I wonder if this is why its taking so long to identify and cater for gifted kids in our society and education system, is it simply because we confuse gifted kids with those who are considered prodigies?
What is a prodigy?
Well put very simply a prodigy is a child who is extremely skilful at something that usually only adults can do. From what I gather a prodigy will have one area of talent for example music, and will have started playing and having lessons from a very young age, around three. It is the one area that they excel at and spend several hours a day practicing. I have heard it said that it takes 10 years to become an expert in any field, so the child who starts playing music at age three would be at expert level by age thirteen.
What is a gifted child?
Again put very simply a gifted child learns earlier, faster and differently than children of the same age. Gifted children can excel in one or more areas; they usually have a wide variety of interests. Gifted children sometimes have difficulty in the classroom as the pace is too slow for them. Often parents who have had their children assessed and have come away with the ‘gifted’ label find that when they talk with the school about this they are told ‘we see no sign of anything exceptional’ and I wonder if that is because they are looking for and thinking gifted = genius?
Would love to hear some opinions on this one.
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Geraldine says:
June 28, 2011 at 11:19 pm (UTC 1)
I agree…there is a big difference and perhaps childen who “learn differently” are expected to achieve easily when actually their learning requirements are not being met and it seems to me now that they are more at risk of falling off the ladder as they are simply not accomodated at school ….one size fits all being the golden rule…the child who has a passionate all absorbing interest and who practices over and over is a very different being to the child who hops from one interesting topic to another but finds the idea of repeating it or actually doing something repetitively over and over appalling…..
Gina says:
August 15, 2011 at 4:37 pm (UTC 1)
I agree with Geraldine, schools do not accommodate children who appear outside ‘the norm’!! There seems to be a general feeling that if they are reaching the average mark there should be no problem. I know that resources may not always be available in schools but I think the interest often isn’t there to try something different with a child who gets bored when they have learned something and can’t understand why they have to do it over and over.
When this happens they get bored and tune out and are then labelled as simply daydreamers who won’t co-operate. Sometimes just giving them a different exercise to do could possibly help keep their attention focused……..
Fidget Jones says:
August 27, 2011 at 3:27 pm (UTC 1)
Absolutely Gina. My dd’s were always so well behaved in school, and always got top marks that I was looked at as if I had two heads when I mentioned that there was problems. One of mine has Asperger syndrome with ADD and this wasn’t discovered until she was in College! I used to say to them when they were little “if only you would get up on the desk and do a tap dance in the middle of class, that way someone might take notice!” and it’s true, if they had been disruptive we would have got the help that was needed.