Two Pre-Primary teachers are overheard discussing the likelihood of giftedness in young children. “Some of them seem gifted, but then they have been in child care and learning centres since they were babies” said the first teacher who doesn’t believe giftedness can be evident at such an early age. “They aren’t gifted, they are just school wise and had an early start. The others will catch up before long”.
The second teacher disagrees and is emphatic. “Gifted children think differently, learn differently and feel differently to other kids, what ever their age. It is important to make sure we consider best practice here and consider the needs of each of them accordingly.”
This is not such an unusual conversation. It could be heard in schools across the state (and perhaps the nation) and across all socio economic levels. While it is not limited to the early childhood years, this is often where it crops up most often.
Tiger Woods has been in the news recently and there is unlikely to be any argument that he is a gifted golfer. Let's consider the conversation above using him as an example.
Tiger Woods began playing golf at the age of two. At three he appeared on TV putting against Bob Hope and later that year he shot a 48 over 9 holes on a golf course in California. At the age of 5 he appeared in Golf Digest and on That’s Incredible. I don’t know much about golf but I would venture to say that the pace at which his talent developed was not typical.
It is true that not every gifted child shows such prodigious talent development but it does serve to illustrate a point. Would limiting Tiger Woods to playing golf against other 5 year olds and to attempting only age appropriate shots have been best practice for his talent development?
The parent of any gifted child will tell you life is not like the next person’s. How many parents have to comfort their 4 year old who has been moved to tears by a piece of music or the sight of a particular painting?
How many parents of 3 and 4 year olds have to intervene to save the dignity of one in a discussion about which creatures lived in which prehistoric period, or whether crocodiles can actually eat sharks (small ones of course) and whether they do occur in the same habitat?
How many parents of young children have been woken at 5 in the morning by excited cries along the lines of ‘Mum, I’ve worked it out!” when a child has suddenly made the connection between the sunshine and the falling water level in the pond?
If we fall in behind the first teacher who believes these children are just ‘school smart’ we take credit ourselves for the child’s rapid mastery of skills and the amazing intensity we might see amongst gifted preschoolers. It is a defensive position that assumes a child cannot know anything until he or she is taught it.
How much practice do you imagine it would it take before a 4 year old might be expected to complete a brand new never-seen-before70 piece jigsaw puzzle in the time his mum is outside hanging a load of washing?
And how do you explain the child who is begins walking at 9 months, the one who can hold conversations with strangers by the time they are 18 months old or one whose eye hand coordination means they are hitting a cricket ball before many children are out of nappies. Hot housing??? Just ‘School Smart’???
When I did my training as an early childhood teacher many years ago, there was a strong developmental focus in relation to skill acquisition and learning. Children do all develop at different rates and we know that not every gifted child will show precocious development nor are their talents necessarily obvious at an early age. But giftedness is not something you simply learn and consequently it shouldn't be expected to ‘even out’.
It is a qualitatively different way of being.
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