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Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Questioning the Assumptions we make about Education

In searching for something today, I was reminded of a snip I had saved from an internet site (which I am not able to relocate) many, many years ago at a time I was beginning to question whether the problem might actually be me (or at least us) rather than 'the school'. A couple of years ago I wrote an article based on this snippet for the state gifted association newsletter. As it seems as relevant now as before, I have added it below.

It's often a really hard to go against everything you've grown up to believe – that schools always know what's best for kids, they have their best interests at heart, that 6 year olds belong in Year 1. But if you discover you have a gifted, highly gifted or beyond child (one family referred to theirs as PGlets), you may feel like you have landed in an alien world and the assumptions you may have lived by, just don’t work………

Amongst your reading and research, amongst the questions you will ask of those who have already walked this road, you are bound to begin to question whether the world as you thought you knew it, really reflects the truth.

Hegemony is ideology so entrenched within us that it seems to be not just what we believe in, but simply the way things naturally are. That being the case, in educational settings the participants – teachers, parents and the students – never seriously question such premises as …..

• Schools provide education and wise students take up the offer (1)
• Teachers know more about education than parents (2)
• Wise parents support (i.e. defer to) professional of all kinds (3)
• Adults know more about everything than children (4)
• Adults are more mature than children
• Children of a given age belong together (5)
• Children should always defer to adults
• Children cannot really know something unless it is formally taught and tested (6)
• Students who do well at school are gifted
• Students who do poorly at school do so because of a flaw in the child (e.g. talented but lazy) or the family (e.g. not supportive) (7)
• Childhood is a state of immaturity, ignorance and innocence (8)
• Children who dissent do so because they are immature

But if we accept these as true, how do we reconcile our child’s unique learning abilities and needs?

How do we explain how children are so much more skilled using a Game Boy than the adults in their life? In which class did they learn that? (Would their teachers pass a test in this and do better than their students?) see 4 and 6 above

How do we explain gifted children being drawn to friendships with older children and the way they can become more passionately engaged in learning with these older children? see 5 above

How do we explain to teachers that our child is capable of much more complex and abstract curriculum even though they are not achieving highly on the year level curriculum? That we know them and how they learn best? see 7 and 3 above

How do we explain the fact that children who have felt stifled, anxious or out of place in school can blossom and thrive when homeschooled, when they and their parents take charge of their learning? see 1, 2, 3, 8, above

The more we understand about giftedness, the less these assumptions seem to hold true. It is through this ‘alien’ landscape that we have to negotiate a new path, to consider what we see, to question and objectively decide what is best for our children regardless of what everyone else assumes. And this is often really hard. Becoming well informed, confident advocates for our children may not be the role we would chose, but it has been cast to us and to do this we have to step aside from what we assume and decide for ourselves what our world should be like.

Just as many children feel isolated in school, so too can their parents. So a few guidelines for you too

• Develop a support network amongst other families with gifted children where you can discuss some of these issues (without family and friends hinting that you may not be of sound mind to think this way)

• Trust yourself. You know your child better than anyone else, no-one cares about him/her more than you do. Listen to your child, watch his/her behaviour and you will know when you are on the right track. Ignore as best you can others who tell you ‘not to worry’, or to ‘stop pushing’. When all is well, the waters are smooth.

• Hang in there – you can find a way. There are always options, sometimes they just require us to ‘think outside the box’ to find them. And to trust ourselves when we do.

• Let your child be a child – the child that they are. That means as far as possible avoiding being crammed into someone’s view of how things should be. Instead letting them be free to learn and grow their own way, helping them to be a passionate, joyful individual and appreciating them for being themselves. Maybe even reading one of Richard Feynman’s lectures as a bedtime story if that is their passion.

Enjoy the ride. It can be exhausting, nerve wracking and sometimes painful, but there is nothing like watching a gifted child flourish, learning to believe in themselves and nothing like the conversations (even the ones at 4 am).

And there is nothing like a gifted child to lead you to question your assumptions……

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