but you also gain elitism. Or, accelerate to the appropriate intellectual level and then... will you feel average or not be as confident in yourself? I feel that people in certain professions need to be very confident, almost arrogantly so. When D was in the Navy, pilots tended to be extremely confident/arrogant. It could be difficult to handle but for that job, they needed to believe they were the best of the best or they would die. Other jobs require that type of arrogance - surgeons, fire fighters, etc.
C had a good day at school today. He even said he had fun. Grandma took K to a pottery place.
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2 comments:
I don't know what makes an arrogant child but an arrogant child is not always the smartest in the class.
What I have read and been told is that the danger of being at the top of the class is that a child may not learn how to work hard. The problem is finding the level where they are learning but still able to build or keep their confidence.
Some gifted children are hard enough on themselves that they need to be more delicately handled in acceleration.
It is a fine line.
I think it was helpful to get our child tested. But in the long run as parents we have to be able to sort through all the various opinions and do what we think is best for that year. It can always be changed.
It is a fine line and I'm worried about making the wrong decisions.
When we finally had K tested (Dec), it was such an emotional time for me. A friend told me that it was because now I have to do something about it. I think that's true, deciding what to do is harder than I thought.
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