I am a proud mother to two gifted students and my third child has just been tested. We will know this year if he is in the program or not. I wonder how I could have three gifted children when I feel so average. There is a lot to being a mom to a gifted child, I am on the horizon of three gifted kids. My kids challenge me daily. Don't they all? Life as a mom of gifted students is not easy. I am not complaining. Just hear me out. Every child has some need, some gap to be filled.
My children read years above their grade levels. That alone has many challenges. They are reading on or above an 11th grade level at ages 11 and 9. Finding books that are age appropriate, yet challenging are not easily found. They could read just about anything in the library but Hunger Games is not appropriate in my opinion. They could read Pride and Prejudice but would they understand the relationships and the sacrifice of the characters?
I had no idea six years ago when we were at a well visit and the doctor said to me "you have to remember that she is just three" would be my mantra. The doctor knew something about my child that was everyday normal for me. My child at 3 was already showing signs of being ahead of the norm but still just three and acted three at times. Yet at 4 she could read. This is my normal. This is my everyday. Finding ways to challenge them is not an easy task. I often have to remind myself that we can be talking about very high level thoughts one moment but they are still in elementary school.
My oldest is having a hard time in school. Not with grades and getting her work done but in fifth grade there is a wide range of abilities. She understands most of what is being taught, she is frustrated with the inequility in her classroom. She has valid complaints and complains of not being challenged. We have chosen to send our kids to public school which most would agree runs based on the average student. This is hard when you have a child at both the bottom of the bell curve and the top.
My first year teaching fourth grade I had the hardest time with a reality that still hurts to this day. I had a student that did his best but his best was not fourth grade. I was out to save this one student. It was my first year teaching and so the world was mine to conquer. I was talking with the guidance counselor and she said to me, his IQ is to low and is performing at his level. In order to be serviced you have to have a discrepancy between IQ and performance. He was performing with what the good Lord gave him. This broke my heart. He was failing to meet expectations but was doing his best. There was nothing more we could do. We were not failing him, he was learning at his level. Not every child can be made average. This was a hard reality.
So why this story you ask. Well, it is a reminder to me that their is inequality in the world. My kids have to know this even if they are bored at school or feel like others are "stupid" for not understanding the concepts taught in class. Yes, my child has come home to tell me how stupid the kids are in her class. It doesn't sound nice, I agree but she is young and doesn't know the difference. It is not easy for her to understand that she is not the norm and that it is developmentally appropriate for her class to not understand fractions even when she understands the concept. She is not perfect. She just has a better understanding of concepts beyond her years in school. This is something she will have to deal with daily, yearly and maybe for a life time.
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